GREENSPACE ALLIANCE OF CANADA’S CAPITAL
Greenspace Watch
General Meeting
August 28, 2014
Hintonburg Community Centre
1064 Wellington Street West
K1Y 2Y3
Members present:
Erwin Dreessen (chair and notetaker), Bruce Lindsay, Juan Pedro Unger, Nicole DesRoches, Jason Kania, Iola Price, Judy Makin
Regrets:
Sol Shuster, Amy Kempster
The meeting commenced at 7:25 p.m.
1. Agenda
The agenda was adopted as distributed.
2. Administrative items
a. Minutes of July 24, 2014
Bruce moved, seconded by Erwin, to approve the Minutes of July 24 as circulated. Agreed.
b. Action item from the Minutes
Jason agreed that there is a relatively painless way of including the 67 postings distributed to the List during the service outing from 28 January to 11 March 2014 into the system so they may be included in the archive. Jason and Erwin will do this.
c. Appointment of a new Director and Membership Chair
Nicole moved, seconded by Jason, to appoint Bruce to the Board and as Membership Chair. Agreed.
d. Appointment of Secretary
Deferred.
e. Treasurer’s Report
Jason moved, seconded by Iola, to pay $118.80 for room rental at the Hintonburg Community Centre for the September 2014 to May 2015 monthly meetings. Agreed.
f. Membership report
Bruce will make some suggestions at a later time.
3. Municipal election initiative
a. Update
We have 8 groups and 20 individuals endorsing the letter so far. Many more individuals are expected. Erwin will make a “last call” for endorsements in the next few days. We have a French version of the letter which will be attached to the outgoing emails to candidates.
JP, with assistance from Jason, will open a Twitter account.
b. Advertisement
It was agreed to place an advertisement in Centretown News, Kitchissippi Times and the EMC papers of the Kanata Group (Kanata, Stittsville, West Carleton), Ottawa South and Ottawa East, at a total cost of $1,248.
JP will rewrite the advertisement. The web reference will be to the GA web site.
c. Petition
It was agreed to use a petition platform to solicit endorsements and offer access via our web site. We’re still looking for a volunteer to do this.
d. Media release
Erwin will draft a media release to be issued at the same time as the letters.
e. Endorsing candidates
It was agreed not to endorse specific candidates for this election, letting the responses to our letter speak for themselves.
f. Priorities of the next term of Council
Erwin informed that staff is drafting the list of priorities now, with Council endorsement expected in January of February 2015. Staff’s proposal for and environmental lands acquisition fund still stands.
4. MEC grant
Application to be finalized by September 6.
5. KNL: Drainage Act item (ARAC, September 4)
Erwin will draft a submission which will focus on the process followed by the City: The Phase 2 report on Existing Conditions should come first, followed by a Stormwater Management Plan by KNL. Only if that Plan identifies diversion of run-off from Shirley’s Brook to Kizzell Drain as feasible is a Drainage Act investigation in order.
6. Updates
a. OPA 150 appeals
A pre-hearing conference is expected in March or April 2015. Sol and Erwin met with staff on August 19. Staff wants to move to dismiss our appeal. We countered that showing the linkage corridors on the L1/2/3 Schedules would be “good planning.” We also put in a plug for a number of requests of long standing to increase transparency and accessibility of City planning documents.
b. Omnibus zoning amendments affecting wetlands
Council approved the amendments on July 8 without discussion of Map 22 (Fernbank) to which we and Ken McRae had objected. We had expressed support for the amendments in Maps 1-21 and 23-28. Thomas Cavanagh appealed Maps 19, 20 and 21 (Goulbourn Wetlands). We will receive the appeal documents soon.
c. Kanata North tree cutting
Next court date is September 18. Judy will attend.
d. Road Ecology Symposium
The symposium will be held November 27-28 at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Of the six people we had put forward to assist, only Donna DuBreuil and Erwin were invited to be among the “international audience of 150 guests.” Registration costs $85+HST. People on the waiting list will be able to register after September 20.
The meeting adjourned at 9:08 p.m.
Next meeting is on Monday, September 22, 2014 at 7:15 at the Hintonburg CC.