Niagara-on-the-Lake is shelving plans for a larger municipal office in favour of spreading staff across existing town facilities — a move its staff say will improve customer service while avoiding the significant cost of building or expanding office space.
Committee of the whole endorsed the recommendation Tuesday. It would also see the town spend up to $150,000 to reconfigure council chambers after the province’s approval to reduce council to seven members from nine prompted a review of the chamber’s layout and functionality. The recommendation goes to council July 21 for final approval.
Staff said it considered both centralizing its services in one building and spreading its services out over multiple buildings before concluding that decentralizing services over time — by making use of municipal buildings and spaces the town currently has — makes more financial sense and creates “a more agile and responsive work environment.”
Chief administrative officer Nick Ruller said the approach maximizes the town’s “existing municipal facilities” and avoids “significant capital costs” associated with centralizing services in one administrative building.
Ruller said the current layout of council chambers also isn’t ideal because council members have their backs to the public gallery and aren’t well-positioned to engage with people who stand to directly address council, like presenters and delegates.
The work would improve accessibility, expand gallery seating and overall capacity and upgrade aging technology. Ruller said about 40 per cent of the budget would go toward technology improvements.
“We’d be looking to reconfigure to better position council to be able to kind of connect with the delegates,” he said. “We don’t have a specific design established at this point.”
During discussion, Coun. Wendy Cheropita called the report “excellent” and said recent technical problems during meetings, such as July 7’s committee of the whole planning meeting, showed upgrades are needed.
“After last week, it was very obvious that we needed to upgrade some technical services,” she said.
Coun. Gary Burroughs asked if the town’s “front desk section” would still be there “because many of our residents are very impressed by the treatment they receive.”
“That’s correct,” Ruller said, agreeing that community feedback has consistently shown residents value being able to meet staff in-person.
“We’re also looking at whether we can expand that throughout the community.”
The report says human resources staff have already been moved to the administration building, finance employees have been consolidated in one area, fire administration relocated to a more accessible ground-floor location, parks and recreation managers returned to the arena and parking services staff moved closer to their equipment.
