CitySSM  City council will be asked at Monday’s meeting to approve the purchase and installation of on-board survellance cameras on its fleet of transits buses.  Surveillance cameras are already in place on transit buses in Sudbury, Timmins and Thunder Bay and a report in council’s agenda explains that since 2011,  there have been 8 incidents in which Sault transit employees were assaulted while on duty.  The total cost to equip the city’s fleet would be no more than 100-thousand dollars.

City council will be asked to give its support for seven rooftop solar panel installations and 2 non-rooftop installations as the applications will be submitted in the latest round of the province’s Feed-in -Tariff program.  The application window is from July 13th until July 30th.  A few of the applications belong to the Sault PUC including a rooftop installation planned for the Northern Community Centre.  Previous applications for that project made by the PUC in partnership with Simcoe County Community Cooperative for a FIT contract were unsuccessful.  This time the PUC is looking to submit an application on its own and that will require further approval from council.  A previous lease agreement had been approved back in 2011 and the PUC has indicated that the lease agreement may require adjustment once the updated pricing system is released by the Independent Electricity System Operator.

A motion will be presented to city council  for Monday’s meeting calling for a review of the city’s vacancy management policy——the current policy is more than 25-years old and a staff report for council suggests is in need of review.  The commissioner of finance recently completed a review of vacant positions within the finance department and that review resulted in internal savings of nearly 100-thousand dollars and an alignment of staffing resources.  The motion that council will consider calls on the Commissioner of Human Resources and the City CAO to carry out the review which would include looking at policies of other municipalities or large organizations and report back to council.