Mayor Paul Lefebvre found himself facing a sometimes raucous crowd on Wednesday evening at the latest in a round of town hall meetings he's hosting throughout the city.
“Does anyone know what SMART stands for?” an audience member at one point hollered at Lefebvre, Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent and city CAO Ed Archer near the end of the meeting at École secondaire Macdonald-Cartier.
“Secret Military Armament in Residential Technology.”
The resident’s comments came in response to the city’s ongoing efforts to install smart water meters, which automatically transmit user data online and do away with manual meter reading.
Some property owners have refused them, which results in the city charging an additional fee to help cover the municipal cost of having a meter reader come out to manually read them.
Last year, city director of water/wastewater treatment and compliance Michael Loken told local media a number of concerns were raised about potential health effects from the radio signals.
“I always find it ironic when people call from their cell phones to register those complaints to us,” Loken said at the time.
The resident at Wednesday night’s meeting with his own unique SMART acronym appears to ascribe to the belief the smart water meters aren't truly to save time and taxpayer dollars, but rather have a nefarious purpose. While there's no evidence to support the idea, it and similar notions find fertile ground online — and occasionally appear at town hall meetings.
Concern about smart meters wasn’t the only fringe idea to crop up during the April 12 gathering. Wednesday’s meeting was the third time the 15-minute city conspiracy came up.
It first arose during the Ward 4 meeting in Azilda in February, when it took Lefebvre by surprise.
The idea of a 15-minute city derives from a legitimate concept urban planners use to talk about maximizing density and encouraging environmental stewardship. The concept urges the creation of an urban environment in which residents can walk or cycle to get everything they need within 15 minutes.
Conspiracy theorists from around the world have twisted the concept as setting the stage for a world in which people are confined to specific neighbourhoods in which they have been forcibly isolated from any friends and family outside of their 15-minute bubble.
In responding to a question about the 15-minute city on Wednesday, neither Lefebvre nor Parent addressed the conspiratorial nature of the concept, opting instead to distance themselves from it.
“Our city is not a 15-minute city, that is not what we’re doing as a council, that is not at all on our radar,” Lefebvre said, adding that the city is too large to consider such a concept.
“There’s been no discussion, not one time on a 15-minute city,” Parent later added.
The elected officials’ responses were punctuated by jeering from a section of the audience where a group of people, many of whom sported freedom convoy regalia, had gathered.
A key Ward 5-specific issue to arise during Wednesday’s meeting had to do with the 40-unit transitional housing complex the city is slated to build on Lorraine Street this year. The complex is part of the city’s response to the rising issue of homelessness in the community.
A question from the audience inquired as to why the complex was being built on Lorraine Street, where it will be in close proximity to schools.
“Don’t tell me that it’s not going to devalue our property, because it will,” an audience member yelled, shaking a pointed finger at Lefebvre and Parent. “Nobody wants them.”
Lefebvre clarified that the residents will be members of the city’s chronically homeless community who want to find permanent community housing, and need support to be successful.
“We’re not forcing people in there,” he said.
Health Sciences North partnered with the city to hire an Assertive Community Treatment Team to provide support for residents. The team consists of physicians, nurses, social workers and substance use support workers.
There will be a 24-hour staff presence in the building, with the team on site for 16 hours of the day and security overseeing things for the other eight.
Parent opposed the Lorraine Street location during last year’s civic election campaign, and said his focus now that it’s a done deal is to ensure residents’ concerns are properly addressed.
“What we want to see, the success here, is that nobody will even notice this is transitional housing,” he said, spurring another round of jeering from the audience.
Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent pre-empted Wednesday’s meeting with a post on social media in which he sought to clarify points of misinformation he’d caught wind of.
The first point had to do with the location of the meeting, at École secondaire Macdonald-Cartier in New Sudbury, with some arguing the meeting should have been held in The Valley.
Approximately 52 per cent of the ward is located within Sudbury and the balance is in The Valley, he clarified. The decision to host the town hall in Sudbury was partly due to scheduled engagement sessions already taking place in The Valley regarding emergency services infrastructure.
“When campaigning in the fall, many of the Ward 5 Sudbury residents shared that they believed they had not had representation for many years,” he said. “The plan is to alternate the location of Ward 5 town halls between Sudbury and The Valley.”
The other point Parent sought to clarify had to do with the change in user fees that took effect at the Howard Armstrong Recreation Centre on April 1.
As he also clarified during an interview with Sudbury.com earlier this week, the changes were made to level the playing field across Greater Sudbury’s recreational facilities.
Some other highlights from Wednesday’s meeting were:
- Lefebvre said he’s “very confident that we’re going to see something happen” at the old hospital site on Paris Street “sooner rather than later.” He said, “The developer has sat on it for way too long, and now it needs to change.” In response to an audience member declaring it needs to be torn down, he said, “I couldn’t agree with you more that it’s an embarrassment.”
- The tax deferral deal Idylwylde Golf and Country Club has with the city is being reviewed, Lefebvre said, adding that he wasn’t aware of the deal until recently, presumably when Sudbury.com published a story on March 15 about it. “At the end of the day, we’ll make sure that people that are paying taxes are paying their fair share of taxes that they’re supposed to.”
- The city’s funding of the downtown supervised consumption site will be evaluated in a report to city council in September. The project is under provincial jurisdiction, but the previous city council opted to proceed with its funding when the province neglected to come on board for the harm-reduction effort.
- The city is “getting short-changed” when it comes to revenue derived from the local mining industry, Lefebvre said, adding that it’s an ongoing point of conversation with the province. Parent said building relationships with the province as the hub for critical minerals is the best approach.
For a video of Wednesday’s town hall meeting, click here for part one and here for part two..
Lefebvre’s next town hall meeting will take place with Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre on May 3. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Centennial Community Hall in Hanmer.*
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
*Editor's note: The date has been updated. Incorrect information was given to Sudbury.com.
