News around the region
Childcare waitlist grows
More names have been added to the waitlist for subsidized childcare spots in Durham Region.
According to a report in the Sept. 16 council information package from Dr. Hugh Drouin, the region’s commissioner of social services, there were 3,848 children on the waitlist for a fee subsidy in the second quarter, up from 3,489 in the first quarter. This means that there are more children on the waitlist than those actually receiving a childcare subsidy, with the Children’s Services Division Statistics identifying 3,315 children.
In Oshawa, there were 709 children in subsidized spots at the end of the quarter, with 969 on the waiting list.
Motion to scrap committee structure is put on hold for six months
Following an 11-hour session for the first committee of the whole meeting, two councillors said they would be moving to scrap the project and have councillors go back to te previous committee structure. Those plans have now been put on hold.
Councillor Joe Neal of Clarington and Councillor Shaun Collier of Ajax had previously given notice they would be bringing a motion forward to kill the committee of the whole pilot project and go back to having individual committee meetings. However, at the latest meeting of regional council, the two announced that they would be postponing the motion, and would instead come back to it in March.
New start time for council meetings
Regional councillors will have to set their alarm clocks a bit earlier for council meetings.
Moved by Councillor John Aker and Ajax’s Councillor Kevin Ashe, the monthly council meetings will be starting a half hour earlier, with things getting underway at 9:30 a.m.
“Council should start at 9:30 a.m. so that we can complete all of our agenda in a reasonable time,” Aker said in council chambers.
“Also, the 9:30 start time gives…if the regional chair has to call a committee of the whole special meeting at let’s say 9 o’clock for some item, he has that flexibility because he doesn’t want to wait a month if he has something of an urgent nature that we can’t anticipate prior to the meeting.”
The change carried unanimously. The next meeting of regional council, scheduled for Oct. 12, will be the first to start at the new time.