Follow Windsor Star reporter Taylor Campbell’s live blog below for up-to-the-minute coverage of Windsor city council’s meeting on Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. Today, city council will discuss Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens’s proposed 2025 budget.
12:05 p.m. — The meeting has begun. The regular agenda is available here, the consolidated agenda here, and the final consolidated here.
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Mayor Drew Dilkens asks if a few items from the regular council agenda — not the budget — can be moved to the consent agenda, to expedite the meeting. Items 10.3, 10.5, 10.7, 10.8, 10.10, 10.11, and 10.12 are now on the consent agenda.
Ward 1 Coun. Fred Francis attempts to refer item 10.13 regarding eliminating the school bus extra program back to administration for further consultation with school boards. City clerk Steve Vlachodimos indicates the item has to be dealt with as part of budget deliberations because it’s part of the mayor’s proposed budget.
12:13 p.m. — On to item 10.9 – Mayoral Direction MD 43-2024 – Hybrid Work Program & Procedure Research & Report.
Patrick Murchison, president of CUPE, appears before council on behalf of the city’s indoor workers. He asks that the mayor reconsider reducing work-from-home days from two to one.
“People are planning on looking at other jobs to have flexibility,” he says.
12:18 p.m. — Ward 9 Coun. Kieran McKenzie asks admin about the risk to employee retention that this change poses.
City CAO Joe Mancina says work from home is an element that helps with attracting employees. However, employers have been drawing employees back to the workplace.
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“I think the landscape has changed over the last couple of years,” Mancina says.
12:21 p.m. — Dilkens says that, as Strengthen the Core was being developed, he was “trying to square the circle.” Not having the city, one of the biggest employers downtown, bringing people back to work downtown, “weakens” the core, he says.
“I regret that I actually didn’t do this sooner,” he says.
Dilkens says he sometimes has a hard time getting ahold of staff when they are not working from their desks at city hall. He’s concerned developers and other “customers of the city” are also having a hard time reaching staff.
Mancina says the work-from-home policy applies to 527 out of around 3,200 city employees, about 16 per cent.
“We create that essence of inequality, I guess, among the different working groups. We certainly have heard that,” he says.”
12:27 p.m. — Ward 8 Coun. Gary Kaschak asks what comparable municipalities are doing regarding work-from-home policies.
Dana Paladino, commissioner of corporate services, says some form of work from home is allowed by the “vast majority” of municipalities admin looked at. But it “seems to be the trend” where municipalities are reducing work-from-home days.
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Kaschak refers to a column in the Financial Post by Howard Levitt that says 2025 will be the return to in-office work. He does not note that Howard Levitt is the employment lawyer representing fired City of Windsor engineer Chris Nepszy in a lawsuit against the city.
12:33 p.m. — Kieran McKenzie calls the mayoral decision a “step backwards,” one that makes the challenge of recruitment and retention more challenging for the city. He recommends against proceeding with the mayor’s direction.
“Given the fact that this has the potential to do more harm than good,” he says, he believes the city should maintain its existing policy that allows eligible employees to work from home two days per week.
Ward 6 Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac opposes the motion. She says she does not support the total elimination of work-from-home days, but she does support administration in reassessing the policy. She says she’ll have a subsequent motion if Kieran McKenzie’s motion fails.
Kieran McKenzie’s motion does not pass.
Gignac moves the recommendation and directs admin to report back annually on the impact of the change and the work-from-home policy. That motion passes.
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12:38 p.m. — On 11.4 – Asylum Claimants and Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP) Funding Update.
Here’s Windsor Star reporter Trevor Wilhelm’s coverage of the issue. Last week, Mayor Dilkens and Andrew Daher, the city’s commissioner of human and health services, said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) recently announced that it wants provinces and municipalities to cover more of the costs associated with supporting refugee claimants. By 2027, Windsor would be on the hook for 100 per cent of costs for claimants arriving in the city, Dilkens said last Wednesday.
Mike Morency, executive director of Matthew House Refugee Welcome Centre, appears before council today and asks that council submit a conditional application for federal funding in partnership with Matthew House.
“The federal government says housing and healthcare are provincial responsibilities. The province says X, Y, Z are municipal responsibility. Meanwhile, Matthew House has just been doing the work for 22 years and not asking anybody to pay for it,” Morency says.
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“We’re not asking for ongoing payment of anything. Now, we’re asking for some one-time cost to be able to take advantage of this grant to increase sustainability.”
Under its proposal, Matthew House would be able to purchase the facilities it currently leases, freeing up cash to hire more staff and shelter more refugee claimants, Morency says.
Over its 22 years, Matthew House has assisted 2,379 refugee claimants who lived in its facilities, he says. It’s provided support to another 11,000 who were able to live with family or friends.
Matthew House has never received operational funding from any level of government, Morency says.
“These people are coming to the City of Windsor. We in this room have a vested interest in seeing them very quickly become self-sufficient contributing members of our community, no matter where we are on the budgetary spectrum.”
1:07 p.m. — Coun. Kieran McKenzie asks about the new IHAP program guidelines.
Daher says there now needs to be an agreement between the IRCC and either the city or the province. Daher hasn’t heard from the province.
“By default, if we’re going to apply, it would be on the backs of the municipality. We’ve been very clear to say that, as a municipality, this is not our jurisdiction. We do not have funding.”
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