When Kingston city council meets on Tuesday, it will be a meeting of firsts — not easy for a municipality that pre-dates Confederation.
Municipal politicians will be voting on whether or not to give the city’s CAO, Lanie Hurdle, unprecedented financial and liability authority.
That new power applies to the existing 2020 budget and unbudgeted emergency expenses related to COVID-19. Kingston Mayor Brian Paterson says council has already had to make some decisions that will affect the 2020 budget. “In the last week, we introduced some changes to transit, making transit free for example, that’s not something that was in our city budget.” Kingston city council meets every two weeks, but in an emergency like the existing pandemic, the mayor