Feature Article June 12 2003
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Area Rating in South Frontenac extended until 2007...Sort ofBy Jeff Green Since Amalgamation, the township of South Frontenac has kept certain functions in the hands of each of the four individual districts.
The practice, known as area rating, applies to landfill sites, fire and emergency services, recreation, and roads (excluding county roads). These functions of the township are managed by a committee of the two district councillors and the mayor, who set the annual budgets for the services.
When area rating was established with amalgamation in 1998, it was to be reconsidered after five years. Last week, South Frontenac Council voted to maintain the practice until 2007.
When contacted this week, township clerk-administrator Gord Burns said the issue has not necessarily been relegated to the back burner indefinitely.
Council was tied up with the budgeting process and did not have time to look at something as complicated as area rating at the time. They passed a bylaw to maintain it for four years as a formality, but they can rescind that bylaw at any time.
According to Loughborough counsellor Vic Pobran, area rating will be discussed at a Committee of the Whole meeting of Council within the next two to four weeks.
We certainly need to look at this, and we have already taken some steps. We have established a Central Recreation Committee, which is preparing a report, and all the fire departments are now operating under one bylaw. We need to see where we are, and how far we want to go as far as amalgamating services at this time.
Clerk Burns has prepared a report on the state of amalgamation in the township and it will be up to the councillors to decide what action to take, Pobran said.
As of now, Burns report is not available to the public, although Pobran says it will be once council has considered it.
The area rating policy was never put in place in Central or North Frontenac. However, according to Pobran, in South Frontenac the four districts had vastly different levels of service in certain areas, such as roads, at the time of amalgamation. Area rating was put into place to allow some districts to catch up to others before finalising the amalgamation process.
