Frontenac County Council - Jan. 25/11

Jeff Green | Jan 27, 2011

Frontenac County to keep Green Energy task force alive

Frontenac County will be renewing the mandate of the Green Energy Task Force, while taking care to integrate its efforts with other sustainability initiatives the county is undertaking.

The task force was established in June of last year with the goal of promoting small-scale local green energy initiatives, including solar rooftop projects under the Ontario MicroFIT program. It is comprised of politicians from the Frontenac townships as well as local residents, and one of its first goals was to push each of the four townships to bring at least one rooftop solar project to a municipal building.

With the end of the four-year council term in November, the task force went into a state of limbo, and two of its members, John Kittle from Snow Road in North Frontenac and David Hahn from Canoe Lake Road in South Frontenac, made a pitch for a new mandate at a meeting of Frontenac County Council in Glenburnie on January 19.

The two made a powerpoint presentation to council highlighting where they would like to see the task force continue to focus its efforts.

First, they want to continue encouraging the county and the townships to put in 10 kw solar generating systems in “highly visible” municipal locations.

Secondly they are collecting data in order to be a resource for individual property owners or businesses in the county to purchase and install solar systems, and they are also trying to put together an inventory of systems in the county, which could be integrated in the county mapping and GIS systems. Finally, they want to look at other, non-solar, opportunities for energy production.

“Our broad mandate is to fundamentally increase the capacity of the community to take advantage of the opportunities that come with the Green Energy Act,” said David Hahn. “As you know, Frontenac County is in one of the more favourable locations for solar in the country, but there are other possibilities, such as switch grass production for bio-fuel and river run hydro, which are worthy of exploration.

“A number of micro-FIT systems have sprung up in the county. Some of them you can see from major roads but others are tucked away on back roads. We would like to share information and show the world what we are doing here,” said Kittle.

“This is a full committee, a very busy committee, and it should continue. My only question is how are we going to tie this in to the ICSP [Integrated Community Sustainability Plan]. Maybe we need to be flexible. I don't want to see more than nine members on it. I'd also like to put my name forward, and also want the committee to look at tele-conferencing to save on travel time,” said Deputy County Warden Janet Gutowski.

“A staff report on the task forces associated with the ICSP might be in order. We could bring that forward in February,” said County Administrator Elizabeth Savill.

Council agreed to consider the composition of the Green Energy Task Force at their next meeting and said they would get back to Kittle and Hahn, who both indicated they would like to stay on it.

Letting go of Ford Lemons – Emergency Services Manager Paul Charbonneau sought council's permission to accelerate the replacement of three ambulances that were purchased between 2005 and 2007 from Ford. While the older model Ford Diesel engines were ”the industry standard” according to Charbonneau, the new model, introduced in 2004 “quickly developed issues and Ford, in an effort to keep customer loyalty, offered extended warranties ..”

The engine model has now been discontinued but the Frontenac ambulance service is still running them.

Of the seven that were purchased by the county, one was involved in an accident and was written off; one has been assigned to Wolfe Island and has extremely low mileage; and two have reached the end of their life cycles. That leaves three vehicles: two three-year-old vehicles and a four-year-old vehicle that are of concern.

“The estimated repairs for these three vehicles over the next three years is $218,000. That is above normal maintenance costs,” Charbonneau said. “The reality is that the 6.2 litre diesel engine is a lemon.”

He recommended replacing the three vehicles now, instead of following the normal course of replacement every seven years, and replacing them with 3 new GM gas vehicles at a total price of $375,000.

Council agreed and advanced the funds from the ambulance vehicle reserve fund.

“Kilometrage” rate up to 48 cents.

A staff recommendation to increase the “mileage” rate paid for the use of personal vehicles for county business from 47 to 48 cents, which will increase the overall mileage budget for the county by $450 a year, engendered two responses.

Both county council members from North Frontenac, Bud Clayton and John Inglis, favoured dropping the rate to 40 cents.

“Land O'Lakes Community Services pays 40 cents to their drivers, and Northern Frontenac Community Services also pays 40 cents. A lot of people in the community are providing service for 40 cents and if we move up to 48 cents, we are becoming elitist,” said Clayton.

“I don't think we are being extravagant at 48 cents. I think you are getting a great deal if you are getting 40 cents,” said Warden Gary Davison.

Councilor John Purdon from Central Frontenac had a more linguistic concern. "Forty years after bringing in the metric system, it is time we stopped using the term mileage, especially since we pay by the kilometre. The term kilometrage would be preferable,” he said.

The 48-cent rate was approved, but the question of whether it is to be called mileage or kilometrage was left unanswered.