North Frontenac Council - Mar. 27

Jeff Green | Mar 29, 2012

Repaving program causing NF taxes to go up

North Frontenac Council has met extensively over the month, looking in detail at departmental budgets before coming together on a draft budget for presentation to the public on April 10.

Citing the need to re-institute a re-paving program on its major arterial roads, and to replenish its depleted reserve funds, Council has signed off on a draft budget that includes a $600,000 increase (14.2%) increase in the amount of money that is being levied to local ratepayers to cover township expenditures.

The levy for 2012 is set at $4,846,000, up from $4,246,000 in 2011.

“We had to put measures in place in order to maintain our basic infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, said Mayor Bud Clayton “and that’s what we did with this budget.”

Council decided to spend $469,000 in 2012 on road construction, a $305,000 increase over 2011. This includes 22 km of re-paving on major roads, which is 10% of the 220 km in the township, as compared to only 10 km in 2011.

In addition to the increased road construction budget, Council decided to put $150,000 into a new Infrastructure Sustainability Reserve Fund.

“We needed this fund because we had nothing set aside for bridges and culvert repairs” said Clayton.

The impact of these two new spending initiatives was compounded by the fact that a grant from the province of Ontario that has been helping to offset maintenance costs of roads for a number of years was depleted as of the end of 2011. That cut township revenues by $373,000, which now needs to be covered through taxes.

These three pieces of the budget led to an increase in taxation of $728,000, and Council had to cut the equipment replacement budget and seek savings in all of the other departments in order to keep the increase at $600,000.

“We asked every department to find savings in their own budgets in order to keep the budget in check, and the reality is that with this budget we think we are putting the township in a sustainable position, so that we can at least keep what we have in future years. It’s one thing to talk about new programs or new infrastructure; it’s another to look at the cost of maintaining what is already there. This is what we worked on this year. There is nothing fancy in this budget,” said Clayton.

Taxation for local services is combined with education and county rates to make up the municipal tax bill for North Frontenac ratepayers. Those are both up marginally or flat for 2012, which will lower the tax increase, probably to something less than 10% for most ratepayers in North Frontenac.

North Frontenac waste sites in good shape

Mainly due to implications drawn from the 2011 census, which saw a decrease in the township’s population, new projections have added two years to the projected fill date for the township’s five active waste sites.

In his annual report to North Frontenac Council, Engineer Guy Laporte from AECOM consulting, said that the township’s largest site, located on Road 506, has 17 years of remaining capacity. The second largest, at Plevna, has 47 years; the Kashwakamak Lake site has 46 years; the Mississippi site 27 years; and the Ardoch site 31 years.

“There are two reasons that waste sites are closed,” said Laporte. “They either reach their capacity or they are found to be causing pollution.”

Based on the ongoing monitoring of the water quality at test wells at the waste sites in North Frontenac, the only site that presents any cause for concern is the Ardoch site.

“Although we are not currently seeing a problem, the vicinity of the site near to a sensitive habitat, i.e. Malcolm Lake, is a concern,” said Laporte. “The township might consider purchasing additional land as a buffer to mitigate against this possibility.”

“Or close the site,” said Mayor Clayton.

“You can look at the cost of land and at the implications of closure and make that determination,” said Laporte.

Laporte also presented information regarding recycling and diversion rates.

Bag for bag, North Frontenac residents recycle more than they toss onto the waste pile at the sites. The numbers, looked at on a site per site basis, show that the ratio is about 1:1 at the 506 site, ranging up to 1.3:1 (64%-36%) at the Ompah transfer station.

However, Waste Diversion Ontario uses a weight measure to determine recycling and diversion targets, based on the assumption that every permanent resident generates 1.5 kilograms per day in waste. On that score, the township has seen steady improvement, with the diversion rate climbing from 22% in 2009, to 38% in 2010 and 40% in 2011. (These figures change when new census data is taken into account)

After Guy Laporte's presentation, Councilor Lonnie Watkins floated the idea of installing large bins or shipping containers at all waste sites, and placing all the waste that is destined for disposal in the bins, the way it is done at transfer stations. When they are full, the bins could be dumped onto the waste pile, compacted and covered, making the waste sites cleaner and ensuring maximum compaction of waste.

Guy Laporte said that East Camden is looking at implementing that kind of system because the Ministry of the Environment is now insisting that the waste that goes in that landfill be covered on the same day it is dumped.

“I can report back to you about how it works out in East Camden,” Laporte said.

Laporte also provided information concerning a couple of requests that the township has received from Addington Highlands. One was to allow Addington Highlands residents who live on Buckshot Lake Road access to the Plevna dump.

“That is a minor variation on your certificate, which will cost $100,” he said.

A second was to open up the North Frontenac Household Hazardous Waste depots to Addington Highlands residents.

Laporte said that AECOM worked on an approval for Lanark Highlands to accept hazardous waste from Tay Valley and “I think the change cost $900,” he said.

Other items

Rachael Hardesty, the General Manager of the Land O’Lakes Tourist Association (LOLTA), presented an update of LOLTA’s activities in recent months.

She said that changes that have been made to the organization, which include turning the LOLTA tourist guide into an online product, have “ensured the organization’s sustainability for at least five years.”

She also announced that the tourist association has received two grants from the Eastern Ontario Development Program. The first is a $92,000 grant to help market local events. This grant included money to pay for an intern for one year to work on the marketing of festivals in Frontenac and L&A Counties and the municipality of Tweed.

“Our goal with this position is to increase attendance at these events by 20%, which would increase their local economic impact substantially,” she said.

The second grant is for $18,000, which will facilitate the production of an episode of the Dimestore Fisherman television program in Central and North Frontenac.

Hardesty also said she is hoping for television exposure for the Land O’Lakes region through the Cottage Life and Outdoor Adventure television programs.