North Frontenac Council - May 2/13

Jeff Green | May 02, 2013

North Frontenac approves budget

A number of residents showed up at a public meeting concerning North Frontenac Township’s 2013 budget on Monday, and those who spoke up expressed concern about year over year increases in the cost of local government.

“I calculate that the increase is something like 18% over the last three years,” said one member of the audience.

In terms of local taxation, it turns out that during the three-year life of the current council, the increase is more in the order of 27%. In 2010, it cost $3.96 million to run North Frontenac Township, and in 2013 it will cost $5.04 million, a cumulative increase of over $1 million.

The township also collects taxes for the Ministry of Education and the County of Frontenac. They will likely total just under $2.9 million in 2013 (the county budget is not complete but it is on track to result in a minor decrease in the levy to the local municipalities while the education levy was up by $23,000).

Because the county and education levies have held the line, the 7% increase ($343,000) in local taxes in 2013 is mitigated, and the total percentage increase in taxation is a little under 5%.

Waterfront ratepayers will continue to shoulder more and more of the tax burden in North Frontenac.

One waterfront ratepayer at the public meeting said, “I received a new four-year assessment notice from MPAC [Municipal Property Assessment Corporation] last fall. There has been a 43% assessment increase for my property. With the four-year phase-in that means over 10% per year, and with this budget I’m looking at something like a 15% increase in property taxes. And I am also facing an increase in my full-time property back in Ottawa.”

Mayor Bud Clayton did not dispute the ratepayer’s point.

“In fact,” he said, “a lot of the properties that are not on water received a decrease in their assessment. The burden of taxation in this township keeps shifting more and more to the waterfront property owners and there is nothing much we can do about it. We are prohibited, by law, from charging different rates for different kinds of properties.”

As Treasurer Angela Millar pointed out in her presentation, much of the upward drift in taxes in North Frontenac has to do with council's commitment to provincially mandated asset management planning. This year's budget includes a 10-year Capital Asset Replacement schedule.

Over 10 years it has been calculated that it will cost over $13.5 million to keep the township’s physical assets in place, and therefore the budgets for each year between 2013 and 2022 will include $1.35 million towards asset replacement and maintenance.

“The budget increase this year is a one-off,” said Clayton. “It means that we will be financially sustainable over the long term without facing fluctuating budget increases.”

Included in the 2013 budget are over $550,000 in road construction. Projects on the books include one on the Lavant Road (1 km double surface and 4.5 kilometres single surface paving); Ardoch Road, (2 km single surface paving); Buckshot Lake Road (5 km single surface paving), Boundary Road (2.1 kilometres double plus 0.9 kilometres single surface paving); Roads 506/509 (approx. 6.5 kilometres single surface paving), and South Road (ditching, gravel and culverts).

Also included in the budget is a fire tanker truck to be located at the Plevna fire station ($260,000); a $60,000 streetlight replacement project that will be funded with federal gas tax money; and $180,000 for renovations to the Ompah fire hall that will be paid for with monies raised in previous years for that purpose.

A $310,000 road recycling tandem/truck, as well as $83,000 in closure/post-closure costs for waste sites, and $32,000 for buffer lands are all associated with continually increasing waste management costs.

The budget also includes $220,000 for reconstruction of the Mississippi bridge, but that project will only take place if the township receives a grant to cover most of the cost. 

Preaching to the Choir – Shirley Giffin, accompanied by a number of North Frontenac landowners concerned about the impact of the Agreement In Principle for the Ontario Algonquin Land Claim in general and the proposed Crotch Lake provincial park in particular, outlined those concerns briefly for Council's benefit.

“Our prime concern is that we have not been consulted,” said Giffin, who, as a former lodge owner in the 1990s, has attended meetings of the Board of External Advisors to the land claim since 1996. She asked that Council make one more attempt to organize a public meeting, attended by government negotiators, in North Frontenac.

“I have three questions of Council,” she said. "One is whether council is willing to seek direct input into the final Agreement in Principle; if we do not ask we will definitely get no input. Will you organize a public meeting, including inviting the people necessary to hear our concerns and capable of answering questions? 2) What is the township's position is on the AIP, in particular on the recommended Crotch Lake park? And 3) what input if any did the township have on the development of the AIP? We had heard the municipalities were consulted, but we have heard that may not have really been the case."

Starting with the third question, Mayor Clayton said, “The township was treated in much the same way that the Committee of External Advisors was treated.”

He also said that the Ontario negotiator, Brian Crane, did say he would attend a public meeting in North Frontenac, but there has been no response to a township request to Crane to provide a date for a meeting.

“We will make another overture to his office,” said Clayton. “I should point out, as well, that I don't see the word environment in this agreement at all. We will get a response back to you, Mrs. Giffin,” he added.

A number of North Frontenac councilors attended a meeting in the Township of South Algonquin in early April. The meeting included representatives from municipal councils throughout the land claim territory as well as representatives from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, and the Federation of Ontario Cottage Associations - groups that have been critical of the Agreement in Principle.

Later in their meeting on Monday, council endorsed a position paper from the Township of South Algonquin that came out of that meeting.

“There is another meeting in Eganville later in May; this one is organized by Algonquins from Golden Lake. They have the same concerns about the Agreement in Principle; they weren't consulted either,” said Councilor Gerry Martin.

Preaching to a brick wall – Jim Holton, the co-chair of the North Frontenac Lake Association Alliance, spoke about the concerns the alliance has with “a number of decisions council has made recently regarding fire protection services.”

He asked that Council defer its plans to start renovating the Ompah fire hall in the coming weeks, and defer its decision to cut the tanker service from the Ompah fire hall, which he said would severely limit the effectiveness of the Ompah crew in an emergency until a tanker arrives from Plevna or Snow Road.

“We wish to work with the fire chief to examine the services and together propose priorities to Council, bearing in mind the demands on limited Council funds, ...” said Holton.

He asked that council form a new committee to look at services, and proposed a four-point term of reference for that committee, which would report back to Council on September 30.

Council did not respond to Mr. Holton's presentation, and later in the meeting they approved the 2013 budget, which includes provisions for renovations to the existing fire hall in Ompah, and the purchase of one tanker to replace two tanker trucks that no longer meet safety standards.

Land for sale: In a related matter, Councilor Good proposed that the five-acre parcel of land in Ompah that had been earmarked as the location of a new Ompah fire hall, and at one point a Frontenac land ambulance base, be declared surplus and sold off.

The land was purchased by the township in 2008 for $27,000, and in 2012 it was the subject of a number of environmental assessments and remediation before it was declared fit for the construction project, which, however, was later scrapped. Over $30,000 was spent on the assessments and remediation.

Only Councilor Inglis argued that the township should keep the property.

Councilor Hunter expressed the hope that it would be purchased by a commercial venture of some kind, and Councilor Good's motion was approved.

Zebra Mussels in North Frontenac – Councilor Martin, reporting about a meeting of the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, said that Zebra Mussels have been found in Pine, Malcolm, and Ardoch Lakes.

“However there were Zebra Mussels in a number of other lakes in other recent years, and each time they were gone the next year. The theory is that they cannot survive the winters in Canadian Shield lakes, which is good news,” said Martin.