North Frontenac Council - July 29/13

Jeff Green | Aug 01, 2013

There were two items on the agenda at a special meeting of North Frontenac Council on Monday night (July 29).

The first was relatively non-controversial, an amendment to the township's procurement bylaw. The bylaw currently calls for bidding contractors to purchase performance bonds when bidding on contracts in excess of $100,000. This has become a problem because the engineering work for the Mississippi Bridge project will cost about $200,000 and the engineering firms who have looked at the RFP for engineering work are not willing to bid on it because of the cost of the performance bonds.

Treasurer Angela Millar said, in a report to Council, that when she asked a number of other municipal treasurers, including Marian VanBruinessen at Frontenac County and the Treasurer from the City of Thunder Bay, they said they had not asked for bonding for engineering on large projects.

Council passed an amendment to their procurement bylaw excepting engineering work from the bonding requirement.

While this will make it more viable for engineering firms to bid on the Mississippi Bridge, the project will not likely get underway in earnest this year. The township has been informed by phone that the project will receive provincial funding and was told to proceed with engineering work, but it has not been formally announced by the Government of Ontario. It is expected be a 2014 project.

Watkins hits the roof over rooftop solar project

The second item on the agenda proved to be a lot more controversial, even though the outcome was never in doubt. Last month, by a 3-3 vote, council decided, at the last possible opportunity, not to enter into a contract for a Solar photovoltaic microFIT project on the roof of the township administrative building/garage.

The project had been accepted by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA), and even with a cost of $12,000 to shore up the roof of the building, the project cost of $56,741 will result in revenue of over $100,000 over the 20-year life of the contract with the OPA - a return of 7.4% per year. It will take 12 years for the initial investment to be paid off, followed by 8 years of profit.

At their regular meeting last week (July 22) a notice of motion asking that the matter be reconsidered was approved, and on Monday night, with six members of Council present, it was immediately clear that four of them, Mayor Clayton, Deputy Mayor Perry, and Councilors Inglis and Hunter, all were going to support the motion to reverse council’s decision. Councilors Martin and Watkins were still opposed to the project, and Councilor Good, who had voted against it the first time around, was not at the meeting.

In the first go-round, on July 2, Councilor Inglis was not present, and the project was defeated in a 3-3 tied vote.

With the prospect of a reversal staring them in the face, Councilor Watkins literally jumped out of his chair to voice his opposition.

“Let me do this,” he said as he moved from his chair around the table to the face council as if he was a ratepayer addressing council. “Let’s pretend I’m a taxpayer. Sell me on this,” he said.

“If you could invest money and make 7% interest, would you do it,” asked Fred Perry.

“Not on this,” said Watkins, “Ontario people have to make up the excess cost.”

Gerry Martin then said, “I think you are raping the citizens by doing this. It is coming from people who pay for hydro. It doesn’t make any economic sense. I don’t think we should add to this.”

The MicroFIT program is designed to encourage small scale solar projects on rooftops and stand alone structures by paying a guaranteed premium price for the power that is generated over a 20-year contract. The projects produce a small percentage of Ontario’s power needs. The premium paid for the power is not subsidised by tax incentives from the province. It is however, worked into the overall price that the Ontario Power Authority charges for power to residents.

In a 4-2 vote, council reversed its earlier decision and the solar MicroFIT will be installed by early November.