Luck of the draw sends Helen Yanch to L&A County Council

In the run up to the municipal election, the probability that the deputy mayor/county representative position for the next four years would not be settled by the electorate was foreseen by the council.

The way it works in Addington Highlands, the councilor who receives the most votes in the ward where the reeve does not reside is offered the position of deputy reeve and joins the reeve as a member of the eight- member Lennox and Addington County Council. Since it was likely that Henry Hogg, who resides in ward 1, would be re-elected, and the two candidates in ward 2 (Bill Cox and Helen Yanch) were acclaimed, a vote among the five-member council was a likely scenario, and a secret ballot is not permissible under the municipal act.

Instead of subjecting themselves to a popularity contest to be played out in public, Bill Cox, who at that time was the deputy reeve, put forward a motion in early October that in the case of a tie, the matter be settled by lot.

Both Yanch and Cox said they wanted the position, so on Monday afternoon (December 1) at the township office in Flinton, that's exactly what was done, although a plastic tub was used in place of a hat.

Reeve Hogg pulled a piece of paper from the tub, unfolded it and read out the name, “Yanch”.

This is Helen Yanch's second term as deputy reeve and county representative. She served in that role between 2006 and 2010.

Kirby Thompson was also welcomed as a new representative from Ward 1, along with second term incumbent Tony Fritsch.

Committee appointments – Council is considering whether to alter the roles of the waste management, public works, and recreation facilities committees. They decided to defer appointments to either committee until the next meeting while they consider their options.

Other appointments were made – Kirby Thompson will sit on the Mississippi Valley Conservation Board; Henry Hogg will sit on the Quinte Region Conservation Board; and Bill Cox returns to the Pine Meadow Nursing Home Management Committee, which he now chairs. Helen Yanch and Kirby Thompson will sit as council representatives on the seven-member Addington Highlands Library Board; and Bill Cox, Henry Hogg and Kirby Thompson will sit on the Joint Fire Services Board with North Frontenac. Tony Fritsch remains the council-appointed manager of the Denbigh Community Centre (former schoolhouse). All members of council will sit on the Committee of Adjustment. Finally, Bill Cox was chosen to be the alternate to L&A County Council should the reeve or deputy reeve be unable to attend for any reason.

Zamboni to be resurrected – Community members Dave Miles and Ron St. Peters appeared before Council to talk about the Zamboni that is parked in a shed near the Flinton ice rink. With the support of the Flinton Recreation Club, the two are proposing to have the Zamboni looked at to see if it can be put back in service without too much cost, and are willing to arrange training for volunteer drivers as well.

“We are shy of taking ownership of the Zamboni,” said Councilor Bill Cox, but Council offered support for the initiative.

Paul Isaacs proposes committees – Denbigh resident Paul Isaacs also appeared before Council to propose the formation of two new council committees, one to concern itself with the future of the Denbigh ambulance service, and a second on social issues. Council did not take immediate action on either proposal.

Insurance premiums down - Paul Dorman from Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Brokers (JLT), made his annual presentation about the township's insurance policy, which JLT is offering to renew for $$63,929, a slight decrease from last year’s premium $64,644.

Council decided to renew the contract with JLT, but next year they will undertake a tendering process for insurance, which is required under their procurement bylaw.

Township unhappy with proposed County Official Plan

“We need to ask the county to make changes to the Official Plan before it is approved,” said Reeve Hogg.

“I agree completely,” said Councilor Tony Fritsch. “My understanding was that it was not going to get into the detail that is covered in our Official Plan, but that's not what I see in the document.”

“They said they would not duplicate what we have here, and would make it general, but as time went on they kept adding and adding to it,” said Councilor Bill Cox.

One of the issues of concern to Addington Highlands is the plan’s insistence that development be concentrated within the boundaries of hamlets.

OMPF grant – OMPF (Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund) is an annual grant from the provincial government directly to municipalities. In rural Ontario it is designed to compensate for the lack of commercial assessment, and costs related to distance from population centres. This year, Addington Highlands will be receiving $1,602,500 being an increase of $76,000 over last year. (see article on OMPF funding for the allocations in other townships and counties)

Central Frontenac Public Works Coordinator Kyle Labbett, and Kevin Hawley of Greer Galloway Engineering in Kingston, led a public meeting at Oso hall in Sharbot Lake on November 20.

The meeting was to discuss three options developed by Greer Galloway for the replacement of the bridge on Road 38 that crosses the old CP rail tracks just south of Canon Road. The bridge, which is one of the biggest of the 33 bridge structures in the township, was constructed in 1960 and has been deemed “in immediate need of repair in the next one to five years” following an inspection done by D.M. Wills Associates.

A small group of local residents attended the meeting where Labbett and Hawley explained the plans for the three different options.

The first option is to remove the existing bridge structure, lower the existing grade profile of the roadway and raise the trail by two metres to create a level crossing. In the report done by Greer Galloway, the benefits of this option are that the overall roadway sight lines would be improved and future bridge inspections and repairs would no longer be needed, which would save the township a lot of money in the long term. The disadvantages are the safety concerns that a level crossing poses to trail users, pedestrians and drivers since trail users would have to cross Road 38. Proper signage and /or other traffic mitigation techniques would be required as well as consultation with the trail authority.

Option 2 is to remove the existing bridge and replace it with a pre-cast box culvert. This option would involve lowering the existing roadway by one metre and would be significantly safer than Option 1 as it would keep trail and road traffic completely separate by allowing traffic to continue along Road 38 with no interference from trail users. In addition the sight lines along the roadway would also be improved considerably. The disadvantages are the ongoing costs resulting from regular inspections and maintenance to the box culvert and its inevitable replacement when it surpasses its expected 80-year life span.

The estimated costs of both Options 1 & 2 are approximately $600,000 each, and Hawley said that a large part of the expense in both cases results from the fact that while construction is underway, traffic would have to be diverted. Regarding Options 1 and 2 there is a grant that the township has applied for, which would cover 90% of the costs of construction; however, the grant is not available for option 3, which is to repair the existing bridge at a cost of approximately $300,000 -$400,000.

A repair would involve regular bi-annual inspections, future repairs as well as an inevitable complete bridge replacement once the repaired bridge is eventually deemed no longer safe.

While the expense of traffic diversion for a bridge repair costs less since one lane of the road would always be left open during construction, the long-term costs of a repair that will not last was questioned. Hawley said that option 3 is the least expensive in the short term, but he called it “a band aid solution” with long term costs. Labbett agreed, stating, “Everyone seems to be in agreement that repairing the existing bridge (Option 3) is not smart financially in the long run so we're basically looking at Option 1 or 2 more seriously right now."

Most of the residents who attended the meeting seemed to support Option 2, the box culvert option and Sharbot Lake residents Bill and Barb Wilson stressed the safety concerns that Option 1 would pose to motorists, trail users and pedestrians alike. “Safety concerns are paramount and I think that the box culvert seems the safest option,” Bill Wilson said.

The majority of the residents I spoke to at the meeting were in agreement. Staff at the township will find out in February 2015 whether their grant is successful and will likely make a final decision when the new council resumes later this year, and no doubt well before the required five-year deadline.

If the grant is successful and whether council opts for either the level crossing or the box culvert solution, there is good chance construction could begin in the summer of 2015.

Lanark OPP pulling out of Frontenac County

Inspector Derek Needham, the detachment commander for the Lanark County OPP, went over the new OPP billing model for the benefit of North Frontenac Council at the final meeting of the current council in Plevna on Monday morning (November 24).

Although the explanation went into more detail than the township had seen earlier, the bottom line is still, as had been previously communicated to the township, an increase of $139,000 in 2015, and an identical increase each year for the following three years, followed by a smaller increase in 2019.

Within five years, the annual cost for service to North Frontenac Township will have risen by 367% from 2014 costs, going from $230,000 to $845,000 over that time, representing a 12% increase (about 2.5% per year) in taxes just to cover increases in policing costs.

“The fact is that North Frontenac has been paying $66 per household until now, which is way less than what most municipalities have been paying,” said Needham, “that's why you've been hit so hard.”

He then explained that the change in the billing model, which is not leading to an overall increase in municipal funding for the OPP, was mandated by the Attorney General of Ontario in order to make the model easy to understand.

“The old model was overly complicated,” he said, adding that the new model will “result in a decrease for Perth and Carleton Place and increases in the other townships, some as much as 100%, but none as dramatic as yours.”

The model does take into account the low rate of service calls in North Frontenac since 40% of the billing is related to calls for service, but since there is a billing of $200 per household as a base cost for the service, and according to the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, North Frontenac has 3,464 households even though it only has 2,000 permanent residents, the costs to ratepayers will be going up and up.

“We receive grants based on our permanent resident population, such as gas tax and others. But this is the first time our number of households has been used, but it is not for a grant, it is for a bill,” said Councilor Gerry Martin.

Needham said he didn't know anything about how grants are allocated.

Needham was also asked by Councilor Lonnie Watkins why so many tickets were issued during the September ATV charity run event in Ompah. “From what I've heard it was a ticket writing exercise,” Watkins said, "400 tickets were issued.”

“I don't want to say too much about that event,” said Needham, “so I'll speak generally. Individual officers have a lot of discretion when it comes to certain kinds of offences, and sometimes things can be handled as kind of an education piece. I'd like to optimistically say there will be a different way of handling it next year.”

Needham revealed at the end of his presentation that jurisdiction for policing in North Frontenac (and Central Frontenac as well) will be handed over to a new detachment.

“We have been looking at efficiencies, and as of February 1, the Sharbot Lake Detachment will align with the Frontenac detachment in Hartington, and not the Lanark Detachment in Smiths Falls. The same officers will work out of the detachment, but the commander will be out of Hartington."

Compressor order approved

At the previous meeting Council had deferred ordering a new air compressor to fill breathing bottles for firefighters because at that time Fire Chief Riddell was on vacation.

This time around Riddell explained that a new compressor is required because new regulations require that compressors include a detector/shut off valve that makes it impossible for carbon monoxide to infiltrate the bottles, and the North Frontenac compressor doesn't have one.

“I didn't see that in your report,” said Councilor John Inglis, “but why does the new compressor need to be bigger - 5,000 pounds per square inch in place of the 3,000 psi machine we have now?

“Down the line a few years the word is that the 4,500 psi bottles will be required and I thought it was best to plan ahead instead being faced with the cost of a new compressor,” said Riddell.

Armed with this knowledge Council approved the new purchase, and decided to take the old compressor out of service.

Riddell said that delivery could take a month and until the new compressor arrives North Frontenac will fill their breathing bottles at the fire station in Sharbot Lake, where there is a compressor that meets safety standards.

by Jeff Green

The numerous apologies offered by soon to be former Councilor David Jones from Frontenac Islands at the final Frontenac County Council meeting of the term on November 19 could be used as samples in the dictionary definition of irony.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines irony in the following way: “The expression of meaning using language that normally expresses the opposite”.

There was a moment, a short one, when it seemed that Mr. Jones was indeed delivering an apology in his last statement to his fellow council members.

“I publicly and unequivocally apologize for my disruptive behavior over the past four years,” he said, but his intentions became apparent shortly thereafter. “I apologize for suggesting that previous councils had abdicated their responsibilities and that staff was running the county and years of surplus budgets had amassed a small fortune in reserves and reserve funds without appropriate capital plans, an investment strategy or strategic plan. I regret using the terms 'waste and mismanagement' when referring to our administrators.”

Jones' frustrations with Frontenac County Council have been well documented, and it was his assertions about former warden, Janet Gutowski, which led her to launch a still active defamation suit against him and the three other council members who supported a motion of censure that accompanied those assertions.

He referred to the lawsuit in one of his apologies: “I apologize to my colleagues, the late Warden Clayton, Councillor McDougall and Councillor Doyle for dragging them into a law suit for merely speaking out and not sitting on my hands,” he said.

He also apologized for being critical of the management of Frontenac Paramedic Services.

In recent months David Jones' level of frustration about the direction of the council has been mounting.

“We are running out of time in this mandate if we want to make meaningful changes,” he said on at least two occasions this past year.

However, he clearly intended to return to Frontenac County Council for a second term. Frontenac Islands has a different procedure for choosing its representatives to county council than the other Frontenac townships. Howe Island and Wolfe Island form the two wards of the Frontenac Islands Council, and the council candidate that receives the most votes in the ward where the successful candidate for mayor does not live becomes the deputy mayor and second county representative.

Mayor Doyle, who is from Wolfe Island, was easily re-elected on October 27, but on Howe Island David Jones finished second, behind Natalie Nossal, meaning he was returned as a member of Frontenac Islands Council but is no longer the deputy mayor and county representative.

He alluded to that result in his statement, apologizing to Howe Islands residents for the “trauma caused by individuals, introducing themselves as paramedics arriving on Howe Island the week before the election distributing literature and door knocking to advise residents 'not to vote for David Jones' – but naming another candidate more sympathetic to their cause ...”

When reached by phone early this week, Jones said that a number of paramedics “from the mainland” did indeed visit voters on Howe Island and told people that he was an enemy of paramedic services and was in favour of service cuts.

“This was misinformation,” he said. “They told people that if they voted for me the ambulance would not come when they called 911. I am not an enemy of paramedic services, far from it, but I am an enemy of waste and bad management. I was one of only two members of the council who voted against a service cut that was proposed to us by staff last year.”

Jones has decided not to take up his seat on Frontenac Islands Council in December.

“I feel that we have done the work we needed to do to set Frontenac Islands on a good path,” he said. “The real work to do was at the county.”

His parting words to the county indicated he had decided to walk away from municipal politics: “And finally I apologize for once thinking I could effectively represent my constituents and make a contribution in this chamber. Clearly I let my constituents down but at least now, we all know who really runs the show.”

After he had made his remarks, a number of councillors expressed support for the role he has played, including Warden Dennis Doyle, Mayor Gary Davison and Councilor John McDougall from South Frontenac.

Others remained silent.

Absenteeism rates at Frontenac County

One of the issues that David Jones has been most concerned about at the county is absenteeism, which he says has run rampant in recent years. He said that the monthly reports on absenteeism that Council asked for have been delivered with “no context, no action plan attached, nothing.”

The October report shows that absenteeism among Frontenac paramedics is down this year, on pace for a decrease of 17% from its historic high in 2013, and 8% below the rate in 2012. The rate at Fairmount Home, however, is on pace to be up by a whopping 40% over 2013 levels, although it will be only 8% over what it was in 2012.

In terms of the overall operational cost of sick time at Frontenac County, the numbers in 2014 are headed to about the same level as those in 2013.

As the term wound down last week at Frontenac County, the representatives from South Frontenac Council chose not to bring their concerns to the table - at least during open session - about a report from the county planning department on the work they did in 2014 as a contract planner for three of the four Frontenac townships.

“All I can say is this does not reflect what John McDougall and I were told was going to happen,” said a frustrated South Frontenac Mayor Gary Davison.

At the beginning of the year, North and Central Frontenac entered into a contract with Frontenac County for planning services, which Frontenac Islands had already done two years ago.

At the time, South Frontenac Mayor Gary Davison expressed the concern that his ratepayers not be on the hook for providing planning services for the other townships.

South Frontenac has its own planning department, and South Frontenac ratepayers also pay 60% of Frontenac County taxation.

At the time it was agreed that tracking software would be employed to determine what the two county planners were working on at all times, and armed with that data a user pay model for their time would be worked out.

In February, Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle said “we would be happy to pay the full cost of the service. It will be a win-win for South Frontenac ratepayers.”

However, the report that was presented to Frontenac County Council last week, (November 19) used a different kind of model.

In the preamble to the report, the County Planning manager Joe Gallivan wrote: “The County has been using a ‘community benefit model’ in providing planning services to the townships. This model is used by other County planning departments in Eastern Ontario. It recognizes that a regional government has the ability to overcome disparities based on geography and/or tax base and tax assessment in order to provide equitable services. This is particularly relevant to Frontenac County, which has a large physical area with limited fiscal and human resources in local government.”

He compared the billing model with the one used by health units and conservation authorities, in which more populated areas subsidise the costs for more rural locations.

In line with this, the county has been providing service free of charge to North and Central Frontenac and Frontenac Islands for day-to-day planning work and land use policy work, and charging for work that is generated by privately initiated applications, which the townships charge back to the private applicants.

According to the report, 57% of the department's time was spent on county-related planning work, which includes preparing the county Official Plan, developing policy and doing approvals for subdivisions, which is a county responsibility.

The remaining 43% of the department's time was spent on work for the three contract townships. A little more than half of that work (23% of the total) was for work generated by the townships themselves, which was not charged back, and the rest (19% of the total) was spent on privately generated planning applications.

However, the revenue generated for the county was minimal, only $3,640, significantly less than the $12,000 that was projected.

The salary line in the county planning budget for 2014 is over $200,000.

It has occurred to me over the years that there is an office in Sharbot Lake occupied by about 18 people who do the administrative work for Central Frontenac, a jurisdiction that has 4,000 houses and somewhere around 4,500 full-time residents, and probably about as many seasonal residents.

There is another office located between Ardoch and Plevna. Eighteen or so people work in that office and do the administrative work for North Frontenac, a township that has about 3,500 households and 1,900 permanent residents and about three times as many seasonal residents.

By contrast there are about 24 people working at the South Frontenac Township office in Sydenham. South Frontenac has about 10,000 houses, 18,000 permanent residents and about 7,000 seasonal residents.

My first question is, why are there two offices in Central and North Frontenac, doing approximately the same thing, for 6,400 people? I am aware that in 1997, when the current system was being created, it was hard enough at the time to put three townships together to make North Frontenac and put four townships together to make Central Frontenac.

This is not 1997, however, and looking forward it is harder and harder to see how North and Central Frontenac will be able to continue offering minimal levels of service without increasing taxes to outrageous levels. Increased policing costs will bring that situation into focus for the new councils in both townships as soon as they take office next month.

The second question is, even if the townships amalgamated, would savings in administrative costs follow?

That question is not so easy to answer.

Here are some numbers, based on the financial statements for 2013 in Central, North, and South Frontenac, all compiled by the same auditor, KPMG.

North Frontenac collected $5.15 million in taxation, and Central Frontenac collected $6.2 million, for a total of $11.35 million.

The combined number of permanent residents in the two townships is about 6,400, and including seasonal residents the total is about 15,000.

South Frontenac Township collected $14.4 million in taxation, from approximately 18,000 permanent and 7,000 seasonal residents, a total of about 25,000 people.

By that measure, property taxes costs $756 per person in Central and North Frontenac and $516 per person in South Frontenac.

There are other ways to measure this, however. Measured by houses, either seasonal or year round, there are 10,000 in South Frontenac and 8,000 in North and Central combined. By measuring taxes per building, South Frontenac charges a bit more than Central and North Frontenac.

Then again, in terms of service levels, South Frontenac has an aggressive program of paving roads and has curb-side garbage pickup, while North and Central Frontenac are struggling to maintain their existing roads systems and curb-side pickup is not on the radar.

In recent months and throughout the election, there has been more and more talk of shared services between Frontenac municipalities. That might involve a greater role for Frontenac County or simply sharing resources among the township offices.

The idea of amalgamating Central and North Frontenac is not part of this talk, but why not put it on the table?

There are people who say amalgamation has already stripped communities of their identities, and more amalgamation will only make that worse.

That could be true, but the point is that lower-tier municipalities deliver only a small basket of services directly, and it is expensive and hard to deliver those services to a scattered population.

If there are potential savings by cutting administrative costs, they should be considered by the new councils.   

Central Frontenac Council signs off

Before starting their November 11 meeting, Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski announced that the late November meeting will be cancelled, making this the final event in the term for six of the nine members of the current council. One of the six, Norman Guntensperger, was not in attendance, but the other four, John Purdon, Wayne Millar, Heather Fox and Jeff Matson, and Gutowski herself were all in good humour. At the end of the meeting they had a chance to wish the new council well.

For her part, Gutowski said she expects that she will continue to be involved in community activities in one way or another.

As the new council is set to take office next month, Council deferred all but the most clear-cut decisions.

Waste Management consulting

Council received a report from the public works managers of North and South Frontenac as well as their own former public works manager, Mike Richardson, regarding the cost of monitoring waste management sites in all three townships. Currently, the work is contracted out separately by each of the townships.

The report considered developing the expertise to do all the work through a new department to serve all three townships, and perhaps Frontenac Islands as well.

The cost for work on the 13 active and 14 closed sites in mainland Frontenac County is almost $450,000. However, rather than taking all this work in house, the report recommended putting out a combined Request for Proposals to deliver the service on a county-wide basis.

They selected the following option: “totally outsource all aspects of the service delivery of Waste Management

that involve required Ministry reporting, liaison with the Ministry of Environment, ground water and surface water testing and monitoring, using one RFP to contract the work to include all four townships” in the hope that they can all save some money.

“This is a good example of how we all benefit from common efforts between the townships and the county,” said Mayor Gutowski of the report and the recommendation.

Since the matter needs to be considered by the other townships before being acted on, Council just accepted the report for information, leaving approval to the new Council.

Waste Services Manager Kyle Labbett also reported that the formal closing of the Arden site has been completed to the satisfaction of the Ministry of the Environment, and that the Wilkinson Road site, near Chippego Lake, is also ready to be formally closed.

“These are items I have been working on for five years,” said Labbett.

He then added a bit of a tidbit for the benefit of the incoming council.

“The next one to come is Crow Lake,” he said. According to the most recent capacity study, at the current fill rate, that site will be filled within the next half dozen years.

Disappointing year of construction

With only two wintry months to go in 2014, Central Frontenac is poised to see construction values of below $5 million for the first time in recent memory.

As of the end of October, building permits have been issued for $4.25 million in construction since the start of the year, down just over $750,000 from 2013. 10 new residential units and 2 new seasonal units were started this year, as compared to 10 residential and 5 seasonal in 2013. In 2012, a year whose overall numbers (over $20 million) were skewed by the construction of Granite Ridge Education Centre, there were also 16 residential and 8 seasonal residences under construction.

Public Meeting about Road 38 overpass

In the latest bridge study done for the township the bridge over the former rail line (now part of the Trans-Canada Trail) on Road 38 in Sharbot Lake has been identified as in need of repair within five years.

In looking at the cost of repair, the township is considering the possibility of either replacing the bridge with a box culvert or simply eliminating it entirely and letting the road cross the trail. The upfront costs of either of these options will be considerable, but the long-term savings in maintenance make them viable possibilities.

The bridge was originally built to permit a train to pass under it, and is therefore no longer needed. A public meeting to discuss options has been set for Thurs. Nov. 20 from 6 to 8pm in the Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake.

Councilor John Purdon asked Kyle Labbett if the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance (EOTA) had been consulted about the possibility of a highway passing over the trail if one of the options is selected.

Labbett said that it is not unusual for the trail to pass over roads. “The trail passes over Hwy. 7 near the weigh station before Perth,” said Labbett, “Cindy Cassidy from EOTA said she could work with whatever we decide to do.”

Township says goodbye to IT Coordinator

Evan Sepa, the IT/911 co-ordinator for North Frontenac who has put the township at the forefront of Global Information Systems (GIS) applications on its website, is leaving this week for a job in York Region. He said that he will be doing the same things that he has been doing in North Frontenac, “except on a larger scale”.

That is a bit of an under-statement since York Region has operating and capital budgets that are both over $1 billion and North Frontenac's total annual spending is under $10 million.

Before leaving the township this week, Sepa outlined for Council where the township now stands in regards to the goal that he has been working towards on their behalf as IT co-ordinator: open government.

In presenting a wide range of municipal information for public consumption, the website is the prime example of that project. The township was the first in Frontenac County to publish all agendas and supporting reports, with a full archive.

Frontenac County has an electronic agenda management system in place that is being offered to the townships under contract, but since North Frontenac has their own system that does not require a third party contract to maintain, they have turned down the offer.

Similarly, the township's website was re-designed in-house, in contrast to the $20,000 that South Frontenac spent last year to have their site commercially built.

Another aspect to Sepa's work on the website was the embedding of mapping data within the site. This effort was recognised by ESRI, the world's largest GIS mapping company, and was included in a presentation by the company at their annual users conference, which is attended by 15,000 people, in San Diego this year.

As well, Sepa launched a raw data initiative for the township. All of the data held by the township is not only available to the public, it is available to be downloaded in usable form by researchers, developers, or anyone with a use for it from the township's raw data site – http://data.nftwp.opendata.arcgis.com/.

In his final presentation to Council before leaving, Sepa said that the township “can take pride in being a leader in its open government initiative, as it is far ahead of most small municipalities. These kinds of initiatives have been led, for the most part, by large cities like Toronto and Ottawa.”

With Sepa leaving just before a new council is sworn in, township CAO Cheryl Robson said he will not be replaced in the short term. The township will make use of support offered by the Frontenac County IT department and will be exploring ways of working with neighbouring municipalities and the county before deciding how to proceed.

Evan Sepa has worked with the County IT department on some of his mapping initiatives, making use of the resources of Frontenacmaps.ca.

No solution at Norcan Lake

Public Works Manager Jim Phillips presented a report on a meeting he held with landowners within the ill-fated Norcan Lake subdivision at the north-western corner of the township. The subdivision ran into difficulties when the developer did not live up to his commitment to build a road linking back lots in the subdivision with a commonly owned water access lot.

The developer now says he cannot afford to put the road in as planned, and the township has made an alternate proposal that is cheaper, but in the view of Mr. Phillips, still accomplishes the goals of the residents.

Phillips said in his report that after hearing him out, “The group said they would meet again soon to discuss the matter, but several in the group expressed their opinion that the township’s proposal would not be acceptable to them,” for a number of reasons.

Faced with this reality, Phillips proposed a motion to Council that puts “the developer on notice with respect to his obligations” and proposes that a mediator be hired to try and iron out the dispute.

Council approved the motion.

Council balks at air compressor

A proposal to purchase a 5,000 pounds per square inch compressor with ancillary equipment for the fire department, at a cost of $31,000, was deferred until the fire chief is available to explain why it is necessary.

Even though the item was budgeted for, Councilor Inglis said his understanding is that a smaller compressor would be suitable and fit with current equipment better. Until now the fire department has used a 2,500 pounds per square inch unit.

“I did not think this would be an issue because it was budgeted, but since the fire chief is on vacation for two weeks, we can defer this until the 24th of November when he can explain,” said Cheryl Robson.

Too much snow, plows at fault; too much water, beavers

Two complaints from residents came up at Addington Highlands Council this week.

Residents living on Dennison Road came to council to complain that the road crews pushed snow onto their lot when clearing their road last winter.

“We recognise that since we live on a dead end road, there is a problem, but if there is a build up this year, then we would want the snow to be removed instead of being continually pushed into our property,” one of them said.

Public Works Manager Royce Rosenblath said the expense of removing snow instead of pushing it off the road is not something the township normally gets into.

Council passed a motion asking Public Works to come up with a proposal for Dennison Road.

Beavers: The township received a letter from Timothy Laidler who lives on Addington Road 7, complaining about the effects of constant beaver activity on his road, causing costs to the township for de-clogging and replacing culverts and putting gravel down on the road.

“I suggest a new approach” he said, and then proposed that all deciduous trees be removed from within 100 metres of the high water mark of the pond that is near the road. “The deciduous trees should be replaced with planting of coniferous trees, cedar close to the water, spruce further back, pine even further back .. Beavers only live on deciduous species," Laidler said.

He added that beavers end up doing this to their habitat eventually, “eating themselves out of house and home."

“I don't think we want to get into a program like that,” said Deputy Reeve Bill Cox.

“I think we should respond saying we will do our best to control the beavers and leave it at that,” said Councilor Tony Fritsch.

County OP causes concern

The draft Lennox and Addington County Official Plan was received by council. “There's a lot there that I don't like, such as restricting developments to hamlets; we don't have serviced hamlets,” said Reeve Hogg, “but I don't see what we can do.”

Council accepted the OP for information purposes only.

Move in date for fire hall put back.

The move in date for the new Northbrook fire hall is set for December 24, but expectations are that the construction may drag on into the new year.

Lindsay Mills said on Tuesday that he is ready to recommend that South Frontenac politicians vote in favour of approving the Frontenac County Official Plan.

Mills, who is the head of the South Frontenac Planning department, attended what he described as an “excellent” meeting between Frontenac township chief administrators, planning departments, county staff and senior officials from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on Thursday, October 23.

However, on Monday of this week he added that he needed to see the proposed changes to the plan that resulted from the meeting.

When contacted again on Tuesday, after seeing the changes, he said that most of the “drop dead requirements for changes” that his department had identified had been made and he thinks South Frontenac can live with the document.

“I still have problems with it. I think it is too detailed, too prescriptive, and gets into things that might lead to difficulties down the road, but as they say it is a 'living document' and we can make changes if parts of it turn out to be unworkable,” he said.

He added that he had not been alone in expressing concerns and asking for changes to the document at the meeting that was held last week.

“Jenny Duhamel from North Frontenac and Cathy MacMunn from Central Frontenac both raised important points that had to be addressed. This was not only a South Frontenac issue,” he said.

Approving the draft document and sending it to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs had been expected at the regular monthly meeting of Frontenac County Council on October 15, but when the representatives from South Frontenac spoke against it, a deferral was proposed in order for the October 23 meeting to be organized in an effort to achieve a more solid consensus among members of Frontenac County Council.

That might prove relevant if, as is expected, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs seeks to make changes to the document that are not acceptable to Frontenac County.

“I can't comment on the issues between Frontenac County and the provincial government,” said Mills, “that's really for them to deal with. I can only comment on the document itself and its impact on development in South Frontenac. As it was before, I was worried that it might have stopped us in our tracks, and I am less worried now.”

Mills added that while he expects that the South Frontenac representatives, outgoing Mayor Gary Davison and Councilor John McDougall, will vote in favour of the document, he expects that Mayor Davison “will have some interesting things to say at the meeting.”