Addington Highlands Council – June 2

Jeff Green | Jun 04, 2014

Not so fast for Denbigh hall free rental

A citizens' group put together by Denbigh's Paul Isaacs held a town hall meeting in Denbigh recently. They decided that they would like to meet periodically and submitted a request asking the township to waive the hall rental for all their meetings.

Council was less than enthusiastic.

“I don't have a problem with waiving the rental on occasion, but to waive the fees for unknown meetings about unknown topics, I'm not sure about that. We do have an elected council and they are always free to come to us,” said Deputy Reeve Bill Cox.

“I'm not sure they aren't setting themselves up as more than they really are,” said Councilor Adam Snider.

“I did get a call from the MOE [Ministry of the Environment] saying they had been contacted by them and the MOE wanted to know if they represented Council,” said Public Works Manager Royce Rosenblath.

A motion to receive the request for free hall rental was received by council. Councilor Tony Fritsch voted against the motion.

“I'd like to make a another motion that we send a letter to them explaining that we can't just give them free space, but when they want to meet they can ask for free rental each time as long as they send us the agenda and we know what they are planning to discuss,” said Bill Cox.

That motion was approved.

Tables for Denbigh Community Centre

Councilor Fritsch asked if Council would approve a purchase of six utility tables for the Denbigh Community Centre. He said that the hall was rented to Elections Ontario for an advance poll this week but when they arrived there were no tables and chairs.

“We managed to find some for them to use, but if we are going to rent the center it does need a few tables and chairs,” he said.

Council allocated $1,000 to the purchase.

New grader on the way

The contract for a new grader was awarded to Nortrack at a price of $317,000, less $23,000 as a trade-in for the grader that will be replaced, for a total cost of $294,000 plus HST. $325,000 had been set aside for the purchase in the 2014 budget.

“How old is the grader we are trading in?” asked Councilor Adam Snider.

“It is 25 years old,” said Rosenblath.

“It cost $100,000 and the cost was covered by a grant from the MTO [Ministry of Transportation],” said Reeve Hogg.

“So, $23,000 is not a bad trade-in after all that time,” said Snider.

Labour troubles?

Council went in-camera to discuss a personnel issue in the Public Works Department.