Frontenac County Council - Apr. 26/11

Jeff Green | Apr 28, 2011

Budget finalised

Frontenac County Council staggered to the finish line and approved the 2011 budget at their regular monthly meeting last Wednesday, April 20.

By taking advantage of some uploaded social service costs, the county will decrease the amount it collects from ratepayers by 4.2% in 2011, creating what County Chief Administrator Liz Savill called “tax room” in the budgets of the member townships of the county (see “Taxes up for Central, South Frontenac residents”).

The main budget issue item that was left for council’s consideration on April 20 was the creation of a new clerical staff position at the county office.

The budget originally included two positions, a communications co-ordinator and a clerk for the finance office, but council had made it clear at the previous meeting they were only willing to consider one new position.

Liz Savill said that the workload in her office and in the finance office has increased to the point where existing staff are scrambling to get work done, causing inefficiency. With only one position on the table, Savill said that the position would be shared between finance and communications.

The cost of the position is $48,000 per year, and council decided to leave it in the budget.

North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton brought up the request from Pine Meadow Nursing Home for $25,000 a year for 10 years towards its capital redevelopment program. This item has been brought to county council each year for several years and has been turned down each time, as it was again this time.

Clayton wondered why council was willing to give $54,000 each year to the Kingston General Hospital building fund, but not Pine Meadow. “They are both health care dollars,” he said, “and they both support people from our county. Why one and not the other?”

Council defeated a motion to grant the $25,000.

“I think we need some more time to get information about this,” said Warden Gary Davison. “We are not going forward at this time, but we are not closing the door.”

At the request of Warden Davison, Council decided to transfer $510,000 in gas tax rebate reserves to the townships, a move that did not affect county taxation because the money came from the federal government.

Before the budget vote was taken, Councilor David Jones from Frontenac Islands asked to address council.

“I think it is appropriate that I speak for the good people of the islands. I don’t see anything substantive coming out of these programs. I recognise this is a democratic process, but I see nothing coming from this. I’m going to have to sell this to my constituents. There are programs that have a pronounced bias towards the mainland townships. It is unfortunate that Councilor Doyle cannot be here today because he would have reiterated the same,” Jones said.

The budget passed in a 6-2 vote, with Councilors Jones and Clayton casting the dissenting votes.

County scuttles plans to move northern ambulance base back to Ardoch Road

A proposal that would have seen the Frontenac County Paramedic Service build a stand-alone ambulance base in the vicinity of Highway 509 and Ardoch Road was defeated at county council last week. The proposal would have reversed a directive from the county from last year to build a base at Ompah in conjunction with a new North Frontenac Fire Station.

But the issues that have stopped the Ompah construction from proceeding have not been resolved, leaving the entire project in limbo.

Meanwhile a 12-hour a day ambulance remains parked outside at the Lavant Road garage each day, with the car running all winter in order to keep medicines from freezing.

This is the latest twist in a matter that county council first looked at two years ago when a consultant’s report recommended building a new base at Road 509 and Ardoch Road.

That proposal was strenuously opposed by then North Frontenac Mayor Ron Maguire. In response, Paul Charbonneau, the Emergency Services manager for Frontenac County, brought forward an alternate proposal for a combined ambulance base and fire hall in Ompah. This proposal was endorsed by county council in February of 2010.

Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski opposed the Ompah plan at the time. She had two concerns: firstly, she argued that the decision was essentially a political one that was not supported by information about its impact on response times, and secondly because the Ompah plan also included replacing the existing Parham base with a new one in Sharbot Lake to serve Highway 7.

As has been documented over the last year in the News, the Ompah plan has run into trouble because the county and North Frontenac Township have not been able to agree on a cost-sharing plan for the project.

When North Frontenac brought the matter to the county table on March 16, hoping only to address the cost sharing problem and not the viability of the entire project, county council halted the project pending a staff report, to be prepared for the April meeting,

That report made use of some new mapping of recent call volumes by the County GIS department and a population projection study that has just been completed.

At the conclusion of the report, Paul Charbonneau wrote: “The location analysis … indicate[a] an affirmative view for a new land ambulance station in the vicinity of Ardoch Road and Road 509. Both drive time/distance mapping and total call volume capture are best achieved from this location. A land ambulance station location in the vicinity of Ardoch Road and Road 509 would maximize ambulance coverage within the more densely populated area of the eastern portion of the Township of North Frontenac and the north portion of the Township of Central Frontenac.”

North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton bristled at the idea of moving the base away from Ompah.

“I came here today to try and put the financial model for the Ompah project into line so we can go forward. I can talk very little more about eliminating the project altogether other than to say the people in that district will be terribly disappointed if they don’t get the ambulance base they have been promised,” he said.

John Purdon, from Central Frontenac, said, “I think there are a lot of questions here that we can’t identify today.

Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski did not see any reason to wait.

“I am comfortable with making a decision today,” she said. “We have a duty to today and we have a duty to tomorrow. The correct move is for us to move forward. It is not going to be to the detriment of the citizens of the community in the north to have the service move to the 509/Ardoch Road location. I would like to put a motion on the floor to direct staff to look at options for an ambulance base on Ardoch road.”

That motion was defeated, in a 4-4 tied vote.

County Councilors Inglis, Clayton, Purdon, and Jones voted against it, and County Councilors Gutowski, McDougall and Warden Davison (who carries two votes as Mayor of South Frontenac) voted in favour. Dennis Doyle from the Frontenac Islands was not at the meeting.

When contacted afterwards, Paul Charbonneau said that he would now “re-engage with North Frontenac County staff towards building a joint base in Ompah. The County has $300,000 budgeted for the project.”

Garrison Shores condominium agreement accepted – A number of people who live on the shores of Garrison Lake near Arden stood up and cheered when council approved a land-based condominium agreement for the properties that some of them have owned for over 20 years. They own property in a development called Garrison Shores that was not divided according to planning standards when they bought their lots up to 30 years ago. The condominium agreement has been in the works ever since municipal amalgamation in 1998 and has cost the Garrison Shores property owners hundreds of thousands of dollars.