North Frontenac Council - Nov 4/16

Jonas Bonnetta | Nov 09, 2016

ROMA electing new member

Liz Huff, a board member of the Rural Ontario Municipalities Association (ROMA), made a presentation to Council on Friday on the roles and benefits of being a board member for ROMA.

ROMA is an organization made up of elected councillors from across rural Ontario that lobbies the Provincial government to make changes at the municipal level. Huff, a Councillor in the Leeds/1000 Islands riding, explained that ROMA tries to find a common voice across municipalities in Ontario to try and deal with some of the issues that are specific to rural Ontario.

She cited rising policing costs, access to broadband internet, taxation issues, implications of cap and trade, and higher energy costs as some of the issues that ROMA is currently discussing and working on.

“You get ideas about service sharing and cost sharing by meeting other municipalities,” Huff said explaining how it can benefit North Frontenac to have a Councillor join ROMA.

If a member of North Frontenac's Council was to be elected into ROMA they'd be representing Zone 6 which runs from the Ottawa River down to Quinte West, a large chunk of area to cover. ROMA is electing a member for Zone 6 on January 30th at their conference 'ROMA Speaks' which is being held, ironically or not, in downtown Toronto.

New Sign For Snow Road Community Centre

Molly Hartin, from the South Palmerston Community Centre (SPCC), made a presentation to Council regarding updating the exterior sign at the Snow Road Community Centre.

Hartin had made a humerous Powerpoint which she screened before Council, that featured music by local musicians Kathryn Briggs and Terry Tufts and had the Councillors laughing at some humorous pictures. The SPCC told Council that the sign will cost just under $2900 to have sandblasted, reinstalled and repainted with the new logo. They said it could cost an extra $1000 if the contractor has to pour a new footing for the sign.

“I wonder what the 2 councillors from Ward 3 think?” Councillor Gerry Martin asked jokingly as both Councillors weren't in attendance at the meeting.

Council approved the resolution for the sign and decided the monies would come from the Special Parks Ward 3 fund.

Part of Hartin's presentation mocked the mess of signs that crowd Snow Road Station and that confuse new visitors to the area.

“Maybe we need to add a signage by-law as business arising?” Mayor Ron Higgins asked Council.

1% Municipal Tax

Mayor Ron Higgins made a short report on an Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) meeting he attended last week where 80% of the attendees were in favour of adding a 1% “Municipal” tax in Ontario to cover the fiscal gap they're experiencing in infrastructure and funding. Mayor Higgins was against the idea, which would bring sales taxation in Ontario up to 14%, from the current 13% (HST).

“The reason I'm upset is we're helping the government to bail them out of a situation they've created,” Higgins said. “They're trying to put a Bandaid on a problem that the provincial government created.”

“We were looking after our infrastructure quite well until we got hit with downloaded services,” Higgins said.

“I want to make sure that the AMO board understands my position even though it isn't a majority,” said Higgins who was frustrated that that was the one option they were presenting.

Liz Huff from ROMA, who was still in the audience during this point of the meeting, spoke about the issue.

“AMO has been working on this for years. It isn't the only option they looked at. The basic premise is that property tax isn't sufficient to sustain municipalities in Canada. We now have a picture of what it would cost ($8.6 billion) to keep our infrastructure in shape versus what the ability of the property tax is, locally, to carry that.

“It seems to me we were told it would mean an 8% annual property tax increase on the average rural municipality in Ontario to carry that cost. Out of all the unappealing options at least the 1% puts it in our hands,” she said.

North Frontenac Looking At Consolidating Wards 2 and 3

Council had a conversation on Friday about amalgamating Wards 2 and 3 into one ward and having just two Wards in the township. The reasoning behind this is that then the two zones, Ward 1 and 2+3, would have closer to a 50/50 split of the population.

They decided to bring this idea to the public in June 2017 for discussion which would leave them time to implement the new system, if things changed, for the 2018 election.