The week ahead: Nov. 23-27

Here’s what I’m aware of at this point:

Monday, Nov. 23

• Town of Tillsonburg regular council meeting, 2nd Floor Tillsonburg Town Centre, 7 p.m.
• Town of Ingersoll, special planning meeting and council meeting, Town Centre on Oxford Street, 6 p.m.

Tuesday, Nov. 24

• Township of Norwich regular council meeting, council chambers in Otterville, 7 p.m.
• County of Oxford, public information centre drop-in, Class Environmental Assessment for improvements to Norwich Avenue and Parkinson Road, Oxford County Administration Building lobby, 21 Reeve St. Woodstock, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Nov. 25

• County of Oxford regular council meeting, Oxford County Administration Building, 21 Reeve St. Woodstock, 7 p.m.

Overall, these agendas aren’t packed full of items that are terribly exciting, but rather a lot of routine business. Ingersoll’s special meeting is to approve the planning changes needed for the Conestoga College campus on Thomas Street. Norwich has received a number of interesting letters in correspondence, including a denial of Community Adjustment Fund dollars for fire station renos and a response to a Community Schools Alliance-generated MPP letter. The EA PIC for the Norwich Ave improvements will likely be very poorly attended, however the impact of the improvements could see widening and a retooling of the Norwich and Parkinson intersection. There will be a few more revisions to the county agenda however, I’ll attempt to update the link as new versions get posted.

Much ado about Lions Pool

So council decided Thursday night to do nothing for Lions Pool, the 63-year-old outdoor pool on Vansittart Avenue. The S-R story from Friday is here.

I have a certain passion for aquatics, as it’s an industry where I’ve worked part-time since 1995. Those who know me are aware that I have worked at the Woodstock YMCA since Sept. 2003, a short while after I started working at the S-R, so any bias I might have on this issue should be obvious.

This provides me some insight into facilities, which is what this Lions Park issue comes down to. I only wished members of council could have expressed that more clearly Thursday— particularly Mayor Michael Harding, whose vote as cast brought the vote on the resolution to a 3-3 tie. Tie votes are equal to defeating the motion. The city and council’s general failure to adequately meet what I’d once termed as ‘youth general recreation’ services also plays a part here.

The question before council was to spend up to $430,000 to replace the pool’s filtration system and liner. The resuscitation of the filtration system every spring is due to the mechanical talents of city staff. There’s nothing wrong with the current pool liner, but the filtration system can’t be replaced without punching so many new holes in the liner it would need to be replaced anyway.

Coun. Sandra Talbot once called Lions Pool the grand old lady, which it is. Like other grand old ladies in this county (think Otterville, Thamesford), it’s held up fairly well, but for the filtration system as noted above and the change room structure. Council had budgeted $200,000 for the filtration system replacement in 2011 and the estimates on replacing that and the liner came back at more than double. The changeroom stucture had an $800,000 budget, however given recent block-construction projects (think new WC at Southside Park), that number seems high to me. Regardless, it would be tough to meet the $1-million budget to refurbish the building.

Harding, Talbot and Coun. Connie Lauder don’t support spending more money on Lions other than what it takes to keep it running, status quo— in a good year, its season is 12 weeks. Looking to the budget, you can see (I’ve done some math) the pool actually operates more efficiently than the Southside Aquatic Centre when comparing regular revenues to staffing expenses— caveat: the full-time aquatics staff salaries and benefits are likely charged year-round to Southside, which makes a difference. However to spend $1 million (likely more) on a facility that’s only open 12 weeks a year doesn’t make as much sense to these council members as investing in other aquatic facilities.

The Recreation Advisory Committee considered this when it was asked for its input on the Lions Pool question. It also considered the 2005 Recreation Leisure and Master Plan (I’d link, but I couldn’t find it on the city site), which identified the need for a third year-round pool in the city. The plan actually recognized the better long-term investment for the city and its ratepayers would be to invest in that third year-round pool as part of a multi-use facility and close Lions once it was open. Some of the successes and challenges the committee would have been aware of are in the 2009 budget presentation given by aquatics staff members. That includes how the city couldn’t meet the needs of those looking for recreational swimming and swimming instruction if it lost a pool right now. Southside struggles to keep up with demand when Lions is closed. I’m sure the committee also examined the year-to-date figures.

Given that, the committee’s recommendation was a Band Aid until the new year-round facility is built— replace the filtration system and liner and if need be even knock down the change room structure if it became a hazard. The pool would need a shower with soap, a phone and a first aid kit under pool regulations to stay open, the rest could be sacrificed.

So is $430,000 too much for a Band Aid for a pool that’s used 12 weeks a year so that it can make it another five or six years? Considering the Y received a grant to help complete a $3-million Band Aid for a facility open year-round so it could last another seven to 10 years, you could say the Lions Band Aid is just as justified. (Coincidence those two time frames are so close to each other? Possibly, possibly not. I don’t know. I do hope I’m not the only one who notices this, even given my bias) However nostalgic we may all be for outdoor pools, it doesn’t make the business case for the larger long-term investment.

While Lions supporters will and have indicated how other municipalities are supporting outdoor pools, it’s mostly those that have more outdoor pools than indoor pools (or no indoor pool at all). Given the four existing year-round pools in this county, the business case — even in the heavily subsidized municipal aquatics sector — for running a seasonal outdoor pool in Norwich Township or Zorra Township is far better than a year-round facility.

The better value for the city and its ratepayers in the long-term is a new year-round facility, not sustaining an old outdoor pool for eternity. Let’s hope council starts accepting that, or it won’t start taking the necessary steps to ensure this happens in six years or so— which means if Lions does die in the interim, this city and its pool-loving residents would be vastly under-serviced.

Less oomph?

A story out of the Ingersoll Times this week that could have HUGE implications for virtually every single municipality in Oxford, if not across the province.

The article covers town council’s concerns it could lose its payment from the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (colloquially called “oomph” amongst munipols).  The OMPF is the province’s main vehicle for transfers of dollars to municipalities– for example, to cover the difference in taxes received between residential and agricultural, or residential and managed forest. OMPF also provides policing amounts to certain municipalities. From the article:

Mayor Paul Holbrough said town staff learned three weeks ago that Ingersoll is one of 160 municipalities facing cuts if the proposal is implemented.

“We’re getting word that we may be the most affected (out of the 160) because of our size and the amount we receive,” Holbrough said.

Making up $1.3 million through municipal taxes would require a 16.3 per cent increase.

“Can you ask for a 16 per cent increase in taxes?” said Coun. John Fortner when the issue was discussed at a council meeting on Monday last week. “Not in this economy, you can’t.”

Municipalities like Ingersoll will find that a shock to their system, however some of them should have seen this coming. Looking at Ingersoll’s specific OMPF calculation for 2009, it received an amount calculated to be equivalent to what it got in 2004 and 2007. This is a similar situation for Woodstock, where the OMPF has been at about $300K and dropping. Ditto Tillsonburg, sitting at $345K in 2009. It’ll be easier for Woodstock to make up $300K (slightly less than 1% of its overall revenues from taxation) than for Ingersoll, where the amount is a comparatively larger portion of taxation revenues that sit in the $8 million to $9 million range. The province has been sending signals the OMPF would be dropping– particularly if you’re a municipality that has no farms, no managed forests and doesn’t offer the social programs and court security services the province is uploading over the coming years.

The ones who could really get hammered, if they’re on the list of 160 or so contemplated for reductions and the province changes its mind on some of the assessment and police service based OMPF calculations, are any of the county’s townships. OMPF payments to Blanford-Blenheim, for example, were also $1.3 million in 2009. That’s close to 20% of the township’s total budget. Total OMPF payments for all nine Oxford municipalities in 2009 were $12,722,200, with the lion’s share going to the five townships.

Something to keep an eye out for early in 2010– the OMPF announcement comes from the Ministry of Finance.

Pay-per-use “spring cleanup?”

Woodstock city council will deal with a report on a 10-week pilot project that wrapped up this fall where the city’s engineering department tried a different way of doing bulk-item / large-item collection. The S-R piece is here, and the report that was deferred from the Nov. 5 agenda is severed from the Nov. 19 agenda and posted here. (GoogleDocs was being stupid… will link this later).

Some key points:

• We really don’t get the difference between weekly collection and large-item pickups. We tend to hoard everything that won’t smell or rot and use the large-item cleanup to dispose of these items.
• We are under the false assumption the large-item collections (and other special programs such as e-waste and scrap metal collections) are free. They’re not. The budgets clearly prove you’re paying for them through your property taxes.
• The more you save for large-item cleanups, the more pressure is going to be put on raising the cost of a garbage bag tag. If the strategy currently being proposed goes ahead at Oxford County, the cost of large-item collections will be covered in the revenues collected from bag tags. So, the more you put out in weekly collection, the cheaper the cost of an individual tag might be.

As a result of these points above, the city engineering department is asking Woodstock city council to ask Oxford County council to consider a user fee on large-item collection. Despite earlier conversations here and elsewhere showing absolute hatred for any consideration of an increase to a user-pay solid waste system, this is a concept that deserves a fulsome discussion. Kudos to the city engineering department for its recommendation– given past tension between this department and the county public works department, I also commend the recommendation.

There are all sorts of options for a user-pay base to the large-item collection– IE: if you can carry it by yourself, slap a regular bag tag on it. If it requires two people to carry, then it takes a ‘large-item’ tag or something. Maybe it takes two bag tags. Just some thoughts to figure out how that might work.

WEDAC reax

A brief e-mail conversation is making the rounds in regards to Woodstock city council’s Nov. 5 discussion on a report and request from council’s economic development advisory committee, aka WEDAC.  The report in question is severed from the council agenda and posted here.

The questions in the report actually come from WEDAC’s June meeting, but were lost / misdirected / not forwarded to council until after WEDAC’s October meeting. By this point in time, the special Oxford council meeting of Nov. 5 had already been scheduled. As it happened, the answers to some of the questions were in the Nov. 5 county agenda reports— although some (CSAP, specifics on rate calculations, 6-inch meter question) may have been answered in private but weren’t specifically discussed at the county or city meetings. The overall WEDAC concerns on the county’s water and sewer rate process date back to November 2008, when the county held the first meetings where potential new rates were announced.

As a result, city council had a discussion Nov. 5 regarding what to do with the WEDAC questions. “Jimmythinprint” has posted an excerpt of council’s discussion that night on YouTube— note, it doesn’t include the introduction of the item or the final vote, so it’s been edited down to include only what “Jimmythinprint” wanted to emphasize. Catch a repeat on RogersTV if you wish to see the whole discussion.

Some felt Mayor Michael Harding’s comments that evening were too critical of WEDAC, and as a result, Harding sent this e-mail out Nov. 13.

From: Michael Harding [mailto:mharding@city.woodstock.on.ca]
Sent: November-13-09 9:23 AM
To: Brad Hammond; Sandra Talbot; James Harrison (jimharrison@execulink.com); James Stewart; Jay Heaman (jheaman@woodstockhydro.com); Jeff Culp (jeff@oxfordmediagroup.com); Jim Farrell (jkfspring@rogers.com); Len Magyar; Lyle Ball (lyle.ball@rogers.com); Robert Birch (bbirch@execulink.com); Roy Smith (hebbes19@sympatico.ca)
Cc: City Council; Paul Bryan-Pulham; Brad Hammond; Len Magyar
Subject: WEDAC Resolution

It has been brought to my attention that comments I made at the Council meeting of November 5, 2009 may have been interpreted as a criticism of WEDAC. I wanted to assure you that was not my intention.

The letter that was before the Council (attached) had a number of very specific requests. The proposed resolution that was then passed did not reflect the specific concerns of the Committee as outlined by the Chair and contained one clause that related solely to actions for City Council’s consideration.

I may not have communicated my concerns to Council in a clear fashion and I do regret if members of the Committee interpreted my comments as a criticism of your good work. They were not.

Mayor Michael Harding
City Of Woodstock
PO Box 1539
500 Dundas Street
Woodstock, ON N4S 0A7
Tel: 519 539-2382 x 2100
Fax: 519 539-3275
Email: mayor@city.woodstock.on.ca

Which drew the following response from James Stewart, WEDAC chair:

From: James Stewart [mailto:jstewart@transarctic.com]
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:07 PM
To: Michael Harding; Brad Hammond; Sandra Talbot; jimharrison@execulink.com; jheaman@woodstockhydro.com; jeff@oxfordmediagroup.com; jkfspring@rogers.com; Len Magyar; lyle.ball@rogers.com; bbirch@execulink.com; hebbes19@sympatico.ca; Harvey Hunt
Cc: City Council; Paul Bryan-Pulham; Brad Hammond; Len Magyar
Subject: RE: WEDAC Letter to Council

Mayor Harding,

I appreciate your apology and acknowledgement of WEDAC’s good work.

As Chair of WEDAC, I think it is important to provide clarity to all those involved in the matter.

At the October 27th WEDAC meeting you specifically referred to the minutes of the June 23rd WEDAC meeting and asked what has happened to the water/waste water recommendation in question.

When you pointed out that the recommendation was not brought before Council yet – I asked you for specific instructions on how to handle the recommendation.

Your reply was to send a letter to Council, including the water/waste water recommendation, and you indicated to WEDAC, that Council would receive it under correspondence.

You are the Chair of Council – so we followed your instructions.

City Staff wrote the letter, I signed it and then we submitted it to the Clerk.

Your comments at Council can be found here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHW-oWlFJoQ

It is my hope that we don’t dwell too long on this regrettable series of events, we put them behind us and we move forward together.

Thank you

James

Council and its committees could learn from this process— for example, why it took from June to November for the committee’s original questions to make it to the council agenda. If the report had been dealt with in July or August, much of the tempest in a teapot that erupted Nov. 5 would have been avoided as the answers to the questions weren’t available yet. For the record, despite the conversation at the last council meeting and this e-mail exchange making the rounds, council passed the recommended resolution as stated. You’ll need to go to the bottom of page 8 of 9 to see the resolution as carried.

I think if council regularly received the minutes of its advisory committees as information items on its agendas, this sort of situation could be avoided. After all, the questions as asked are encapsulated in the WEDAC minutes of June 23, at the top of page 2. As such, currently, unless the minutes are being posted on-time (I’ll note the June 23 WEDAC minutes are the most recent posted) and all of council is reading them, only those members of council who sit on specific advisory committees would be aware of what was happening and what the committees were discussing. Few of council’s advisory committees present annual reports to council, so a regular review of committee minutes would be an appropriate way to ensure full awareness for all council members and avoid this situation occurring again.

The week ahead: Nov. 16-20

Apologies for the extended hiatus. I was at a seminar Nov. 7-11 south of the border, and as a result was only in the office Nov. 12 last week — an Oxford County council meeting day filled with a few other events as well so the time to post here was limited.

This is what I’m aware of in the week ahead:

Tuesday, Nov. 17

• Township of South-West Oxford regular council meeting, council chambers in Dereham Centre, 7 p.m.
• Township of Zorra regular council meeting, 27th Line and Oxford Road 119, 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Nov. 18

• Township of Blandford-Blenheim regular council meeting, 21 Wilmot St. S., Drumbo, 7 p.m.
• Township of East Zorra-Tavistock regular council meeting, Loveys Street, Hickson, 7 p.m.

Thursday, Nov. 19

• Swearing in of Woodstock Police Service uniform officers and civilians, Oxford County Administration Building, 21 Reeve St., 5 p.m.
• City of Woodstock regular council meeting, 500 Dundas St., 7 p.m.

I’ll update the city agenda link once it’s posted Monday— the SWOX one is rarely posted online before the actual meeting. The city link is now updated.

Of interest so far, Zorra will host a delegation Tuesday to discuss the county’s third potential wind farm, the ‘Stonetown’ project on the Perth-Oxford Road / Wildwood Road area. This one is by a different developer than the Innerkip-area and Gunn’s Hill Road projects.

On the city’s agenda Thursday, we have the naming policy before council for the request to rename the Civic Centre Arena, as well as support for an August report on Lions Pool from the recreation advisory committee.

On hiatus

This blog will be on hiatus until at least Thursday, Nov. 12. Unfortunately, I won’t have the opportunity to compile a weekly look ahead for Nov. 9-13, look for the return of this post on Nov. 16.

Please check back after Nov. 12 for new posts.

Quick ‘Open your doors, Oxford’ update

I neglected to do this when I posted the last updates to this project at the very end of October. I had requested and now received the minutes from the education sessions held by councils in Ingersoll, Tillsonburg and East Zorra-Tavistock between Jan. 2008 and September 2009. Ingersoll’s and East Zorra-Tavistock’s have been scanned/posted, I haven’t yet had the chance to do so for Tillsonburg’s.

Water / sewer rates

I mentioned this in the ‘week ahead’ post Monday, but Oxford council is holding a committee-of-the-whole meeting Thursday at 1 p.m. to discuss a water and sewer rate setting policy. The agenda, with the associated Hemson Consulting Ltd. and Genivar reports is here. The 149-page report is not for the faint of heart (it took me two days’ worth of spare moments to read in its entirety). I found it a great one-stop report to learn about the history and composition of the 19 different water and nine different sewer systems in Oxford.

First, it’s important to note no rates will actually be set at Thursday’s meeting. The water and sewer rates for 2009-10 have already been set (this was done in June) and council won’t need to do so again until the 2011 budget. It’s also important to note water and sewer rates are only paid by those connected to municipal water and sewer. If you’re on a well / septic, this doesn’t apply to you as you’re paying your own water and sewer costs for your own equipment.

This meeting is about full-cost recovery within the water and sewer rates. Provincial legislation dictates municipalities must move to this— meaning the money that comes in from water / sewer rates and development charges has to cover all the money going out to pay for staff, materials and replacement of materials and infrastructure. While the legislation has passed, its rules have not yet come into effect— the county has gone through this exercise so it is prepared when the rules come into effect.

There are a few different ways to do this—

1. Cover your operational expenses with the regular income and cover capital (construction / replacement / renovation) expenses by mortgaging it. This means you have to build financing costs into your rates.
2. Cover operational expenses with rate income and capital through use of reserve funds— meaning you have to set aside those funds in previous years and those amounts are folded into rates.
3. Cover operational expenses with rate income and capital through a mix of mortgaging and reserve funds.
4. Cover operational expenses with rate income and don’t do any capital until it actually breaks. After it breaks and you have to fix it, find a way to pay for it then.

The consultants’ report recommends option two in the above list— it’s the ’save for a rainy day’ option that ensures the funds are in the bank when a pipe or plant or filter is due for replacement. Not everyone on council (or even amongst area municipal staff) agrees with this philosophy or this option.

Some just look at the dollar amounts involved and scream bloody murder.

I will be tweeting the meeting Thursday, and of course there will be followup coverage in the Sentinel-Review.

Skate/bike park RFP posted

The City of Woodstock has posted the request for proposal for the skate/bike facility at Sutherland Park. It’s due Nov. 27, and calls for design services for a firm to lead the “design process and the implementation of plans through construction for a combination skateboard and BMX-type bike park to be built in the City of Woodstock at Sutherland Park.”

The RFP also indicates the $350,000 set by council at its Oct. 15 meeting is “core funding.” From the document:

To provide a flexible design with several potential sizes and estimated prices that can be expandable beyond the core funding depending upon the final level of funding and or support achieved complete with illustrations showing the expansion capabilities and anticipated final value of the larger designs.
…
The successful firm must show flexibility and potential growth in the design concept(s) and estimated pricing to provide for a potential increased  expenditure of the project based on the acquisition of other funding (i.e.) grants.  Experience and knowledge of community fundraising will be a key component of the selection process.

Time lines listed in the document show a short-list developed by the end of this month, followed by interviews in December and a decision to hire a consultant and begin the final design by the end of December. A draft report on the final design would be expected by February.

I think this RFP document meets the needs and requests of what the users who’ve spoken to council wanted and also what council’s discussions have borne out.