The week ahead: Feb. 8-12

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

Monday, Feb. 8

• Town of Ingersoll regular council meeting, Town Centre council chambers, Oxford St., 6 p.m.
• Town of Tillsonburg regular council meeting, Tillsonburg Town Centre, Broadway St., 7 p.m.
• City of Woodstock public open house on skate-bike park, Goff Hall, 6 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 9

• Township of Norwich, special closed-session council meeting, council chambers in Otterville, 9 a.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 10

• County of Oxford regular council meeting, Oxford County Administration Building, 21 Reeve St. Woodstock, 9:30 a.m.

There’s a property sale bylaw for Ingersoll that I should be following up on at some point this week.

Also, note, again, with interest, the Town of Tillsonburg “education session” on a human resources RFP that then is subject of a resolution asking council to approve its release. Councils are not permitted to ‘materially advance’ the business of the subject at hand during an education session. This report should be considered in public and then authorized for release. If it names individuals and threatens their job security there may be rationale to keep it in closed session under personal matters about identifiable individuals. Someone (maybe me) should cough up the fee to get a closed-meeting investigator looking at that one.

I also note with interest the special meeting called for Norwich to review a strategic planning exercise relating to township staff. Closed-session material here as the township employs few people and this report could impact on their employment. That, to me, qualifies as personal matters and those employees deserve the respect of not having the status of their employment questioned in open council.

Getting somewhere on the budget

Oxford council took some steps today in the development of its 2010 budget. After almost 10 meetings to consider various departmental business plans and proposed budgets, grant requests and conservation authority levies, it’s time to look at the big number and start working.

That big number at $50,070,278, by the way, is outlined in draft on the last page of the package of budget spreadsheets here. The major contributors to its increase over 2009 are here, and the adjustments made since the business plans were developed are here. The usual caveats apply in that the final impact on your tax bill won’t be known for at least another month, given new assessment, the increased value of your own property, etc. all need to be hashed into what the tax rates will be set at to generate whatever the final levy number council passes end up at.

That said, I’ll note deputy warden Don McKay was able to get some significant movement on moving the following cuts be made. I’ve done some quick math to show what the percentage cut to each department’s 2010 budget proposal would be, and whether the requested cut goes deeper than what council itself approved for that department in 2009. McKay departed soon after council adjourned, so I’ve been unable to-date to get a more fulsome explanation for why he’s recommended these specific amounts for these specific departments. The amounts:

• $4,000 from Tourism Oxford, an 18.3% cut;
• $125,000 from information services, a 9.4% cut that could leave the budget almost $60,000 lower than 2009;
• $50,000 from human resources, a 7.1% cut that could leave the budget almost $24,000 lower than 2009;
• $50,000 from community and strategic planning, a 3.8% cut that could leave the budget almost $26,000 lower than 2009;
• $50,000 from finance, a 5% cut that could leave the budget almost $35,000 lower than 2009;
• $1 million from Woodingford Lodge, a 12.3% cut that could leave the budget almost $240,000 lower than 2009;
• $50,000 from public health, a 2% cut;
• $100,000 from EMS, a 2.1% cut; and
• $300,000 from the public works operating budget, a 9.6% cut.

Social services and housing — outside of Woodingford Lodge — was spared from this list, as were provincial offences, customer service, council, CAO, Oxford County Library, Archives and general taxation. The final list of grants hasn’t yet been finalized.

McKay noted this level of detail was an example of council leading the way on the decisions that need to be made to whittle down what has started as a 6.4% increase to the taxation levy. I agree. Council should be providing this sort of direction and taking responsibility for the impact — good, bad or otherwise — on its decision. Fobbing off the details to staff members only creates deniable plausibility, allowing said councillors to blame staff members at the county for seemingly out-of-control costs, etc. Anyone remember the Woodstock councillors’ debate in 2006? I do.

However, if council wants to lead the way, I would have added the following departments exempted from this list:

• Council’s own budget — a $12,335 cut to erase this year’s planned raise for the warden and, in December, the rest of council. That would be showing leadership;
• A push to increase revenues from provincial offences. The revenue forecast is dropping as there were a few large fines in 2009. However, every member of Oxford council sits on some other group that can provide direction to police and other provincial-offence enforcement to step up enforcement (and, in a corollary way, revenues);
• Oxford County Library — while only six municipalities share this, it’s not suggested for cuts at all and perhaps it should be.
• More push back on grants— McKay’s own point on this is finding the balance between what is reasonable for all ratepayers to support and what is solely a good idea but not worthy of forcing us all to make a contribution towards.

That said, I think council will hear back on some of the cuts it has requested. My predictions?

• Community and strategic planning, as well as human resources. These budgets are very nimble and I don’t see a way to cut them back to pre-2009 levels without throwing a chainsaw at what they do. Particularly in planning, during a year when we’re developing some major planning policy and completing a comprehensive review of the official plan.
• EMS— Oxford council always seems eager on this one and looking at the business plan, I don’t think a $100,000 cut can be made without impacting service.

Let’s see what the next step is when council holds its next budget meeting.

Skatepark update

Bob Boyce sent this through to me before the weekend and I’m only getting around to posting it now. The city sent out a release Wednesday. The entire letter is over at GoogleDocs, but in a nutshell, here are the pertinent points:

• City hall will now receive your donations for this project— charitable receipts available upon request.
• Boyce Janitorial has thrown down the gauntlet and is challenging all area contractors, small businesses and individuals to dig deeper than it has and exceed its $200 donation to the project. to purchase square feet of the park for $45/sf. The company will purchase five square feet (a change since Boyce’s letter was sent to me on the weekend).
• Charitable receipts are also available for in-kind donations towards this project— materials, labour, etc. Those who are interested can contact the city.
• There is a Feb. 8 meeting where a 3-D mockup of the preliminary design to-date will be shown and refined based on suggestions from the crowd. There is also a fundraiser March 7 at the Moose Family Centre on Sutherland Drive— directly across from the location of the future park

Boyce states:

Let’s all work together and make this happen for the kids. All “in-kind” donations will help enlarge the previously announced $350,000 commitment by the City of Woodstock. There is plenty of room at the suggested Sutherland Park location to make this a fantastic facility. Research and expert consultation have suggested that about double that amount would build a facility that would best suit our current population. This does not take into consideration the huge expected growth of our community in the coming years.  It has taken many years of trying for this to happen. Let us all help to make sure it is ‘done right’ as it will probably be many more years before another opportunity will exist.

Agreed, and a point made here months ago. Now that this is further along, it’s time for those who really want this facility to step up and join the ones who are already heavily involved. They ‘talked the talk,’ now they’re ‘walking the walk.’ Those who sat on the sidelines and criticized council’s decision to only commit $350,000? Here’s your opportunity to become part of something bigger.

The week ahead: Feb. 1 – 5

Good morning. Here’s what’s on this week that I’m aware of at this point.

Monday, Feb. 1

• City of Woodstock planning committee meeting, City Hall, 500 Dundas St., 7 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 2

• Township of Norwich regular council meeting, council chambers in Otterville, 9 a.m.
• Township of South-West Oxford regular council meeting, council chambers Dereham Centre, 9 a.m.
• Township of Zorra regular council meeting, Beaty Room, Thamesford Library and Resource Centre, 9:30 a.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 3

• Township of Blandford-Blenheim regular council meeting, Wilmot St. S., Drumbo, 9:30 a.m.
• Township of East Zorra-Tavistock regular council meeting, Loveys St., Hickson, 10 a.m.

Thursday, Feb. 4

• County of Oxford budget meeting, Oxford County Administration Building, 21 Reeve St., Woodstock, 1 p.m. (now links to agenda)
• City of Woodstock regular council meeting, City Hall, 500 Dundas St., 7 p.m. (now links to agenda)
• Town of Ingersoll committee of adjustment meeting, Town Centre, Oxford Street, 7 p.m.

Several of these agenda links take you to the overall agenda page, not this week’s meeting agenda. Post will be updated with new links as the city agenda and county budget agenda are posted later this afternoon.

Speaking of that Oxford budget meeting, today council can start to take a look Thursday at the overall increase in the levy (6.5% as I type this). It may also receive information on what new assessment (IE: new homes, industries) are bringing in taxation revenue to the county. These new assessments could be used to defray the impact of any budget increase on the taxes the rest of us pay.

East Zorra-Tavistock is looking at electronic tabulating of votes on Wednesday morning, however the recommendation from staff is to continue manual vote counts. The township voted last meeting to go to a vote-by-mail system.

Over at Zorra Township, council will review its $85K deficit (2.1% over 2009 budget) on Tuesday morning. That deficit must be made up in the 2010 budget, which council hasn’t begun reviewing yet.

I may have other thoughts once the agendas are posted. With some luck, I’ll be able to update the Open your doors, Oxford for the first month of 2010 this week as well.

Agenda Camp Oxford?

I spent the entire day Sunday at AgendaCamp, an outreach broadcast program of TV Ontario’s flagship current affairs program, The Agenda. For an idea of what being at the this event was like, click here. The first link was a wiki setup by the show producers, where if you scroll down you can see the different topics that were discussed along with any conclusions based on those discussions. The producers will distill the day into a broadcast to be aired Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST. I won’t be returning to London to attend the broadcast, but a livechat will be running online while the program is airing.

It was fascinating to see this journalism in process. Gather a couple hundred people from across the region — some by invitation, some by application — and then set them loose on a bunch of discussions. Topics are submitted by the people in attendance and those who wrote in before the day. Actual topics discussed are whittled down to a manageable number by those in attendance. As the day progresses, the show’s producers whittle the list down further into four main topics (session three in the grid).

It was more than journalism at play however. The participants walked away feeling as though they’d accomplished more — for TVO viewers and those available on a Sunday — than just helping the public broadcaster narrow the focus of a one-hour broadcast that takes place outside the usual studio. Looking at the topics, there wasn’t a facet of life in southwestern Ontario that wasn’t discussed. The economy? Done. The cultural sector? Done. Youth? Done. The changing demographics of our society? Done. The need for social-service renewal? Done. Education? Done. Civic engagement (or lack thereof)? Done.

One participant summed it up best at the end of the day when saying everyone in the room had just taken some important steps together when it came to civic engagement just by showing up and participating. One of the show producers also encouraged us all to continue the discussions we began Sunday on the wiki, on Facebook or Twitter. It’s through showing up and continuing the discussions we started Sunday that some of the solutions we came up with are going to enter the public sphere and perhaps even be adopted.

As innovative as I saw this to be, it did have its caveats. The biggest one I noticed was too many people came to AgendaCamp with their own agenda. Instead of bringing their experience and perspective and contributing to the discussion — particularly in sessions outside of the one they may have pitched — some felt it best to simply subject us to their cause or concern, repeatedly. The “World Cafe” model worked, but could have used a little more guidance at points.

So, given that was what I did Sunday and what I do in Oxford, for the Sentinel-Review and elsewhere, here’s my question: Could we pull off an “Agenda Camp” here?

How do we help Sakura House?

This is a complex opinion to string together— one that has too much potential to be misunderstood, so I’ve chosen my words carefully.

As many people in our community know, a 10-bed residential hospice opened on Oxford Road 4 last fall after four years’ of work. In the months it’s been in open, it has been valiantly and invaluably providing a service in a way that didn’t exist within Oxford’s borders prior to its opening. A scan of our very own obituaries shows that.

Our hospice is unique— from the way its property was acquired (a donation of the building, but not the land) to the organization running it. As best as I’ve been able to tell — and would be happy to correct if I’m incorrect — we have the only VON owned and operated hospice facility. Most if not all other residential hospices though, are run by community based non-profit organizations. Many of those are supported by local VON volunteers.

So my concerns, like those of council, are not with the services provided.

My concern is the dollars and cents that allow for the service to be provided— or rather, the lack thereof. When the VON was gifted the building, it struck a capital campaign aiming as high as $2.5-million to support what were initially renovation costs and then became renovation and construction costs, along with an endowment.

In 2007, the first public act of this fundraising campaign was to seek almost the entire construction amount from local municipal councils. Oxford received a grant request for $300,000, the city $150,000 and each town and township a smaller amount. Council of the day reviewed a business plan / case provided by the VON in confidence, and ultimately decided it couldn’t support the grant request. Publicly it stated council runs Woodingford Lodge which provides similar palliative care.

Councils got a rough ride at the time from supporters of the service. Their decisions were the right ones though.

Undeterred, VON announced in 2008 it would seek the amount from the public.

Here’s the breakdown provided by the VON in October 2009 as to what they were able to raise for construction of the 10-bed facility and its source:

• $969,000 from the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care
• $321,000 from the South West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN)
• $200,000 from community fundraising

That left a $1.1-million amount to be covered from the construction costs. The provincial loan would be a $134,000 payment over 10 years. It’s that high and that short a repayment because Infrastructure Ontario believes organizations whose budgets are dependent on annual fundraising are at a higher risk of defaulting on loans.

Council has asked staff (S-R story here) to loan the VON the money to cover this bill at no cost to the taxpayer. The funds would be lent and repaid from the money the county has in the bank.

However, I remain concerned over the viability of this hospice. Can the VON sustain whatever annual payment is required under a county loan? Or will the organization be back before council within the year to ask for forgiveness of its first or second payment?

Deputy warden Don McKay had the right idea Wednesday when he said this is a valuable service that is needed and highly appreciated by those — the ill and their families — who access it. We need to realize that and start coughing up our own dollars to support that cause so the VON can meet its financial obligations. Click here to do so online.

Forcing all of us to meet those obligations through our property taxes is just the wrong way to go, and I hope we can realize that without being labelled as not supporting this service. When the loan agreement comes back to council, it should be approved to ease the VON’s burden while giving us the opportunity to step up.

The week ahead: Jan. 25-29

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

Monday, Jan. 25

• Town of Tillsonburg regular council meeting, Tillsonburg Town Centre, Broadway Street, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, Jan. 26

• Township of Norwich regular council meeting, council chambers in Otterville, 7 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 27

• County of Oxford budget meeting, 21 Reeve St., Woodstock, 4:30 p.m.
• County of Oxford regular council meeting, 21 Reeve St., Woodstock, 7 p.m.

Some interesting items on these agendas. I note with interest Tillsonburg now publishes the list of items its council will consider in closed-session— these are highlighted under separate cover and also under the appropriate portion of the meeting agenda. Kudos to staff for adding this— it came up during discussion for “Open Your Doors, Oxford” and was pegged for improvement. That said, an education session on a code of conduct? C’mon. Is council having Ingersoll envy?

The eyebrows also raised when I saw this portion of the Oxford minutes from the Jan. 13 meeting.

Councillor Sobeski notes that on a point of order he will leave the Chamber following the delegation due to his belief the report attached to the delegation’s correspondence and Report No. D-1 (CS) 2010-2 should be discussed in Open session….

M. Butkus, a solicitor with the firm McKenzie Lake Lawyers LLP in London, updates Council on the status of an ongoing litigation matter regarding Woodingford Lodge – Woodstock and makes reference to correspondence, dated January 8, 2010, as noted below.
M. Butkus responds to questions and comments from members of Council.
Councillor Sobeski leaves the Chamber at 11:03 a.m. due to reasons previously given.
B. Peterman, Pow Peterman Consulting Engineers, and M. Butkus respond to questions and comments from members of Council. Council gives direction to staff to bring a report back to Council today with recommendations as to how to respond to the preliminary Building Assessment report for Woodingford Lodge as is attached to M. Butkus’ correspondence, dated January 8, 2010.

Interesting.

The county has also posted its next budget agenda, which includes a consolidated budget spreadsheet, which I’ve added to my running spreadsheet file and tallied. The county’s math is lower than mine— which reminded me I’ve included the County Library levy in my math, therefore making my numbers higher. The library levy is not paid by those in Woodstock or Tillsonburg, municipalities who have their own libraries and charge for those through their budgets.

Warding off apathy

This conversation came up in the newsroom recently— would a ward system within the City of Woodstock change the dynamics of municipal elections within the Friendly City? Something stating as much was in a letter to the editor in today’s S-R— it’s the first letter listed at that link.

First things first, it’s too late to make this change for the Oct. 25, 2010 election. Even if all the related votes and such happened, the earliest it would take effect is in October 2014.

However, it came up in the newsroom discussion because of the suggestion in our councillor-at-large system that Woodstock voters only vote for one person in each category where this is more than one position available. So, instead of ticking off the names of your two preferred city / county councillor candidates, you would vote for only one. Instead of marking four names for city councillor, you would mark only one. Proponents of this say casting only one vote doesn’t dilute your vote and avoids the situation where one feels compelled to vote for someone just because they have to select two or four people. That casting a vote for a second, third or fourth candidate only cancels out the vote for the candidate you really want. They believe it would help rid council of potentially unpopular incumbents who get re-elected because of this apathetic style of voting.

The main problem I have with that? As a voter, you might end up with the one person you really, really wanted— but then you get three others you never even voted for. Knowing I at least tried to get a full slate of the people I want representing my interests, even if ultimately some of them didn’t get a seat on council, feels more participatory than voting for only three people on a council of seven. (Full disclosure: I will vote in Ingersoll this October, which is also a councillor-at-large vote).

The one-vote system that should be implemented in Woodstock (and elsewhere for that matter)? A ward system. Your mayor and city / county councillors would still be elected at-large. However, the four city councillor seats? Split the city into four wards and have at it. This would draw out a greater diversity of candidates representing the different sections of the city. Currently, a majority of city council lives in established neighbourhoods south of Dundas Street and west of Norwich Avenue.

It works in all of our rural townships where it’s used (Blanford-Blenheim councillors are elected at large), which includes the largest and smallest.

Some are averse to a ward system (as are some to a directly elected acting mayor, but that’s another topic for another post), but it would be more representative than what we have now. Every elector would have his or her own councillor from their end of the city who they could approach with the most local of issues. That may help address apathy with the vote and with what council does after voting day.

The new math & my budget frustration

With Monday’s Oxford 2010 budget meeting (tweets via searching for the hashtag #Oxford$2010) complete, I can update this post from earlier this month.

The running total requirement from taxation, with all caveats, is currently $54,160,551. That’s 7.1% over the 2009 budget figure of $50,572,887 and 7.3% over the 2009 year-end forecast of $50,466,266.

This is just the first-blush, quick-math look at the 2010 budgets and business plans. There were some accounting errors pointed out on the spreadsheets (in public health) which I’ve compiled and updated here. Council was told updated sheets reflecting the changed errors were forthcoming. The full budget documents are listed with the county agendas by date. The next budget session is scheduled to take place Jan. 27 at 4:30 p.m., immediately prior to the regularly scheduled council meeting that begins at 7 p.m.

This 7.1% increase is going to be offset by new tax revenues as the other Toyota-related industries are now being taxed. New revenues are also continuing to come in from new housing across the county. These revenues may take a chunk out of the impact of the overall increase on the levy for the rest of us. Some of that relief, of course, will be taken up by the second year of the four-year phased-in reassessment. A long complicated way of saying 7.1% from budget to budget doesn’t necessarily mean 7.1% on the Oxford County portion of your property tax bill. You should also keep in mind that most of your property tax bill belongs to your city, town or township.

Surprisingly, this increase isn’t my beef, because we’re a few meetings away from knowing what the real impact of all these numbers and percentages are is.

What upsets me is how these things are organized and handled. The Jan. 18 meeting agenda — already postponed from Jan. 13 due to other issues — was stacked. As a result, council was rushing through the agenda. In 90 minutes, it supposedly dealt with $109.4 million in public works operational and capital spending. That’s the lion’s share of the money (from taxation, federal and provincial governments and user fees) the county spends, period.

Yet council is slamming through it at breakneck speed.

This while council, at a previous meeting, spent 40 minutes debating the minutiae of who’s really responsible for what policy under a $20,000 accessibility budget line. As council spent too little time examining a Woodingford Lodge budget that’s growing by $1.3 million.

Yet it spends over an hour on tiny little department budgets. The problem? The order these items are brought before council. I believe council is fresh and energized at budget meeting No. 1, but by the time the big-money public works budgets come up, they’re in a “get through it,” phase.

I like the ‘budget and business plan’ format, as anyone patient enough to follow along gets to the end of the process understanding what the hell all that money is actually used for. However, the order needs to be re-evaluated.

In 2011, let’s start with Public Works and end with archives and human resources, etc.

The week ahead: Jan. 18 – 22

Here’s what I’m aware of this week:

Monday, Jan. 18

• County of Oxford budget meeting, 21 Reeve St. Woodstock, 6 p.m.
• Town of Ingersoll budget meeting (grants), Town Centre on Oxford Street, 6 p.m.

Tuesday, Jan. 19

• Township of South-West Oxford regular council meeting, Dereham Centre, 7 p.m.
• Township of Zorra regular council meeting, Beaty Room of the Oxford County Library – Thamesford branch, Dundas Street, Thamesford,  6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 20

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

The only thing that popped out from the township / town agendas was a vote-by-mail request to be considered by East Zorra-Tavistock Wednesday. This method was used by a number of municipalities in Oxford in 2006, and it’s likely EZ-T won’t be the only jumping on board for the fall election.

County wise, the budget meeting is the one that wasn’t held on Jan. 13 due to the Woodingford saga. This means an additional meeting or two will have to be scheduled, as tonight was the last session originally scheduled back in the fall of 2009 when the first series of dates were set.