If you missed the preview for this Council meeting, click here!
As stated previously, the agenda for this meeting was rather light, but I’ll go through the highlights here.
- We received the report on the Compliance Audit Committee and their role in the municipal election. We also approved the by-law later in the evening to appoint the committee.
- The Community Services survey was well done. It was designed by a London-based firm called Academica and the results highlighted where Community Services should focus its efforts in order to ensure the needs of our community are being met best. With so many respondents indicating either they or their children swim, I did bring up the prospect of a pool again just for the sake of doing so. Feasibility studies for an indoor pool have been done several times, and as recently as earlier this year during the Ilderton Area Needs Study. We are just too small for an indoor pool for it to make economic sense, and I will expand on this in a later post.
- The Cyber Security Report is, in a word, lacking. It’s far too short to give Council any real sense of how well prepared Middlesex Centre, and indeed the entire County since we share an IT Department, is in the event of the types of ransomware attacks we have seen against San Francisco, Midland, and many other jurisdictions. I highlighted this and our Director of Corporate Services agreed, saying this was an interim report to let Council know there are mitigations in place but that a more thorough report was coming. I know the County’s IT Manager and trust he’s running a good department, but this report does not give us enough detail.
- The YTD budget and highlights of the capital spending for this year were good to review. Overall everything looks to be in order.
- Council approved reallocating funds in order to support some changes for our fire rescue vehicles being built.
- There was a bit of discussion over the Correspondence received. Primarily we briefly discussed that the next Council will need to determine whether or not they want to opt-out of recreational cannabis sales in retail locations within Middlesex Centre, and the fact that the LPAT is already under review even though many municipalities, including Middlesex Centre, have yet to see an appeal go through the new appeal process.
- The Municipal Office is also open for extended hours all week to accommodate individuals who have not received Voter Information Letters or that need help voting online. The office is open until 6pm all week, and open on Saturday from 9am to 1pm! It will also be open from 8:30am to 8pm on Monday, October 22.
And that’s that! If you have any questions, please email silva@middlesexcentre.on.ca or call/text 226-448-6774. Thanks for reading!