Hello! Here is your preview for the final Council meeting of the 2014-2018 term. On December 5 the inaugural 2018-2022 Middlesex Centre Council meeting will be held, where the new Council will be sworn in and we will deal with some timely matters like appointing new committee and board members.
You can find the full agenda here.
- There is no closed session this week.
- I’m not aware of any last minute additions to the agenda at this time.
- I don’t see any errors in the minutes from the last meeting as it pertains to items I moved or voted on.
Delegations, Presentations & Petitions
- We have two this week:
- The Martin Road Development Drain will be presented by Kevin Moniz of Strik, Balidinelli & Moniz.
- The majority of the almost $92,000 that will be spent to complete the work, if this is approved, will be borne by landowners that will directly benefit from the drain. A relatively small portion will be borne by the Municipality, making this a good deal in my eyes.
- Sifton will once again receive recognition through Middlesex Centre’s Green Builder program for voluntarily building homes that go above and beyond the Ontario Building Code when it comes to energy efficiency.
- The Martin Road Development Drain will be presented by Kevin Moniz of Strik, Balidinelli & Moniz.
Consent Agenda
We have four items on the consent agenda this week, and those are:
- We have the October Building Report to digest, where October 2018 matched October 2017 for the number of permits issued, and we’re only trailing a little behind 2018 in total permits issued this year.
- I suspect 2019 is going to be a record breaking year between Clear Skies (Ilderton), EdgeWater Estates (Kilworth) and Kilworth Heights West (Kilworth) start putting up homes.
- Recognition of Green Builders, which is just the formal report on the presentation already performed. Our staff also support Lucan-Biddulph, and this program has now been adopted by Lucan-Biddulph and a home builder will be presented with the same award at one of their Council meetings in December. Good stuff!
- A report on public engagement for the 2019 budget thus far.
- A quick overview of the budget process, all the services provided, and what the Municipality collects money to pay for.
- Then we have some high level results of the budget survey conducted earlier this year, where we had a strong turnout from Ward 4! High five for you. 🙂
- Overall most residents appear to be happy with the level of taxation and where the money goes, with a slight exception in the “general government” area. I suspect this mostly just needs more explanation of how that money is used considering how many people also said they wanted to maintain the current cost and service level in that area.
- You will see that some of the write-in responses on slide 24 directly contradict each other, which highlights how tough some decisions can be at Council. I have to constantly balance people who want more services with those who want to pay lower fees overall.
- For those of you interested in our own indoor pool, I would highlight some of the issues preventing us from building one on slide 31 of the presentation.
- It would cost several million dollars to build.
- It would likely lose $500,000 to $600,000 per year on operating costs.
- I will be writing something more detailed once I have collected a bit more research on the topic.
- A report on Plain Language Notices, making planning applications far easier for residents to read and digest! This was an issue I brought forth in my 2014 election platform.
Staff Reports
- Staff is recommending continuing to provide Building Inspection and By-Law Enforcement services to Lucan-Biddulph for another three years. This is a great revenue generator for Middlesex Centre and helps us build a good department that can handle the workload of both our Municipality, and a neighbouring one.
- And a report allowing further movement towards Oriole Park having full-year occupancy, and having this be forwarded to the County for consideration.
We don’t have any contentious public meetings on the agenda, and neither are for properties in Ward 4.
Correspondence
- Items related to clarified cannabis regulations (e.g. retail stores cannot be located with 150m of a school), the provincial government affirming that full-time firefighters can also volunteer elsewhere, like in Middlesex Centre, and AMO’s perspective on the provincial fall economic statement.
- Middlesex County has also brought in a new road widening policy. This will be especially important to you if you live or own property on Glendon Drive, Komoka Rd, Nairn Rd, Egremont Dr, etc.
And that does it! I suspect we’ll be done around 8pm, maybe slightly after that. I hope you can attend. If not, please let me know if you have any comments on the items above. Thanks for reading!