If you missed the preview, you can read it here.
Closed Session
Mayor DeViet opened the meeting at 5:30pm and Council immediately went into a closed session, which was fairly brief.
Delegations, Presentations & Petitions
- Bill Rayburn gave us a presentation to illustrate how well the CAO recruitment process is going. I believe he said there were 83 applications, of which 11 could be immediately slotted in to the position without batting an eye. That’s great! The committee was still working on narrowing the field down to 6 applicants, and then hopefully to 3 applicants for all of Council to interview and consider in April.
- Jackie Muller & Dale LeBritton from Ontario Clean Water Agency came to give a short presentation on why Middlesex Centre should consider contracting OCWA in one or more of a variety of manners.
- For example, they could operate our water and wastewater infrastructure, or offer advice on processes or cost cutting measures.
- I came away unimpressed from their presentation, as nothing said gave me a feeling that an engagement with OCWA would be beneficial.
- Admittedly, I gave them a hard time over this, and none of the responses to my questions left me feeling like it would be worth MXC staff’s time engaging with OCWA.
- I found out after my questions that they had met Councillor Scott at a recent conference, and he invited them to make a presentation to Council.
- Council didn’t make any recommendations regarding an engagement with OCWA, and I don’t see the need to at this point given our past experience with private contractors and OCWA’s experience in Bancroft earlier this decade.
- Graeme Lowry and John Hawley showed us a short video and then made a presentation about why Council should re-instate the Arva WWTF facility EA. I had not heard of their development application for the southwest corner of Medway Rd and Richmond St during my first two years on Council, and neither had Councillor Shipley, which is what made deferring the EA so easy during budget deliberations.
- In my opinion, the development New Ark has put up in Niagara-on-the-Lake is quite stunning, and a good example of the type of development that actually belongs in a village like Arva.
- You can see it on Google Maps/Street View.
- I confirmed with staff that the EA is eligible for development charges funding.
- The developers invited us down to Niagara-on-the-Lake this spring to see the neighbourhood.
- Council ended up asking staff to report back on the feasibility and consequences of re-instating the Arva WWTF EA.
Consent Agenda
All items were received for information.
Staff Reports
- Council approved switching to Great West Life as the long-term disability and life insurance provider.
- Council approved receiving the development charges statement and posting it to the website.
Correspondence
- Council approved endorsing Ian Brebner’s continued appointment to the Ausable Bayfield Maitland Source Protection Committee.
- There was some discussion about SWIFT and high speed Internet again. The consensus around the table is that SWIFT is unlikely to get anywhere fast.
- On the other hand, Xplornet is investing $500M over the next 10 years to double their network’s capabilities so customers can access 100Mbps service by the end of 2020.
- Rogers, Bell, and Telus are all beginning rollouts of their 5G networks this year.
- OneWeb, SpaceX, Telesat, and other companies are hoping to offer global satellite Internet services beginning in 2021.
And that’s it for the March 6 meeting! Thanks for reading.