Friday, August 24, 2007

Friday August 24 2007


The trees are changing color – can you believe it! Summer is rapidly slipping away.

Well your Councillors are still busy. We were all attending the Association of Municipalities of Ontario Conference (AMO) in Ottawa this week. The conference hosted 1,700 attendees, including politicians from all levels of government. If you want to know what we were talking about, read on.

Reducing the Tax Burden on Municipal Ratepayers
Some of the social services provided by the province are still paid for through your property tax. Premier McGinty announced that the costs of ODSP (disability support) and ODB (drug benefit) will now be paid by the Province – removing some $930 million from property tax bills over 4 years. What you should see is a 1-2% reduction of your tax bill. Whether you will see it depends upon how our County and your Town set their 2008 tax rates.

Better Waste Management
A highlight of the conference was a tour of the PLASCO waste treatment facility in suburban Ottawa. PLASCO uses a new “plasma” (heat) treatment process that gets rid of all noxious gases and reduces 1 ton of garbage to 300 pounds of a safe gravel-like aggregate. And each ton also produces 1400 KWh of electricity. Many of your politicians were impressed with this promising Canadian technology.

Affordable Housing
The conference underscored that the top down approach has not solved our affordable housing problem. We also saw how some municipalities have gotten serious and made significant improvements. I will be bringing our affordable housing situation to the Council Meeting this Monday at 7:30pm.

The business of the Town will get into full gear shortly. The Ad-Hoc Pesticide Committee will meet on September 13th at 7pm at the Town Hall. The Snowmobile Committee will also be meeting shortly – I will let you know on that one.


Gord McKay