Town Council in Brief
Posted Jul 22, 2010 By Dianne Pinder-Moss.
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Tweet ThisEMC News - The following items were discussed at the Monday, July 19 regular meeting of Smiths Falls town council. Mayor Dennis Staples was absent from the meeting and Councillor Jack Traynor arrived late.
KUDOS FOR CANAL, RAILWAY AND CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL
Still on an emotional high after the weekend, Councillor Dawn Quinn summed up this year's Canal, Railway and Chocolate Festival as "wonderful." In addition to commenting on the ideal weather and great participation for the July 16-18 event, the festival co-chair along with Jim MacPherson and David Pringle was quick to express her appreciation to the Town of Smiths Falls for its ongoing support.
"You have supported us from the start," she said. "You are still behind us."
Likewise, Quinn thanked the Parks and Recreation Department for going "beyond the call of duty," the Smiths Falls Police Service for its support throughout the festival and the service clubs and businesses who have contributed to the event.
"We can't thank you enough," she stated, adding that the festival is a "growing and going" concern.
"I'm just pleased to be part of putting Smiths Falls on the map," she remarked.
Quinn, MacPherson and Pringle were commended by Councillor Robin Hawe for their work on the festival.
"It was a great success," he said.
Councillor Chris Cummings inquired as to the number of volunteers involved in the 2010 festival.
"In the neighbourhood of 25 to 30, and we could definitely use more," Quinn said.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ASKED TO RECONSIDER DECISION ON CENSUS
Smiths Falls town council approved a motion lending its support to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) in urging the Minister of Industry Tony Clement to reconsider a decision made by the federal government to eliminate the mandatory nature of the "long form" of the upcoming 2011 census.
Until now, the one-fifth of Canadian households that received this form during the census year asking questions on issues such as work, education, housing, income, child care, migration, ethnicity and family life, were required to complete it.
In recent correspondence sent by Monika Turner to municipalities throughout the province, the director of policy with AMO, said the association was quite concerned with this new federal direction making the completion of the form voluntary "given its significant potential negative impact to our collective capacity to conduct reliable, accurate analysis of municipal issues on a longitudinal basis to say nothing of all the municipal, provincial and federal government programs/services driven by the census data."
Brown highlighted the importance of this data when the issue first came up for discussion at the July 12 COW meeting.
"There are realms and realms of information that the municipality uses," he said.
As an example, Brown stated later that there is a section called community profiles in which a municipality can extract information, such as the seniors population, and use it for comparison purposes with a neighbouring community.
"I will probably go on Statistics Canada for one reason or another two or three times a week," he said on Tuesday. "When I was doing the service review for '07 and updating it in '09, I was probably on there 15 to 20 times a week."
A subscriber to the services of Statistics Canada, Cummings said he was "quite disappointed" to learn recently of the change.
"It is important information for oodles of reasons," he said on July 12.
COUNCIL GIVES BLESSING TO NEXT PHASE OF YMCA PROCESS
A motion was passed for council to formally receive the recent market research study undertaken by dmA Planning and Management Services for a proposed recreation, fitness and aquatic facility in Smiths Falls, as well as directing director of community services Rick St. Dennis to have the National Capital Region YM/YWCA complete the next phase of the process, as recommended at the meeting of the steering committee on July 8.
That phase will see the National Capital Region YM/YWCA complete a project and operating business case with regards to the proposal.
In response to a question from Councillor Ken Graham asking if there were any costs to the municipality for the next phase, Hawe, the chair of the steering committee, said this was the YM/YWCA phase "so there's no cost to any of the municipalities involved."
Along with Hawe and St. Dennis, the steering committee is comprised of Councillor Chris Cummings, Councillor Dawn Quinn, Tony Pacheco, president and CEO of the National Capital Region YMCA-YWCA and Don Noble, vice-president of strategic projects, Mayor Ron Holman, councillors Rita Purcell and Linda Carr and CAO Bob Maddocks of the Township of Rideau Lakes, Deputy-Reeve Bill Dobson and CAO Murray Hackett of Montague Township, CAO Jill Eagle and Councillor Timothy Molloy of Township of Merrickville-Wolford and CAO Yvonne Robert of Elizabethtown-Kitley Township.
At a June public meeting, it was reported that of the 550 randomly selected households surveyed by dmA in Smiths Falls and other municipalities in the study area - Township of Rideau Lakes, Montague Township, Township of Merrickville-Wolford, Elizabethtown-Kitley Township and the Township of Drummond-North Elmsley - 92 per cent saw a need for the facility and 75 per cent expressed an interest in using it.
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