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Are you getting you money’s worth?

October 9, 2013   ·   0 Comments

Dear editor:

Well 2 & 1/2 years of council’s 4-year mandate has expired do you think that you are getting your money’s worth? After all your aggregate expenditure for council’s services over 4 years is around $1,000,000.

Personally I can only look at it from the Ward 7 that I live in. Our mandate commenced with our representative rallying the voters by loud protestations regarding use of the local gravel pits all the while he had to know that there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it due to a deal cut several years ago between the pits and the provincial government.

After the election we were faced with the establishment of a gas plant on the marsh. Later there was a move to enlarge a gravel pit that would affect our water supply. This is still unresolved. Our rep has never thrown his support in shutting down either site. Next we had a land fill established next to the Pines’ – it’s establishment being approved by council, which later was converted to an airport and thus under Federal jurisdiction. Land fills did not end here an enormous one was created on the 17th Sideroad right around the corner from our rep. Wanda Hollingshead was told the following. “The amount of loads they determined to be needed for this project were 400 loads. To date, they have hauled in around 15,000 to 20,000 loads. Ward 7 councilor Bruce Haire called Wanda at the end of August to say that a stop work order was being issued to the property owner (Chris Pasque) by John Miller and still the hauling continued. Bruce indicated the work order was to be effective immediately and that anything hauled in from that point forward would have to be removed from the property, and still the hauling continues.”

The 10th Sideroad runs through the middle of New Tecumseth and every 2 minutes two large trucks go up and down the road to the gravel pits. Recently we were told that they are no longer removing gravel they are carrying fill. The town receives money for the pit activities in their area. Our representative sits on council; a council that since its election has voted for the dismissal of one person that so far has cost someone 2/3 of a million dollars.

Recently we have been told that between OMB matters and law suites 10s of thousands of dollars have been spent and in a manner that the citizens can’t find out what for and this is just the beginning. The higher up this tree you go the worse it gets. For his part, mayor MacEachern, chair of the urban nodes working group, has been one of the more vocal objectors to Simcoe County having any involvement with water and waste water operations. In fact, in March 2012, he was opposed to the County giving Innisfil $125,000 in funding to help finance a water and waste water study, suggesting “I think that the County has enough to worry about without getting into services which are clearly outside their jurisdiction and within which they have little expertise.”Asked lately why he no longer opposes the County’s involvement, he directed his reply through New Tecumseth communications director Kim Wingrove who stated in an email that “all cooperative alternatives are being considered”. None have been eliminated at this stage. The only commitment that the participating councils are making is to be supportive of studying and gathering information in respect of all cooperative alternatives and opportunities for servicing that may exist. The alternatives and information will be brought back through a public discussion process. No alternatives are being eliminated at this stage.” Isn’t this reply beautiful it reads like a quote from the British comedy “Yes Minister”. If you can decipher this let the rest of us know.

Do I think we are getting our monies worth? You have to be joking; its time we replaced the entire council with the exception of a few. Perhaps the offices of Mayor and Deputy-Mayor should be held by women after all they represent 50% of the electorate.

Tom Carter

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