Letter to the Editor
Editor,
I have spent some time going over the “Municipality of Meaford – State of the Infrastructure – Roads” report. Roads are the single most important service which a municipality provides directly.
The report is approximately 175 pages long and presents far too much detail for me to comment upon except in broad terms.
For those of you who have not driven on the roads in Sydenham Township, this report should make it very clear to you why the residents of the first incorporated municipality in Grey County (in 1850) are so upset and feel utterly ignored in this amalgamation.
I refer you to Appendix G Critical Deficiencies where nearly every road in Sydenham Township has at least one critical deficiency whereas in the former town of Meaford the deficiency mostly relates to water and sewer construction (from Appendix H Needs Sorted by Time of Need and Improvement Category).
The report states that only 6% of the roads in the municipality have reliable data i.e. traffic counts, on which to base the road usage so it’s very likely that the situation is even worse than presented.
The report recommends a “Preservation Model” which means “some bad roads will get worse during the time we are ‘keeping good roads good’” – in the 10 year duration of the financial model suggested. That doesn’t give me the feeling that the municipality is looking out for the best interests of any of its taxpayers.
Dianne Charlton, Annan
