As they do each year, Meaford’s council will take the month of August as their summer break.
The summer break is a time for council to get some down time to recharge and refresh, and for staff, many of whom take vacation time in the summer months anyway, to have a few weeks free from preparing reports for council meetings, and for this scribe August is always a nice break from the council grind and 500 page (or more) agenda packages.
So like a high school kid with the end of the school year in sight, I am giddy with anticipation, and I am looking forward to a full month free from council meetings, a month void of motions and votes, a break from the routine.
Members of council will no doubt use the time off to spend with family, perhaps take a getaway or two, but even while on break, the many challenges facing this municipality will no doubt still linger in their minds.
From the always present infrastructure needs, to the completion of the short term accommodations bylaw, to the looming and costly wastewater treatment plant expansion, to the increasing pressures created by the growing number of development proposals, council has much on their plate heading into this summer break, not to mention the ever present tensions created by the pumped storage proposal that has gripped council’s, and the community’s, attention for the past five years.
So, as refreshing as any break might be, the challenges facing council don’t go away of course.
As I wrote in last week’s print newspaper (The 3Rs…Rants, Raves & Rumours, July 11, 2024), the badly needed expansion of the municipal wastewater treatment plant is perhaps the biggest challenge facing council in the coming years. It is an issue that has been discussed at council for all of the 16 years that I have been covering the governance of this municipality. In recent years, the cost associated with the required expansion of grown from $20 million to $30 million, to $40 million, and then earlier this month council was presented with a 671-page report that suggests that the expansion could cost as much as $112 million. A staggering sum of money for a small rural municipality to have to contemplate. Not that the expansion is assured to cost that much, but it certainly has the potential to, depending on a number of variables, many well outside of the control of council.
The facility, located on Grant Avenue near Memorial Park, has a reported three-year average of operating at 75.8 percent capacity, and with the recent interest from numerous developers that capacity is quickly dwindling, leaving council no choice but to work toward undertaking a major expansion – or to bring a halt to any new development proposals, which some have already suggested should be council’s course of action.
Council has been advised that within the next five years all of the current available capacity could be taken up by new developments that are already on the books. The design and construction phases will take several years, making it all the more crucial that council continues to push forward, though I suspect we might hear increasing calls to throttle new development in order to avoid the costly expansion.
Ultimately the funding for the wastewater treatment plant should come not from existing ratepayers, but rather through development charges. But the debt that will be required to be taken on by this municipality, while ultimately repaid by development charges, could handcuff this municipality when it comes to other infrastructure needs.
As you can see, with this one issue alone, members of council will be wise to get some rest over the month of August, because when they return, issues such as the wastewater treatment plant will once again be forging ahead with full steam.
The renewed urgency for addressing the wastewater treatment plant is of course the direct result of the significant increase in new development proposals. Some of the developments are already underway, while others are in the early stages of working through the system, with more proposals expected to keep rolling in, and with capacity for just 500 more connections, the wastewater treatment plant will quickly reach full capacity. So how council chooses to handle the continued development proposals will be interesting to watch. This is one of those cases where council certainly finds themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
On top of the laundry list of important issues and challenges facing council when they return from their August break, it won’t be long before council is once again immersed in budget preparations for the coming year.
Budget time is always a stressful time for council, as it is for ratepayers, who in recent years have had to endure significant inflationary pressures across the board, bringing renewed focus to any increases that our local council might be considering.
As you can see, the issues are many, the challenges continue to mount, and so the seven members of council that we voters have elected to represent us around the council horseshoe have much work ahead of them after their summer break.
So rest up, members of council, everybody deserves and needs a break, and you are going to need it because the pressures of growth are building, the concerns about the proposed pumped storage facility are going to remain front and centre, roads and bridges will always require more funding, and the next municipal budget is always as challenging as the last.
