Oxford County Politics

Tillsonburg Council June 12 Wrap

Sunday, 16 June 2013 22:23 BD

Tillsonburg Council put concerns for citizen’s safety ahead of a business interest. A service station on Broadway wanted to put in a propane filling station, and was requesting a reduction in the required distance between the tank and nearby homes. Local citizens came to council to voice their concerns about possible catastrophic problems if something were to happen. Council sided with the citizens so the propane filling station will not be built.

Council has approved a zoning change that will allow a daycare to move into a building on King Street South of Third. The one major concern for the daycare is the adjacent CP rail line. The railway will be consulted about train schedules, the number of trains and fencing of the area.

The Town of Tillsonburg Council has added bylaw enforcement responsibilities to a couple of employees. This will allow more people to monitor bylaw infractions and issue the appropriate tickets. It also helps cover off for the regular bylaw enforcement officers when it comes to time off for vacations or sickness or other duties.

Tillsonburg Council has been told that the local hospital will be losing funding for Complex Care Beds in town because there is a greater need for those beds in Grey Bruce. Mayor John Lessif understands that the South West Local Health Integration Network only has so much money to spread in an area that stretches from Lake Erie to Tobermory and from Oxford County to west of London. But he is miffed that the funding for the needed beds is coming from smaller jurisdictions because Council was told that the city of London is not giving up any CCC beds. Lessif says one of the problems is the lack of representation on the LHIN from Oxford County. LHIN is actually looking for two volunteers for the board from the County.

Oxford County Council June 12 Wrap

Sunday, 16 June 2013 22:22 BD

As a result of the City of Woodstock taking the County to the Ontario Municipal Board over extending waste water services to the county works yard on the 11^th line, Oxford is scaling back the project.

Because of the question around waste water, the County will not proceed with the construction of the vehicle wash bays that were to be added to the building. Construction will proceed on adding shop space, office space, an employee lunchroom and more storage space for long term storage for county records. If the OMB sides with Woodstock and does not allow the County to connect to the waste water system, then work could be carried out to increase the capacity of the septic system. If the Woodstock appeal is turned down, no expansion of the septic system would be necessary.

Walker Environmental has not given the County a firm answer on whether an epidemiologist study and report will be part of the final terms of reference around the proposed landfill in Centreville. Oxford County, Ingersoll and Southwest Oxford Councils all passed a similar bylaw requesting that Walker use the epidemiologist to look at the possible long term health effects from living near a dump, While Walker did not specifically say they would bring the scientist on board, they did say that they were exploring options to resolve the long term health concerns before the final terms of reference are submitted to the Environment Ministry.

Woodstock would still like the County to take the old Thomas Bus property off their hands. The City thinks that the County could use the site for their works yard. In return, the County would close the works yard on the 11^th line. A concern around the condition of the soil on the site would not be a factor in this deal. The site soil is contaminated, and for many purposes would have to be cleaned up, which both the City and County say is a very expensive proposition. But, because of the fact there are similar industrial uses for the land, soil remediation would not be necessary. Council decided to receive the report as information, which in political terms means that the County is not interested in the land.

Oxford County is supporting Norwich Township when it comes to setting some rules and regulations around the proposed ProWind turbine complex on Gunn’s Hill Road. One of the biggest concerns raised by Norwich Mayor Don Doan is the amount of cement that will be poured into the ground to support the turbine towers. The turbines are free standing structures with no guide wires to support them, so the base will to go deep into the ground. Both Norwich and the County want assurances that once the life span of the towers is exhausted, that all of the cement be removed. Both levels of government also want numerous controls on roads and traffic around the site, full site decommissioning, emergency servicing and other issues to be clarified and dealt with before construction begins.

Industries, commercial and institutions that make a concerted effort to reduce the amount of water consumed and waste water put into the system will see those efforts rewarded. County Council has approved staff recommendation that will provide businesses with extra incentives to conserve water and lower the amount of waste water. Those bonuses will be on top of the savings that come from lower regular charges.

Ingersoll Council June 10 Wrap

Sunday, 16 June 2013 22:21 BD

Staff of the Southwestern Ontario Local Integrated Health Network got a rough ride at Ingersoll Council over a report that will be presented to the LIN Board of Directors the end of the month. The reduction calls for a more than 50% reduction in the number of Complex Continuing Care Beds at Alexandra Hospital. Complex Care beds are used in a hospital to service patients whose care needs are beyond those that could be received in a long term care facility or in the home. The report says the move is to try and get as many seniors back into their homes as possible, but that moves will be accompanied by bed closures to save money in the system. There are currently 63 complex care beds among the three hospitals in Oxford County, 14 of them in Ingersoll. The LIN report originally suggested removing all of the beds from Alexandra Hospital, but the recommendation will be to keep 5. There will be a similar reduction in Tillsonburg but all of the complex care beds in Woodstock will stay. Ingersoll Councilors were most upset on two fronts…the fact that Alexandra Hospital is losing any beds at all and the fact that they are receiving this information so late in the process which will make working on changes difficult if not impossible.

A bylaw controlling clothing donation bylaws will be coming back to Ingersoll Council. Deputy Mayor Fred Freeman has asked the clerk to generate a new bylaw and send it to committee before it comes back to council for approval. Mayor Ted Comiskey says most people think they are donating their used clothing to a charity, but in reality the clothes are being sold for private profit. The other problem is that the bins are being dropped on vacant property without the consent of the owners. Zorra Township has a bylaw controlling clothing bins and it seems to have the problem under control.

Ingersoll Town Council is supporting an Oxford County Council motion requesting that an epidemiologist be added to the Environmental Review around the proposed landfill in the Carmeuse quarry in Centreville. The epidemiologist would study possible long term health effects that could arise living near a dump. Walker Environmental the company proposing the dump is drafting their terms of reference for the Environmental Assessment Process. The final terms of reference will be approved by the Ministry of the Environment and will be subject to a peer review from a committee hired by the County and three municipalities.

Ingersoll Mayor Ted Comiskey feels stricter controls have to be placed on the large item pickup or the amount of trash will continue to grow. Comiskey was commenting after a staff report that said public works in the town picked up 16,000 more kilograms of trash this year than last. The Mayor says many items that were left out for large item pickup should have been recycled or placed for regular pick up. Comiskey says the situation will be reviewed by staff.

Woodstock City Council, June 6th

Saturday, 08 June 2013 13:45 JW

By Brian Donlevy,

Woodstock City Council has agreed to spend more than $200,000 to find out if the area proposed for a 5 diamond softball/lobball baseball complex in the north east corner of the city can actually be used for that purpose. Council was told that geotechnical, environmental impact, detailed engineering and other studies for the ball complex alone add up to $211,200. If the city wants to look even further into the future and consider the possibility of a twin pad ice rink, a pool and a subdivision there would be an additional $410,000 in studies needed. If they are all done at once there could be could be savings of $35,000 but the total cost runs more than half a million dollars to complete everything at once. The studies will take 12 to 18 months to complete and then the project could be built in stages but the current estimated cost for the entire project sits at $23 million. The hope is to have the diamond complex ready for use May 1st, 2016.

For a city that relies heavily on the automotive industry for revenue, Woodstock Council has decided not to support a request from Local 88 of the CAW to have the municipal government call on the federal and provincial governments to adopt a national auto strategy. Mayor Pat Sobeski says some of the items asked for in the resolution, such as an 80 cent dollar were totally unattainable. He also says the City is already working hard with partners in Asia to bring more automotive manufacturing jobs to Woodstock. Councillor Bill Bes had moved to support Local 88’s motion but it was defeated because the vote ended in a 3-3 tie.

The City of Woodstock is reasonably happy with the planning services provided by Oxford County, but not happy enough to not want to stay with them. City Council received a report from CAO David Creery outlining the reasons why Woodstock should have their own planner. Creery told council that a couple of recent decisions and recommendations of the County planning staff that conflict with the wishes of the city. Two of those decisions both included the provision of wastewater access to a small group of homes near Norwich Avenue and Patullo Drive in the south end of the city and to a County works yard on the city’s west end. City Council was told to hire their own planner would cost them more than $100,000 and currently according to Creery’s figures the City pays the County almost a quarter million dollars for the services.

Pets in foster care in Woodstock will be tagged but the temporary caregivers for the pets will not be charged for them. City Council voted to accept a staff report that exempted foster pets waiting for adoption from having to pay for their tags. In order to qualify the animal must be in the care of a recognized animal rescue group and be in foster care for no longer than 6 months. The people providing the care must inform City Hall of the arrival of the foster pet within 10 days of it entering its temporary home.

The company that wanted to build a crematorium in the east end of Woodstock, has announced it will go to the Ontario Municipal Board to appeal the city’s decision to deny the zoning change that would have allowed the facility. Now the company has another problem. The city of Woodstock will not sell them the parcel of land in question. When the deal between the company and the city was struck one of the conditions was that zoning had to be changed to allow for the crematorium. There was another problem with the document and that was a date for the finalization of the deal needed to be changed and that needed council approval. Mayor Pat Sobeski says that Council decided not to make the change. In fact the motion to bring the date change to the floor of council for a vote did not have a mover or seconder so it was dropped. Sobeski says the reason council denied the zoning change to allow for the crematorium was concerns expressed by other businesses in the business park that such a usage would adversely affect their businesses and property values.

Zorra council, June 4th

Thursday, 06 June 2013 18:43 JW

By Brian Donlevy,

Dogs will soon be able to run free in Thamesford…at least in the dog park. The fencing for the park in Thamesford has been ordered and installation should start in the next week or so. Staff feels it will take a couple more weeks to complete the project so Fido will be able to run leash free,

The ice surface at the Thamesford Arena will be brighter and less costly in the coming season. Parks and Rec staff in Zorra Township are reviewing three bids to convert the lighting over the ice. The work will be completed before the start of hockey season.

Although there may be 35% less value in construction going on in Zorra Township, it still appears to be a good year. 2012 was a record year in the Township so a drop was expected. As of the end of May there were actually more permits issued than a year ago, 79 this year compared to 71 a year ago. The value of the permits this year is more than $7 million, which brought in permit revenue of more than %50,000.

People not using the designated detours around Highway 7 in the north part of Zorra Township will be under the watchful eye of the Ministry of Transportation and the OPP. Zorra Council was told that many people are using Township Road 96 for their shortcut and the road is not designed to accept that high volume of traffic. In order to get drivers to follow the signed route, the police and ministry officials will be stepping up enforcement activities.