North Frontenac Council - Nov 26/12

Jeff Green | Nov 29, 2012

Proposal for park at Clar-Mill Hall

Jocelyne Lemke appeared before Council to advocate for a park in the Plevna/Ompah region of the township.

“I am grateful for everything that we have in the township and for the efforts that the council makes. However a park facility would be a great place for an entire family to socialize! Where our children could play, families could picnic, adults gather, and community events could be held outdoors. An ideal park would have play structures, swings, benches, picnic tables and an outdoor shelter,” she said.

While she mentioned a number of possible locations, she said the area around the Clar-Mill hall in Plevna, which already has a winter hockey rink, would be ideal.

"The Clar-Mill volunteers had a park on their wish list a couple of years ago so I know they would work on building one,” she said.

She asked if Council might consider putting in a Trillium application for a new park when they are working on next year's budget, estimating that it would cost $40,000 or more for the project.

Mayor Bud Clayton thanked Jocelyn Lemke for her presentation and said they would look at it when they are doing the budget in the coming weeks.

Only 40 septic re-inspections in 2012: Eric Kohlsmith from the Mississippi-Rideau Septic System Office (MRSSO), presented his report on the 2012 voluntary septic re-inspection program on the township's lakes.

The program is designed to inspect about 100 properties on as many lakes as possible within the township, with a view to fostering an understanding of the need to maintain functioning septic systems on waterfront properties because of the impact on phosphorous and other compounds on wildlife habitat.

In the executive summary to his report Kohlsmith outlined some of the issues that the program faced this year: “During the 2012 sewage system re-inspection program 40 properties were inspected on nine lakes – Brule, Buckshot, Canonto, Grindstone, Mackie, Marble, Mazinaw, Palmerston and Shabomeka. Two hundred and thirty-four Property Owner Information packages were mailed out in a total of four mailings. New for 2012, the MRSSO went door to door to 76 properties that had not responded by the week of August 13. In total 234 Property Owner packages were sent, rendering a 17% response rate. One of the possible reasons for the low response rate was that approximately 131 properties were non-respondents from previous years.”

Of those 40 inspections, two resulted in recommendations for replacement, and about 20 others required remediation of some form, most typically a simple pump out. In addition to the 40 inspections, another 36 property owners were visited and given information about septic system maintenance.

“The goal of the program over the last two years has been to inspect properties that we had been unable to inspect in previous years, and the township needs to decide what to do for next year. We could continue to focus on non-respondents, which would reduce the overall number of inspections; expand the voluntary program to property owners we have not yet approached; enter into mandatory inspection to force compliance; or do a combination of all three,” Kohlsmith said.

He pointed out that Tay Valley Township, which does 200 inspections each year, passed a bylaw enabling mandatory inspection on seven of its more sensitive lakes, and uses voluntary inspections in the rest of the township.

A handshake or Mazinaw Rock? After a discussion about a proposed new township logo at the last meeting, which led to the rejection of the proposal after a 3-3 vote, Councilor Betty Hunter was seeking clarification.

“Does Council want to keep the existing logo or should we be looking at commissioning a new one?” she asked.

Mayor Clayton then said that the old logo does not feature a handshake as everyone on Council thought.

“I talked to Laurie Lemke, who designed it, and she said the logo includes trees, water, and Mazinaw Rock, not a handshake,” said Clayton.

Lonnie Watkins said, “Look at it, it's two hand shaking.”

“No,” said Clayton, “it's the rock, the trees and the water.

“Well, what's this big hand doing holding the rock?” asked Watkins.

While Council did not answer Hunter's question, it looks as if the rock (or handshake) may be here to stay.

Arsenic to be removed from fire hall site -

A Phase 11 environmental assessment of the proposed building site for a new fire hall has been completed by Malroz Engineering. They found no issues of concern at the site, save for a localised area where levels of arsenic were high. This area did not correspond to any of the previous uses of the site as a gas station and garage. Nonetheless, Malroz recommended removing the offending soil, preferably with them present, and then taking more samples for testing. Costs for this further step should be minimal.

Councilor Inglis said that he had been talking to a retired engineer, who told him the arsenic is more than likely naturally occurring and should be left where it is.

“Can your friend give a stamp of approval for the site?” asked Deputy Mayor Fred Perry.

Council decided to take the next step, which will get them an approved building site for a new fire hall.

A bridge too far – Public Works Manager Jim Phillips recommended that the township apply to a new provincial infrastructure program for a new two-lane bridge to replace the one-lane Mississippi bridge on Road 509.

The existing bridge is in need of repair, and a new bridge would not only negate the need for repairs, it would deal with a long standing concern over having a one-lane bridge on a major arterial road that is used by delivery trucks on a regular basis.

“We have applied for that bridge how many times in the past? Two, or is it three?” said Councilor Wayne Good. "Why apply again when the province is so uninterested?”

“The bridge was in good shape then,” said Mayor Clayton. “Now it isn't. That improves our chances.”

It will cost the township $10,000 to do the groundwork for the application, and if successful the township will have to pay about $200,000 for a new bridge, which would cost about between $2 and $2.5 million.