Feature Article October 30,2002
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North Frontenac Councillors Grill Ministry OfficialsJim Pine and Warren Sleeth of the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH) appeared before a meeting of North Frontenac Council on Monday Oct. 28 to explain the decision of the ministry to pay $57,000 towards the Cloyne microburst clean up when the township had requested over $400,000.
Before discussing the major discrepancy between the MMAHs calculation of the cost of road cleanup and that of the township, Sleeth referred to what he called the incidental costs the township had applied for. Of the $36,000 in costs for fire crews, the ministry granted $30,000, and they covered 100% of the public works cost, the overtime costs, the extra council meetings and the helicopter costs. All of this amounted to $46,000.
The township had requested $15,000 for lost 911 address signs, which Sleeth said had been refused because 911 signs are private property.
Mayor Johnston intervened at this point, saying 911 has yet to be implemented, those signs are not yet private signs because 911 is still in process. The people have never even received any benefits from 911, so its hard to put that on to private individuals.
Jim Pine then said, This was information that we didnt know about. We will reconsider this.
Warren Sleeth then explained how the $57,000 payment had been determined by the ministry. He said that the townships application for funding claimed there were 71 kilometres of road that needed cleaning up, and estimated it would take a crew of five individuals and a truck one week to clean up each kilometre, at a cost of $6,800 per kilometre.
Using what Sleeth described as due diligence, we sought advice from our sister ministries before making a determination on these costs. The Ministry of Transportation was consulted because they had done a cleanup of 5 km of Highway 41 in early August, immediately after the storm, at a cost of $9,800 all told. they therefore estimated, as did Ontario Hydro, that it would cost $2,000 per km to do the clean up
We also asked the Ministry of Natural Resources to have their foresters look at the 71 kilometres of roads identified in your application, Sleeth added, and they found a range in the amount of damage. In some cases there were up to 80 trees down per km, and in some cases as few as 8, and the costs would therefore be less. In the end, based on due diligence, we decided to grant $70,500 for road cleanup.
The total of road clean up and incidental costs calculations by the ministry came to $116,000. The ministry then deducted 4% of the tax base of North Frontenac, or $58,000, as a matter of course, leaving a $57,000 payment to be made to the township of North Frontenac for relief.
The mayor and councillors were unimpressed with Sleeths explanation, pointing to several additional factors not accounted for by the MMAH.
Councillor Hook took issue with the Ministry of Transportations work on Highway 41 being used to calculate the cleanup costs for the township. First of all, they only had to clean up one side of the Highway, because the trees on the other side fell away from the highway, and all they did was cut away any trees that were overhanging the road, leaving a mess on the side of the road.
Township Clerk Penny Sharman said the request the township had made for funding did take into account that some areas were more affected than others. We said that some areas would take two or three days per kilometre, and some would take 7, and in the end we estimated about 4 days a kilometre.
In a later interview, Sharman told the News, the estimates we came up with were based on what logging cleanup crews told us it would cost to have them do the work. We had hoped to clean up the areas surrounding the roads to return them to where they were before the storm. The main reason for this was to eliminate the fire hazard this debris will become in the next few years.
As far as the MMAH is concerned, as expressed by their two representatives at Mondays meeting, the ministry has made a fair determination of the cost of necessary repairs to public property in North Frontenac, and that comes to $57,000, with a possibility of some additional money for lost 911 signs.
Mayor Stan Johnston, who had earlier told the two ministry officials that he was quite angry with the ministry, finally said to Warren Sleeth, Warren, every time I meet you, you make me unhappy.
When Jim Pine came to Sleeths defense , saying I have to step in, Warren is a valuable employee who works very hard for the ministry, Johnston cut him off, saying, You dont make me any happier!.
Penny Sharman summed up the results of all this by saying North Frontenac will not be able to do all the clean up it had planned to do in the short term, and will have to spread the work over years as funds become available. She also bemoaned the fact that the township had held off on starting much of the work until the ministry had made its funding decision, under the advice of the ministry. By delaying she said, Much of the possibility of recouping some of the costs by selling the fallen lumber has been eliminated.
