Frontenac County Council March 14/13

Jeff Green | Mar 14, 2013

County inches close to the budget finish line, and close to minimal tax increase.

Frontenac County Council met for five hours last Friday, March 8 to work through their 2013 budget in anticipation of passing the document at their regular meeting on March 20.

At the beginning of the meeting, council received a report by Treasurer Marion VanBruinessen, which outlined the impacts of changes that had been made at the previous budget meeting on February 21. According to the report, the requisition to the Frontenac municipalities at the start of the meeting stood at $8.35 million, just over $71,000, or 0.86% higher than the 2012 requisition.

After poking and prodding at the budget on Friday, only another $20,000 in savings was realised, leaving the requisition at about $50,000 up over 2012. Council was not able to complete their work on the budget, but they are still expecting to have the job completed on March 20.

Fairmount Home auditorium redevelopment approved: Kingston City Council to be approached for $1.4 million

“We've been led to the water; it's time we took a drink,” was how South Frontenac Mayor Gary Davison described the decision by Frontenac County Council to go forward with a $2.175 million redevelopment of the auditorium at the Fairmount Home long term care facility.

The project was included in the 2013 Frontenac County Capital budget document, so when council came to the relevant page, they were confronted with a decision that has been at least five years in the making.

“This is our opportunity to commit to the Fairmount auditorium,” said Councilor John McDougall.

Because Fairmount Home is a jointly funded operation between the county and the City of Kingston, approval of the project by the county is not sufficient. The city will have to be on board as well, to the tune of about $1.4 million.

“I don’t recall the city councillors making specific mention of this,” said Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle.

“We have gone to RULAC [the Rural Urban Liaison Committee] with reports, but the project has not been presented to City Council. Staff at the city are aware of it, but we had no authority to bring it to city council until it was approved at this table,” said county treasurer, Marion VanBruinessen.

“The ball is in our court, essentially,” said Warden Janet Gutowski.

“But even if we say yes there will be one more hurdle,” said Doyle in response.

A fundraising camping has brought in $200,000 towards the project, and $496,000 is slated to be taken from the Fairmount Home capital reserve fund. Therefore the decision county council was facing did not involve any new taxation.

“I don’t think we have any choice but to endorse this project. We have remained silent about it while the money was being raised,” said North Frontenac Councilor John Inglis.

Former Frontenac Islands Mayor Jim Vanden Hoek addressed that very point several years ago. The proposal for a fundraising campaign was brought forward by Fairmont administrator Julie Shillington in September of 2010, and at that time Vanden Hoek urged council to defer any decision on fund-raising until they had made a decision on the project,

“Even though they are not asking us to commit to doing the upgrade, once a fundraising campaign is underway and the public has committed money, how can Council say no to the project?” Vanden Hoek said at the time.

Last week, Vanden Hoek’s prediction came true, as council unanimously supported the auditorium redevelopment project.

The Fairmount auditorium is not currently in use. It has a leaky roof, as well as major electrical, heating and air conditioning issues, which have rendered it unusable by residents of Fairmount Home or as a gathering place for county and public functions.

If the project does receive funding from the City of Kingston, the concept plan for the space includes: a covered entrance and a lift, a lobby, storage, accessible washrooms, space for vending machines and resident games tables, a kitchen with a pass-though, a greenhouse, and removable walls that give it the capacity to be split into three separate spaces.

It is not clear when the matter will be raised at City Council, but if it is deemed to be a budget item it will have to wait until next fall, when they consider their 2014 budget.