North Frontenac Council - Oct 9/12

Jeff Green | Oct 11, 2012

Fire hall task force gets its marching orders

North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton saved some time by directly appointing Councilor Gerry Martin to chair a task force to come up with a design and costing for a solution to the Ompah fire hall conundrum.

Martin will come up with a list of task force members to be brought to Council for approval later this week.

Councilor John Inglis asked Clayton why he had not been appointed to the task force as well, and Clayton said that if Inglis wants on, he could be on the task force as well. CAO Cheryl Robson will be the staff liaison to the task force.

It will come up with its own terms of reference at its first meeting, which will then come back to council for approval.

“The task force’s mandate will be threefold – to develop a design and cost of a 3,000 square foot fire hall with the money that is available, and if that is not possible, to develop a design for a smaller fire hall with the money that is available, or to bring back options about what we can do if we cannot afford to build a new fire hall at all,” Clayton said.

There remain questions about how much money is available for a new building. $400,000 was earmarked for the project originally, but the cost of an Environmental Assessment, and the charges to the township from a failed attempt to do a joint project with Frontenac County, will come off that total.

Questions about ATV run and road damages

Council received a number of before and after photographs from Denis Bedard, which showed, according to Bedard, that “no severe damage was done” to Norcan Lake Lane during the fall ATV run, “although in several corners the gravel appeared to be loosened.”

The firefighters who organize the fundraising ATV runs paid for damage to the lane after the spring run, and they said they would monitor the road during the fall run.

Councilor Hunter pointed out that in some cases the before and after shots were not taken at the same location.

Councilor Inglis, who told Council he has received a confidential complaint about damage from the ATV run from a resident on another road, said, “If it was my road I would be upset... When you do a fundraising activity, you don’t just collect money, you have to cover all your costs. One of the costs is putting things back exactly the way they were before the event.”

Council decided there was ample time to consider what kinds of measures they want to see in place before the next scheduled ATV run in the spring of 2013.

Special meeting – Council held a special meeting on Wednesday morning, October 11, to receive an audit report and finalise plans for an asset management plan, as well as to finalise the fire hall task force. The meeting took place after the News went to print.