Short and pretty sweet at SF Council

Craig Bakay | Oct 18, 2017

Coming in at a whole 16 minutes, Tuesday’s regular South Frontenac Council meeting in Sydenham wasn’t the shortest on record (14 minutes) but it was close.
Still, after acknowledging that the meeting was being held on Coun. Ron Sleeth’s 74th birthday, Council did cross a few T’s and dot a few I’s.

For one thing, the Harrowsmith Beautification Committee was recognized as a committee of Council. Based on the model of the successful Verona Community Association, the committee has been busy with a beautification project for Harrowsmith that includes flags, flowers and benches.
When asked by Mayor Ron Vandewal if they “are they as organized as Verona?” Councilor Brad Barbeau replied: “there’s a lot of enthusiasm.”
Still with Harrowsmith, Council authorized a $1,000 donation to Harrowsmith Public School for new playground equipment. Councillor Mark Schjerning commented that he was speaking in favour of the motion but also observed: “given what we did for Loughborough and the fact that we have six public schools in the Township, we can probably expect four more similar requests.”

And CAO Wayne Orr gave Council a rundown on new signage at the Township offices in Sydenham.
“We’ve had people with accessibility issues come up the ramp only to be told that building and planning are downstairs,” Orr said. “And we need to make office hours and the entrance to Council Chambers more accessible from the street.”
Council also approved the purchase of 50 new self-contained breathing apparatus units and 150 spare air bottles for the fire department. The price tag of $572,991 plus taxes will be paid this year from reserves to take advantage of a group discount with Kingston but will be listed on the 2018 fire budget.
And finally, Orr gave a brief report on six small-scale (five acres or less) approved in the Township. None of these projects were brought to Council for approval.

Vandewal speculated that the reason none of them came to Council is that they had First Nations endorsement meaning that they didn’t need the points that township approval would have given them.