IDRA Newsletter 2006 May 18

SOCIAL EVENTS 2006

IN MEMORIAM

We have received notice of the passing of the following residents of Inverhuron.
George Hellmer
Dorothy Smith
?

DIRECTORY

To assist us in updating entries for residents of Inverhuron, please contact
Peter Aunger      paunger@execulink.com      519-235-1222

911 ADDRESSING NORTH Of LAKE STREET

March 20, 2006
Inverhuron District Ratepayers Association
c/oG ordonBarr, Director
697 Barclay Road
London, Ontario
N6K 1K4

Dear Mr. Barr:


RE: 911 ADDRESSING NORTH Of LAKE STREET

At the Marsh 16th, 2006 meeting of the Emergency Services Committee, your request to extend Lake Street north in Inverhuron of its current location along the shoreline and renumber all cottages on this piece of road was discussed.

It was agreed that the affected cottages in this area present a very confusing situation for mapping purposes. Mapping provided by Bruce County and used by local emergency services for emergency services does not clearly locate properties for quick reference due to the reference road use to address the cottages in question.

This is highlighted with some properties located adjacent to each other using Lake Street, Wood Street and Cayley Street respectively to identify them. This could be made much clearer by changing all these cottages to a Lake Street address and requesting the Municipality to extend Lake Street farther (in name only) north to Cayley Street.

Upon inspection of the area in question, large sand dunes were noted to the east of shoreline cottages located north of Lake Street. It is recommended that this sand dune area be left as is and only a road name designation would be assigned to this area for mapping purposes. There are no current plans for development of this proposed read allowance into a standard size road. The Emergency Services Committee is requesting that the Inverhuron District Ratepayers Association send their intended solution to this issue in writing to the Emergency Services Committee c/o Municipality of Kincardine Fire Department for action. It is requested that the correspondence be signed by the IDRA executive for this action to proceed. Please feel free to contact the undersigned at any time with questions or concerns regarding this issue.


Yours truly,
Jamie MacKinnon, CEMC
On behalf of the Emergency Services Committee

STREET LIGHTING by Eugene Bourgeois

I was able to meet with the public works committee on Monday with Dugald Mackenzie. In keeping with my original commitment to him, I addressed his issues first, but told the committee that I was also representing the IDRA and would address these concerns next.

With Dugald, I felt there were two issues of substance to relate. The first was that it is simply inequitous to charge separate roll numbers as if each roll number represented a single property. In Dugald's case, his property contains 4 roll numbers, dating back to the historical and original constitution of Inverhuron. From the muncipality's perspective, and for all other intents and purposes, these 4 roll numbers represent one solitary property. In my own case, when we bought the Campbell property, it became amalgamated with ours in order to separate O'Brecht's from the Campbell property. Canadian Agra had amalgamated these two proerties when it purchased them, but sold them as two separate properties during receivership. We were allowed to change our lot line, thereby joining it with ours, and thereby freeing the O'Brecht property as a simple unit. From the municpality's perspective, this was one property, even though it continued to have 2 roll numbers. Thus I paid twice for street lighting charges. I argued that if the properties were one, and not separate entities with the rights [ertaining to separate properties, they should have only one street lighting charge.

With respect to the street lighting charges, these were levied solely on the residents of Inverhuron. Of the 4 roll numbers Dugald has, only 3 are in Inverhuron, and street lighting charges applied only to those 3. In 1997, around the same time as amalgamation, a whole segment of Inverhuron was removed and Inverhuron was described as in Schedule 3 of the new municipal plan. Since these street light charges pertained only to properties in Inverhuron, when these properties ceased being part of Inverhuron, street lighting charges ought to have stopped then too.

On behalf of the IDRA, I argued that we had appealed the township of Bruce for street lighting to mark each of the major intersections in Inverhuron. We were concerned about the possibility of an accident involving children at one of these intersections because, during the summer and at other times of the year, the streets belong to the children. We wanted both them and drivers, especially at the main street corners, to have the best visibility possible. We also were mindful of the costs of the service and wanted to insure that the costs to the township were minimal. Hence, we asked for and received minimal street lighting to serve the purpose we intended. Bruce township recognised our efforts and charged us $5 per year, an amount it estimated would cover the total costs of operations once the capital costs were returned. Each resident of Inverhuron paid a special billing for these capital costs. With Bruce township, we willingly paid for the service we received.

The municipality of Kincardine universalised its street lighting charges, failing to take into account the level of service received in Inverhuron. However, it continues to segregate the costs of these services and these costs for last year totalled about $890, or less than $4.75 per roll number billed. The municipality collected some $5880 from Inverhuron for this service.

Municipalities are allowed to charge constituents over and above the general tax assessment for special services that pertain to some, but not all, constiuents. They are not, however, allowed to use these simply to increase tax revenues, and that is what this appears to be. We do not have the level of service that other areas in the muncipality have, and nor do we request that level of service. We are more than content to pay for the service we do have and celebrate our civic responsibility in keeping these costs minimal. But we should not be paying for services we do not receive. In this respect, we should have been charged in the neighbourhood of $5 per property for street lighting, and that is what we want.

We also want a refund for our overpayments since amalgamation.

I think I scored points on all fronts. The issue has been sent to staff for a full report and that will be sent to me when it's written. Hewitt cautioned me that opening this issue to full council would likely result in all rural properties being charged for street lighting. I responded that if this were to happen, I would certainly challenge this decision and encourage others to do so too. But in any event, it wouldn't be any worse than we currently experience. Ribey piped in that he while he was in agreement with some of what I said, he was sure the next thing would be for retroactivity, which he couldn't support. I said that he was certainly correct about retroactivity, and since it was a charge that ought not to have been levied in the first place, and had a history of being challenged, retroactivity would be necessary.

The mayor walked in just as we had concluded and wanted a re-hash. Hewitt told him he wasn't prepared to re-open the discussion as we had concluded a plan, but that he would fill him in later. The mayor followed us out and I was able to give him a detailed description and he felt each objection was fair and sound.

I felt reasonably optimistic afterwards, but Dugald thought nothing would come of it. Once the report is prepared, we will have a chance to come back to it. The mayor's parting remarks was that he'd see me in the next meeting, to which I replied that we shouldn't need another meeting. The facts are simple and clear.

HISTORY OF THE VOTE BY MAIL by Gordon Barr

A brief history of the events that lead up to me being on the ad hoc committee for the vote by mail. On March 16,2006 Sandy Donald Deputy Mayor for the Municipal of Kincardine advised our President, Phil Herbert via Email that on March 15,2006 the council voted 6-3 on accepting the mail in ballot for the 2006 Municipal election.The recorded voting went:
For: Glenn Sutton, Barry Schmidt, Guy Anderson, Maureen Couture, Howard Ribey and Sandy Donald
Against: Ron Hewitt, Randy Roppel and Gord Campbell.

The Council also asked that an ad-hoc committee be struck to fine tune the procedures with the Clerk. No Councilor will be part of the committee, as we wanted to maintain an arms length approach. The mandate is to have this done in 60 days. Therefore, I would suggest that if any members of your association are interested in taking part, they should send an email to Donna MacDougall, our Clerk for inclusion in the vote by mail ad-hoc committee. Please mention in the email which ward you are in, as we hope to have two from each ward to review the procedures. I hope this helps and I really appreciate your mention of keeping the lines of communication open.

Phil Hebert sent an email to all the directors asking if any director was interested in serving on the committee and that they apply to the clerk. so I did. The committee was made up of people from all three wards, two meeting were held to refine the procedures and the handout , after that the clerk presented the procedures to the council on May 3 ,2006 the council accepted the procedures for the Vote by Mail and for the use of Vote Count Tabulators as drafted.

Attached is the 2006 Municipal Election Procedures.

MEMBERSHIP DUES

Fees for membership in IDRA are now due. The amount for 2005 is $20 and is payable at the Cottage Grocery in Inverhuron or to the Treasurer of IDRA. Checks should be made out to

Inverhuron & District Ratepayers Association

The address of the treasurer is given below

Peter Aunger     23 Sherwood Cres.     Exeter, ON N0M 1S1    
If you submit dues to the treasurer, send a check with the completed membership form BELOW.