By John Francis, Bruce Peninsula Press
The Inaugural Meeting of Northern Bruce Peninsula’s 2022-26 Municipal Council was held on November 15.
Municipal Clerk, Cathy Addison administered the Oath of Office to the Council members.
Mayor’s Inaugural Address
Mayor McIver gave his customary inaugural address.
He began by acknowledging staff’s hard work over the last four years. It was a busy term and under the circumstances, everybody excelled. “I do believe public service is a calling,” he said; “We have a shared goal of making our community better.” He noted that on November 14, the new council had “a great training day” in which they were introduced to a lot of history — past strategic plans back to 2015, the public consultation processes which led to the municipality’s four Strategic Priorities, which were ratified by the 2018-22 Council as well.
The first priority, a strong and resilient economy, is a moving target. We want our community to be seen as a desirable place to live, work, play, invest. We need to make MNBP attractive to new and existing businesses; but there is a gap we need to fill over the next four years — we need infrastructure so that we can maintain a work force to support our economy.
The second priority is transparent, responsible government. “As long as I can remember, we have worked on transparency”, he said, but during the last term of council, we brought it to a new level with technology (all meetings have been available online since 2020). He also acknowledged the importance of the Bruce Peninsula Press to transparency: “I know a lot of people who read the Press and they mention it”. On the subject of municipal reserves — we get criticized for the amount of money we have tied up in reserves but it may turn out that they aren’t even adequate for what we need to accomplish. We need to update our planning documents. People are looking to invest here and they need clarity as to rules and regulations. A Bruce County Official Plan update is currently in process; then it will be our turn.
The third priority is sustaining our environment and infrastructure. There are a number of bodies that protect our unique environmental assets — Parks Canada, Ontario Parks and other groups buying environmentally sensitive properties, plus we have our own planning documents concerning waste management, landfills, wastewater, drinking water. “Our planning documents protect our unique environmental assets where development occurs. We have to ensure our infrastructure such as waste management, water and waste water are proactively managed…..sustainable infrastructure.”
The fourth priority is a safe and sustainable community. Everyone must feel safe here; we have OPP contract policing and our own Bylaw Enforcement team. But to create a vibrant community, we need our Recreational Master Plan. There have been a number of studies done over the last four years but it will be the responsibility of the new Council to decide how to prioritize and implement all the recommendations. Important decisions must be made — what are our priorities for asset management? How do we maintain (or improve?) the buildings and services we offer currently? And how do we deal with the extremely important issue of attainable housing? We’re not the only ones trying to do this but it’s not an easy task. There are recommendations within that report that Council will look at — roads and so forth. People want sidewalks; the last Council agreed with that, agreed that we will devote money to that, to address the places where people are forced to walk on the road, including tourists.
We have a climate action plan, which includes many recommendations. We need an energy audit of our facilities — it has been completed but not yet presented to Council. “By implementing recommendations from the audit we will reduce our GHG emissions.”
The Recreational Master Plan was just completed. It determined that we need to improve the arena and library and add recreation space; we also need to move the Friendship Club. When we’re trying to attract people to the area, it’s good to have these recreational facilities in place. We have completed a number of studies and plans, with the costs associated with those plans. This new Council will have to choose its priorities.
As our community changes, our Bylaws need to change. “We try to get those changes right the first time but sometimes we don’t…” We may need to make changes to some of those bylaws. The paid parking bylaw is an example — we work with it every fall to improve it.
The Municipal Accommodations Tax (MAT) and paid parking are revenue sources. Residents tell us they want tourists to pay for tourism. We need to work with our bylaws to make sure we get them right. We are working with Bruce County on development projects. We have access to County Planning staff two days a week. This is a pilot exercise; we will see how it works out.
Cell service. It’s terrible in some places; especially terrible in Lion’s Head. It seems to be OK up north (nods from the other councillors). We are waiting for high speed internet throughout the municipality.
“I always look forward to strategic planning sessions with a new council; ours will be November 30. I look forward to seeing what comes out of that exercise. I think we heard from yesterday’s exercise with the new Council that we may at times disagree; but once decisions are made, we must work together. I look forward to working with each of you as we represent and serve the people of Northern Bruce Peninsula.”
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At the end of the ceremony, Mayor McIver called the Meeting to order.
The new Council is Mayor Milton McIver, Deputy Mayor Rod Anderson and Councillors Todd Dowd, Laurie (Smokey) Golden and Aman Sohrab.
After approval of Minutes and Agenda, CAO Peggy Van Mierlo-West presented Mayor McIver with a certificate from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing recognizing 40 years of service with municipal government.
Mayor McIver was first elected in 1982 as Reeve of Lindsay Township, a position he held until municipal amalgamation in 1999. He chaired the Transition Team, for what became Northern Bruce Peninsula then was elected Mayor in the subsequent election (and 6 more elections since then). He is the second-longest serving Mayor in Ontario (and probably Canada too).
The meeting included several housekeeping items (trailer agreements, Site Plan Control agreements, deeming bylaws, committee appointments etc) but only a couple of items of substance.
The Fire Chief was given approval to spend $270,000 on new Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBAs).
Council received a complete Clerk’s Report on the municipal election, including voter turnout (37.3%). Councillor Smokey Golden pointed out that a lot of “voters” don’t actually live here; she didn’t think we should feel disappointed. “Look at how many people actually live here — the vote was probably pretty high.”
Council received a Clerk’s Report regarding the Fees and Charges By-law review. A public meeting will be held on Monday, November 28, 2022.
