By John Francis
St Edmunds Property Owners (SEPO) hosted an all candidates meeting at the community centre in Tobermory on October 7. All municipal candidates attended, as did Bluewater District School Board Trustee candidate Robert Galbraith. Attendance exceeded expectations, with organizers scrambling to set up several more rows of seats as attendees filed in.
The best part of the evening was the Q&A period. Many questions pertained to decisions made by the current council, especially on three subjects: tax increases; a subdivision at the head of Hay Bay; and about Big Tub Road and the vacant shoreline property there that was recently purchased by the municipality (Lot 213).
On tax increases, the incumbent councillors all defended their decisions. Incumbent Mayor Milt McIver (who incumbent Deputy Mayor Rod Anderson described as “our tax guru”) explained that the largest items in the budget are Public Works (PW) and that cost increases to most components in the PW budget have far outstripped inflation — “41 to 43 percent over two years” for things like microsurfacing (paving) — and have not come back down.
Surprisingly, no one offered a contradictory position.
At the end of the evening, Moderator John Currie asked a question on behalf of the SEPO executive: is anybody in favour of not increasing taxes?
Mayor McIver was given the microphone to respond. “That would not be a wise thing to do,” he began. “We’re already playing catch-up”. Some politicians make promises about this, he continued, “but it’s not the right thing to do.”
There has been a controversy in recent years about a proposed subdivision at the head of Hay Bay, near Tobermory. The property in question includes most of the wetland at the head of the bay, which provides important habitat to reptiles, amphibians, herons, waterfowl, mammals and breeding fish.
Most residents and most councillors opposed the subdivision, but in the end, the Bruce County Planning Department recommended accepting it and Council passed it. But they were not happy about it.
The Hay Bay subdivision was discussed at length at the all candidates meeting. The original questioner, Rob Davis, described the subdivision as “a disgrace”; no one contradicted him. He wanted to know why the subdivision was approved by Council.
Mayor McIver explained the decision: The property went through the planning process; studies were completed and peer-reviewed; the County approved the process. “This puts Council in an awkward position.” If Council doesn’t approve the county’s recommendations, “it’s going to be a legal battle”.
Councillor Golden pointed out that “I voted against it,” before explaining further: the problem is that we went through Bruce County. [The county provides planning services to municipalities.] If we go against a county decision, it will be taken to the Ontario Municipal Board and the county will not support us. “Sometimes the process just doesn’t work.”
Since that meeting, I have asked a couple of councillors for further clarification. If Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula (MNBP) rejects a County Planning recommendation and the property owner appeals the decision to the Ontario Municipal Board, we’d have to hire our own planning consultants to defend our decision. But we’d also be paying the county planners to come and defend their recommendation. “And we’d probably lose anyway,” one of the councillors finished.
We have gone against county recommendations on a couple of occasions, one councillor told me. But Council should be very nervous about doing this.
MNBP purchased a property on Big Tub Road (Lot 213). The lot is beside an unopened road allowance, which adds considerably to its potential as recreational space.
A number of Big Tub property owners are extremely concerned that development of Lot 213 would cause problems (several different kinds) and also that the decision to purchase the property was made in closed session.
Incumbent councillors defended the decision. Milt McIver noted that “no development” was a condition of the sale of Lot 213. Smokey Golden pointed out that property purchases are always done in closed session — “Otherwise you’d pay double” [because speculators would drive the price up]. Todd Dowd observed diplomatically that there will be other issues of greater import than Lot 213.
