CENTRAL MANITOULIN—The Central Manitoulin council chambers were filled to standing room only as council deliberated on the recommendation from the March 3 Water, Waste and Education Committee to give second and third readings to the final cost levy bylaw for the Mindemoya Drain. Although the council voted narrowly to pass the bylaw, opponents have indicated they are not going to go quietly into the night on this file.
The recommendation from committee had come before council following a recorded vote requested at the committee level by Councillor Patricia MacDonald. Councillors Alex Baran, Councillor MacDonald, Councillor Derek Stephens and Councillor Ted Taylor voted in favour of the motion at committee, with Mayor Richard Stephens providing the sole dissenting vote.
When the motion came before the March 10 meeting of the Central Manitoulin council, Mayor Stephens stepped out of the chair in order to be able to fully address and debate the motion. Councillor MacDonald assumed the chair temporarily while the motion was debated.
Mayor Stephens began his address of the motion by providing a historical perspective of the Mindemoya Drain, noting that the issue was “longstanding.” He noted that the issues (the drain levy assessment issue is inextricably linked to the concurrent Yonge Street roadwork) first came to his attention in 2006 when he discussed the safety issues with the Central Manitoulin Public School principal. “She expressed her concern of the safety of students and bus drivers,” he recalled. Mayor Stephens explained the committee system to the principal. The roads supervisor of the time reviewed the issue.
“In my review of the file, I do not see council dealing with the issue before 2007,” he said. “In 2008 we budgeted $500,000 for the development of the project.” A report (costing $15,000 to $16,000) indicated what needed to be done to correct the issues with the road. The question then became how to finance the project. “At that point we hoped there would be some grant solution from the province,” recalled Mayor Stephens. “That didn’t happen.”
By 2009, the municipality placed $500,000 in a guaranteed income certificate to look after the town’s portion of financing a major project. It was hoped that the road project would move forward with one third of the funds being provided by each of the province, the federal government and the municipality. “By the beginning of 2010 everything was in place,” recalled Mayor Stephens, and the municipality again made an application on a project with a price tag of $1,568,000. “We didn’t get the grant, but we were not giving up.”
But it wasn’t until 2014 that the logjam was broken, when the provincial government noted that it would provide up to 90 percent of the funding. “To the credit of the council at the time they submitted an application,” he said. But there was a world of change between the project of 2010 and that of 2014. “It was anticipated that it would end up costing $1.6 million, it ended up costing $2.4 million in total.” The original engineering (costing $350,000) was paid for with the original $758,000 grant. “Today, the job is done,” said Mayor Stephens. “We have a bylaw in front of us that would split out a little more than $150,000 of the money that has already been spent.”
The issue that had the chambers filled during the council meeting was in how the costs of the combined project of the Mindemoya Drain and the roadwork would be split. The outstanding balance, after the grant of $1,440,000 was applied, left a balance of $587,000.
Mayor Stephens said that his position was that both parts of the project were included in the grant. “The grant was to look after the project,” he said. Under the mayor’s projections, those ratepayers who were to be assessed by the grant would see a reduction of 40 percent in their assessments.
Councillor Dale Scott noted that he has received a large number of emails dealing with what he termed was a “very large file.” Councillor Scott suggested that a significant portion of the costs associated with the combined project should be borne by the municipality, financed over a period of three to five years to lessen the impact on the tax rolls. “It wouldn’t be onerous for the taxpayers,” he said. Councillor Scott noted that one communication was from a single mother who would be facing a bill of $1,200 to $1,300 under the proposed division of costs.
“This is a complicated file,” agreed Councillor Alex Baran, but he noted the division of costs had not changed substantively since the beginning of the project. “At no time in the evolution of the project have we backed away from that.”
Councillor Baran indicated that “the tragic thing is that public perception is different.” That perception was brought about, he suggested, by a statement made by a councillor reported in a July newspaper, but he pointed out that while the impression given to the public was unfortunate, the statement of one member of council does not dictate council decisions.
He sought to receive leave from council to modify the bylaw (necessary as the required notice had not been given). Although Councillor Stephens offered to second Councillor Baran’s motion, the need for a unanimous support for the amendment made the motion moot.
“I have to restate what Councillor Baran said,” posited Councillor Stephens. “I think we are setting a dangerous precedent (if the assessment division was changed from that assigned by the engineering firm). Other people are going to say you put this in place on this, we want the you to pay ours as well.”
Councillor Ted Taylor said that, as a new member of council, he had come late to the debate. He questioned whether the grants provided were to be applied to the drain project and the road or just to the road portion.
CAO Ruth Frawley indicated that the grant was for the road, except for that portion of the drain associated with the roadwork.
Mayor Stephens said that it was his understanding that the two projects were linked in the report on which the grant application was made. “When the original report was proposed both were under consideration,” he said. “It was the exact same report used to proceed with the application for the successful grant.”
Councillor Scott questioned whether the grant could not be divided more equitably onto both sides of the ledger.
Councillor Baran reiterated the fact that the assessment of 2009 was “not that different from the final plan.” He pointed out that landowners had a tribunal available to challenge their assessment, and that while a couple of landowners had availed themselves of that opportunity, he was not aware that any had been successful in their challenges.
Mayor Stephens entered the debate again, noting that the original assessments had been based on the one-third apportionments, not the eventual 90 percent funding provided by the province.
The recorded vote saw the council split, with Councillors Baran, Taylor and Stephens voting in favour of the motion to assess the drain as presented, while Councillors Farquahar and Scott and Mayor Stephens voted against the motion as presented. It fell to Councillor MacDonald, acting as chair, to cast the deciding vote and she voted for the motion.
The motion may have carried, but opponents say they have not given up the fight.
“This isn’t done yet,” said Steve Schaffer, of Mindemoya, who has been in the forefront of the battle against the assessment of the drain. “I think we are making some progress. We have moved forward from where it was, a total no, no, no, to three in favour of our position. I don’t believe it is done yet.”
Mr. Schaffer said that he has brought the issue forward “to the next level.” By that Mr. Schaffer indicated that he had approached the Ontario Ombudsman’s office, the granting agency and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to “investigate the whole grant application.”
He asserted that “there is a lot of misinformation” ongoing in the issue. He pointed out that the answers provided by the administration and the council did not match.
He said that claiming that the grant was to be applied only to the roads portion of the project did not match his reading of the initial grant application. “I am going to continue to push and I believe I have the documentation to support it,” he said. “This is going from bad to worse and I have escalated to the ministry and to the people responsible for the grant.”
Another issue entirely lies with the massive increase in costs associated with the project, noted Mr. Schaffer. “This was grossly over-budget, from $1.6 million to $2.4 million and nobody is being held to account.” Mr. Schaffer asserted that the community only learned about the extent of the overrun recently, and even then, the costs jumped substantially. “It went from $2.1 million to by January $2.4 million.”
In the meantime, the passage of the bylaw will see invoices for the individual assessments for the Mindemoya Drain going out in the mail.
