GORE BAY—As part of a new procedural bylaw that will see two of its committees eliminated and council having two regular council meetings per month (they currently meet once per month), Gore Bay town council has agreed to the creation of a new taskforce for planning and developing matters.
“We need to focus on growth of the town,” said Harry Schlange, town manager. “The town population has decreased and our development has been slow. In fact, over the last decade the town growth has been the lowest on the Island. The average growth rate has been less than 1.2 percent over the last five years and our assessment value is less than $74 million.”
“We need to develop our housing capacity,” said Mr. Schlange. “We have underutilized and underdeveloped lots and buildings, and we are not optimizing this.”
“We need to increase housing, population growth and commercial development,” said Mr. Schlange. “What’s important is that we have tremendous amenities and we need to look at how to get young families here and maintain the population we have and develop more housing so we continue to grow and keep young people and seniors here.”
He said the town has received feedback from local businesses and healthcare providers that the town does not have the housing stock to recruit and retain top talent.
The new taskforce will act as an advisory body to council to develop a fulsome action-oriented strategy for future growth with some bold medium-term actions.
The outcome of this taskforce is to provide actions and goals for council to make better decisions on how to grow the community responsibly (growth being defined as both more resident and commercial/industrial opportunities). It will include priority areas to invest in infrastructure, servicing vacant lots, under-utilized existing buildings/land (public and private) and promoting development of vacant commercial space. The taskforce will also assist in forming advice and recommendations in collaboration with staff to council.
At its recent meeting, the council agreed with the proposed changes to the current committee and council structure. Town Clerk Stasia Carr said, “three recommendations are being made by staff: presenting a new procedural bylaw including two council meetings a month, a review of council remuneration and the creation of a planning and development taskforce.”
“The current structure includes one council meeting per month supplemented by standing committees that focus on specific areas such as finance, policy and procedure, bylaws etc, through a general government committee and infrastructure and property operations through a public works and properties committee. While this structure has been (in place) for a long period of time, staff have observed its function and have increasing concerns about its efficiency and effectiveness in addressing the growing needs of the community. It is with these concerns that this new structure is being presented.
The proposed procedure bylaw introduces a shift from the existing structure to holding two council meetings each month. This change aims to improve the efficiency of council operations by reducing the backlog of agenda items and reduce the need to schedule numerous additional special council meetings. Background on the proposal indicates between 2020 and 2024, an average of four additional meetings were scheduled. New business on occasion has been presented at a council meeting only to be deferred to a committee to discuss and make a recommendation to council which is not an efficient process.
The change, which includes the elimination of the public works and general government committees (to go with two council meetings per month), is proposed to enhance the responsiveness of the council to emerging issues and community concerns; improve on transparency of decision making by having all decisions and discussions occurring on a consistent platform instead of between several individual meetings, where minutes are recorded in numerous locations and at different scheduled times. This simplifies the record keeping as documents and actionable items which increases transparency. It is also designed to increase public opportunities with more frequent council meetings to encourage a more inclusive response.
Town Manager Harry Schlange said most progressive municipalities have two council meetings per month. He said by having a meeting every two weeks it provides for timely decision making and the ability to move things forward more expediently than monthly or calling for special council meetings, increased productivity and efficiency. It eliminates duplication by not having to discuss the same reports twice.
Mayor Ron Lane explained, “After Harry and I discussed the taskforce we agreed the taskforce will include two members of council. I approached Dan (Osborne) and Rob (Dearing) and they both said they would be interested.”
It was explained two citizen representatives, Brian Dittmar as a special advisor on major infrastructure development projects and Carolyn Campbell as special advisor on major infrastructure development projects have agreed to be advisors to the town manager/staff, and mayor as members of the planning and development task force. It will also include Theresa Carlisle, secretary of the Manitoulin Planning Board (MPB).
“The new procedural bylaw will be effective at the end of June,” Mr. Schlange told The Expositor after the council meeting, noting the new taskforce for planning and development will hold its first meeting in September.
To fulfill its mandate, the planning and development group will be reaching out to external stakeholders such as current and potential developers, local businesses, real estate representatives, current and potential investors and external planning experts.
