The airwaves have been fairly quiet for most of the summer, but not so Council and Staff at the Township. Here is a brief summary for you.

1. The Port Severn Master Plan has been completed and approved by Council and we are moving forward with the capital projects that have been funded. This cost of this planning was fully funded by a Federal Government grant.
2. TGB received ~ $2M in G8 Funding from the Federal Government for infrastructure projects in the Town of Port Severn. This will go towards the development of the Public Parkland at the former Boardwalk trailer park that the Township purchased earlier this year, as well as some of the other beautification projects from the Port Severn Master Plan. These projects are to be complete by June 2010.
3. TGB received ~ $855K in RInC (Recreational Infrastructure Canada) grants for the rejuvenation of the MacTier Arena and the Baxter Ward Community Centre. The total cost of these projects is ~$1.2M and so these projects will be completed over the next 2+ years.
4. Council has engaged a Human Resources Consulting firm, Gazda Houlne & Associates, to assist with the organization structure review of the Township.
5. The Waste Management (WM) changes have been implemented with some minor bumps in the road. The Waste Management Liaison Committee has been responding to the issues together with the District. We continue to monitor and review the implementation. To date, TGB has experienced a significant reduction in total tonnage of waste deposited, and abuse has ceased at the compounds that were closed. Unfortunately, the abuse continues at those that were left open. The District will be submitting preliminary data regarding the performance of the new WM system at our next WMLC meeting on September 14th 9:00 am. As always, you are welcome to attend this or any of the committee meetings at the Township offices.
6. The Standing Committee structure at the Township is becoming the success that we envisaged when Council implemented it in March of this year. The 2 standing committees are Corporate Services and Technical & Development Services. Each committee meets during the week following Council, starting the 3 week cycle of: committee review and deliberation, recommendation to Council and then Council review and debate. This system has expedited many of the topics that are key to you, and provides you the opportunity to get your views heard in an informal and open committee session. The next sessions are on Tues Sep 8th @ 6:30 pm for Corporate Services, and Wed Sep 9th @ 6:30 pm for Technical & Development Services. The agendas are available on the website a few days before the committee meeting.
7. Council has completed the review of Development Charges, and established these rates for the next 5 years. This is a mandatory 5 year review. Development charges pay for the future new capital projects like parks, libraries, maintenance buildings and equipment required due to increases population, and are assessed on new building construction, not renovation.)
8. Council has approved a multi-year capital plan for the development of the Port Severn totaling ~ $7.5M, with about 50% of this funding coming from the Federal and Provincial government grants. The plan Includes the projects identified above as well as the build out of the streetscape, Lone Pine Road, Town Square, trails network and Summit House. This will be an exciting next few years.

That’s it for now, and as always if you have comments, complaints or questions, please give me a call or send me an email at my address below.

Jon Lett
Area Councillor
Ward 3, Baxter
Township of Georgian Bay
705-756-2967 Home
705-733-6019 Cell
councillor.lett@rogers.com