Council Preview: Dec 19, 2018
Welcome to another Middlesex Centre Council meeting preview for December 19, 2018! I’m sorry this one is coming to you later than usual. You can find the meeting agenda here, which has a special start time of 5:30pm. We’ll be starting with a presentation from Middlesex Centre’s independent human resources contractor, Marianne Love, on what she has found for salary increases in 2019. This is a report Council receives annually.On average there is a 1.84% increase proposed for similar municipalities in 2019, and a median of 1.89%. Overall she is recommending a 2% increase in the salary grid for Middlesex
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Council Recap: Dec 12, 2018
I live-tweeted this council meeting, so I have taken those tweets and edited them down into bullet points. If something doesn’t make sense, let me know and I’ll make the needed edits. Paula Lombardi, our municipal counsel, is currently going over various acts that apply to municipal government. She has already said she will be providing an opinion on the recent Ontario Open for Business Act. The most recent changes to the Municipal Act force municipalities to have policies on tree canopies and natural vegetation. The new Councillors look dumbfounded. Welcome to being a creature of the Province! 😆Paula ended
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Council Preview: Dec 12, 2018
Hello! We have a Special Council Meeting called for this week to help get the new Council all caught up on all that our staff do and what they are up to. As the Clerk put it, Each department will have a PowerPoint Presentation to present to Council. It will go as follows: The Municipal Solicitor (lawyer) will have a presentation first. We will then move on to: Clerk’s Department Land Use Planning Building Services Public Works & Engineering Community Services Fire Services The only staff report is the 2019 Council meeting agenda. Barring any massive conflicts, I anticipate this will
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Council Recap: Dec 5, 2018
There isn’t much to report since the agenda was so scant, but I will give you a quick overview of the evening instead! All the new Council members arrived early to get our Council headshots taken, along with group photos with the Clerk and then with all the senior staff members. The ceremony eventually began a little late, and we entered the Coldstream Community Centre as bagpipes played. We were all seated in the same formation Council members will take at normal Council meetings. A student from Medway High School led all those in attendance in singing O Canada, and
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Council Preview: Dec 5, 2018
This week features the first, and likely the shortest, meeting for the 2018-2022 Middlesex Centre Council. Here is the full agenda which, as you can see, should be very short. The Councillors-Elect have already been provided an opportunity to say which boards and committees they would like to sit on, and you can see that we did very well recruiting citizens for the various boards as well! This first meeting serves only to: Swear in the new Council members Appoint Council members and residents to the various boards and committees To appoint the Committee of Adjustment (all of Council) and
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Council Recap: Nov 28, 2018
The last Middlesex Centre Council meeting for the 2014-2018 Council was fairly straightforward! A little discussion here and there, but nothing major to report. Let’s get down to recapping what happened on Wednesday. Two items were added on Wednesday to the agenda. Delegations, Presentations, and Petitions Kevin Moniz presented the Martin Road Development Drain report. It was a fairly short presentation, and a few clarifying questions were asked. Ultimately it was received and the next step will occur soon. We presented Sifton with their Green Builder recognition. Consent Agenda All items were received for information. I’m looking forward to more
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Council Preview: Nov 28, 2018
Hello! Here is your preview for the final Council meeting of the 2014-2018 term. On December 5 the inaugural 2018-2022 Middlesex Centre Council meeting will be held, where the new Council will be sworn in and we will deal with some timely matters like appointing new committee and board members. You can find the full agenda here. There is no closed session this week. I’m not aware of any last minute additions to the agenda at this time. I don’t see any errors in the minutes from the last meeting as it pertains to items I moved or voted on.
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Council Recap: Nov 14, 2018
Did you miss the preview for Nov 14’s Council meeting? You can read it here. Consent Agenda As expected, the discrepancies between the expected percentage for the month of October versus what we’re seeing is mostly down to timing, or unexpected reductions/increases in various departments. Like I said previously, it’s all balancing itself out and there is nothing to be concerned about at this time. Council approved allowing the Komoka Railway Museum change the purpose of their grant to repairing the vandalism recently experienced. I already wrote a little bit about my optimism over BMA Consulting’s most recent review of
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Council Preview: Nov 14, 2018
Welcome to the preview for the penultimate meeting of the 2014-2018 Middlesex Centre Council! You can view the agenda here. This should not be a terribly long meeting, but we do have one very, very important to cover. That is the 2019 water, wasterwater, and stormwater rates. We don’t have any delegations, presentations or petitions this week. Consent Agenda The year-to-date budget numbers are both happily surprising and also less so in other places. It appears all to balance itself out in the end with higher-than-expected property tax revenue, higher-than-expected protection revenue (likely because of fire calls), but lower than
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Council Recap: Oct 24, 2018
If you missed the last Council meeting preview, you can find it here. As for the tardiness of this update, this can be attributed to the fact that I spent most of this past week in Montreal on business. Recap As predicted, the closed meeting was rather short. Less than a few minutes. Brian Lima, our outgoing Director of Public Works & Engineering, spoke at length about the Winter Operations Plan and what it meant. He did his best to dispel rumours about minimum service levels, the municipality’s adherence to them, and whether other roads can be prioritized. I understand,
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