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June 12, 2014 | 84 pages
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All is not well in Montague Township
FEATURE A Four-Part Series
By HOWAIDA SOROUR hsorour@perfprint.ca
See Pages 22-23
helping hands healing hearts
COMMUNITY Photo by ASHLEY KULP
Pitch ‘em in, Mr. Mayor Sports – Smiths Falls Mayor Dennis Staples accepts a ball from Perth and District Little League (PDLL) catcher Lucius Peladeau after he threw out the first pitch before a game featuring the PDLL’s two Smiths Falls teams at Lower Reach Park June 5. The organization recently expanded to Smiths Falls. For more photos, see page SF18.
Relay for Life kicks off in Smiths Falls Friday night. — Page SF1
Council amends recreational cost sharing phase-in and adds ice fees By HOWAIDA SOROUR
RELAY FOR LIFE
hsorour@perfprint.ca
News – The Town of Smiths Falls has revised the cost sharing phase-in schedule for the users of the Memorial Community Centre. Based on a staff report council was asked to adopt a revised cost sharing phase-in schedule for contributing municipalities and to consider a proposed ice rental change for the 2014-2015 season. It was pointed out by Rideau Lakes Township that the current phase-in schedule wasn’t entirely equitable. Under the current structure Rideau Lakes and Montague would be paying a little over 82 per cent of the 2012 formula in 2014 while Drummond/North Elmsley would be paying about 70 per cent. “Staff recommends that the phase-in be revised in keeping with the principal of equity by matching the percentage contribution with the lowest contributor, namely Drummond/North Elmsley,” said Stephen Fournier, acting chief administrative
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officer (CAO). The second part of the proposal dealing with ice rental fees attempts to bring equity to the fee structure between the shoulder seasons and the winter ice seasons. According to Fournier, a large number of the spring and fall ice users are residents from out of town and under the current system would not be impacted by the winter surcharge for out-of-towners and are currently paying less for ice rental than they would in surrounding municipalities. “If council is amenable we’re proposing that we go from the youth rate up to the adult rate of $170 per hour of ice,” said Fournier. That would still make the fee less than surrounding arena fees and at the same time add approximately $14,000 in additional revenue to the arena. “We’re constantly trying to find ways to bring revenue to this world class facility, so I agree and support this proposal,” said Coun. Chris Cummings. He echoed the sentiments of the rest of council.
News - Last year Montague Township council felt the need to retain the services of an integrity commissioner to investigate possible breaches of the township’s Council Code of Conduct as well as the Staff Code of Conduct. “We did it to get an outside person to tell us whether the code was being contravened,” explained Bill Dobson, reeve of Montague Township. The resulting report, which was posted to the town’s website a couple of months ago, indicated that all council members admitted to occasional minor breaches of the Council Code of Conduct. It is also clear from the report that there are numerous complaints against one member of council who has repeatedly and egregiously breached the code of conduct. The complaints focused on the personal style of the member of council and particularly the treatment of other members of council and staff. This style was characterized variously as “disrespectful, confrontational, intimidating, negative, unsettling, demeaning, belittling, harassing, unreasonable, manipulative and stressful,” wrote Ian Wilson, integrity commissioner in the report. As recently as last week a delegation addressed the integrity commissioner’s report at a regular council meeting. “I congratulate council for posting the integrity commissioner’s report on the township’s website and for recognizing that for our democracy to work properly, the taxpayers and voters need to have such information,” said Don Page, Montague resident, at the start of his presentation. For the sake of clarity Page gave the un-named councillor the moniker ‘Councillor X’ before going on to give a synopsis of the report from which he quoted generously before posing his request. “Since some of us now know who you are, may I conclude by asking Councillor X to have
the courage to publicly identify yourself. By doing so you will remove the cloud of suspicion you have caused to hang over all members of council,” said Page. There was no response and after a few moments of awkward silence the council meeting resumed, moving onto the next item on the agenda. Subsequent interviews with each of the Montague council members including the reeve, netted this response to the question: “Are you Councillor X?” “No I am not,” said Coun. Vince Carroll. “No I am not,” said Coun. Bonnie Burson. “No I am not,” said Dobson. “I am not prepared to respond to that due to the confidentiality of the report as presented to council,” said deputy reeve Pat Dolan. “We can’t talk about anything to do with Councillor X,” said Coun. Jim Abbass. According to Dobson and Carroll the final decision not to name the councillor in the report was actually made by council at the integrity commissioner’s encouragement. “When we did this integrity report we were all guilty of small infractions so the integrity commissioner thought it would be better not to name anyone,” said Carroll. There has, according to Dobson, been some benefit to hiring an integrity commissioner. “We did a review of both the Council Code of Conduct and the Staff Code of Conduct and made some changes so that’s one good thing that’s come out of the process,” said Dobson. However, according to several councillors there has been no big improvement in the unnamed councillor’s behaviour or demeanor. “If Councillor X just comes forward and admits there is a problem then we could all move on,” said Carroll. In the meantime the issue is expected to be brought to Montague council again at the upcoming meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 17.
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