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Serving the Mapleton Community
Community News Volume 44 Issue 41
Drayton, Ontario
1 Year GIC - 1.90% 3 Year GIC - 2.35% 5 Year GIC - 2.75% Daily Interest 1.75%
Friday, October 14, 2011
Council may face OMB hearing after 3-2 vote on official plan amendment by David Meyer MAPLETON TWP. Council here voted 3-2 on Sept. 27 to approve an official plan amendment that was opposed by the developer of the property. In an interview last week, Richard Seibel, vice president of The Murray Group, said the company is still considering if it will appeal council’s decision to the Ontario Municipal Board. At issue is council’s approval for a greenlands designation on land The Murray Group owns at the northern part of Moorefield. The property is 11.6 acres in size and has frontage on McGivern Street. It is Part of Park Lot 58, Moore’s Survey, East 1/2 Lot 9, Concession 9. The subdivision had been partly industrial, and the official plan amendment originally was to redesignate the lands for residential use. However, county planner Linda Redmond and Seibel disagreed about the designation of the greenlands. There were two parcels Redmond originally wanted to be desingated greenlands and Seibel opposed that. When the original amendment was circulated, the Grand River Conservation Area had
no objections to The Murray Group proposal. And after the greenlands designation was inserted, the GRCA again stated it had no objections. Seibel told council the issue was delayed because council wanted a better description of the two forested areas. A report by forester Peter Williams stated one of those was insignificant, but the other is worth preserving. But, as Seibel told council, the official plan amendment being presented by Redmond is “not what The Murray Group proposed.” He also stated preserving such woodlots is not yet firm county policy and, further, he checked and learned the policy has not even been circulated for public comment. Redmond agreed and said, “I don’t know where they are in the process. It’s certainly not approved at this point.” Seibel said the county “seems to be suggesting guidelines that have not been circulated yet.” At a previous OMB hearing on the issue, the township had agreed only to review the proposal, he added. “If the township had been negotiating in good faith, it would never have put the greenlands [designation] in,”
Seibel said. Keeping the two stands of trees would remove 4.8 acres from the potential of the development. Redmond’s final recommendation, with one stand of trees removed from consideration, reduced that to 4 acres. Seibel said the company had not planned to cut down the trees, but to use them as an amenity for larger lots with the tree stands in the back yards, “It’s not even policy in Wellington County,” he said in the later interview. “It hasn’t been made public. They just decided to.” He said the result was unilaterally changing the official plan “on land we have desigated industrial.” He said he expected the move will cost the subdivision about 16 homes. At Wellington County council two days later, council simply accepted Redmond’s report as information and did not deal with it any further. At Mapleton, when it came time to consider the official plan as presented by Redmond, councillors Andy Knetsch and Mike Downey were in favour, and councillors Jim Curry and Neil Driscoll were opposed. Mayor Bruce Whale broke the tie by voting in favour of it.
Harvest for Hunger - Over 120 combines converged on a field near Monkton on Oct. 5 to attempt to break a world record by harvesting a 160-acre field of soybeans in just over 11 minutes. Since there is no official record for soybean harvesting, the group did set a record. All inputs to the soybean crop were donated, and the crop was sold by auction, with all proceeds going to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. So far, the group has raised well over $200,000. Several Mapleton farmers participated in the event with their combines. submitted photo
Sinnamon: Spill danger at lagoon now over by David Meyer MAPLETON TWP. Councillors here are likely smiling over the good weather that has been around for the past few weeks. Council learned on Sept. 27 that it was under orders from the Ministry of Environment to get rid of material in its sewage
lagoon - and the fine weather has meant there were no spills in the meantime. The township had asked the MOE for help when it discovered a shortage of space and a danger of a spill from its lagoons, which hold effluent from Drayton and Moorefield. Clerk Patty Sinnamon said
on Oct. 7 the township had already been emptying some of the lagoons, which had only minimal storage space when council met. And, she added, the township had permission to irrigate adjacent lands with sewage material at the December rate Continued on page 12
Pettapiece unseats Wilkinson in close race in Perth-Wellington riding by Mike Robinson and Chris Daponte PERTH-WELLINGTON If Premier Dalton McGuinty ever wonders what cost him his third majority government, the results in this riding should be at the forefront. Minister of the Environment and incumbent Liberal MPP John Wilkinson was narrowly defeated by Progressive Conservative Randy Pettapiece in one of the last races to provide results late in the evening on Oct. 6. Wilkinson, favoured by many to win the PerthWellington riding, led the polls several times during the back-and-forth race on election night, but ultimately he finished 630 votes short, with 13,652 or 38.8%. Pettapiece gained momentum late in the evening, winning with 40.6% of the votes (14,282). NDP candidate Ellen Papenberg was the only other candidate to receive significant support, with 5,596 votes or 15.9%. The Green Party’s Chris Desjardins (877 votes or 2.5%), Family Coalition Party’s Irma DeVries (611 or 1.7%) and
RANDY PETTAPIECE Freedom Party’s Robby Smink (158 or 0.5%) rounded out the race. Pettapiece was somewhat surprised at the results, though he said he was expecting a close race, considering Wilkinson served as MPP in the area for eight years and was one of McGuinty’s key cabinet ministers. Pettapiece admitted to being a bit nervous about his new role as Perth-Wellington MPP, and said one of his biggest concerns will be the Green Energy Act. “I am going to encourage my party to continue its efforts to make changes,” he said. He campaigned against the Liberals’ Green Energy Act,
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which effectively takes the decision making process for wind energy farms away from local municipalities. Wilkinson had argued the province was best suited to deal with wind turbine applications and said at an all candidates debate in Alma that he would accept the decision of voters, regardless of the result. But the Minister of Environment was very quiet following his defeat. The London Free Press reported that upon arriving at his campaign get-together after the polls closed on Oct. 6, Wilkinson took the unusual step of sequestering himself in a private room and declining to speak with reporters. His camp perpetuated his reticence the following morning, when campaign manager Amber Anderson told the Community News Wilkinson might not be giving interviews, but she would be in touch. As of Tuesday afternoon she had not called back. Papenberg, of Drayton, said she was “very surprised” Pettapiece won the PerthWellington seat. She attributed Wilkinson’s loss to “a combination of a
lot of things,” although two were more prominent than the others. “People were very upset about the wind turbine situation,” she said, adding Wilkinson’s previous cabinet job of trying to sell the HST likely didn’t help him, either. She spoke to Wilkinson after the results were in and he espoused the importance of democracy. “I agree with him, but I would rather see proportional representation so it is really fair,” she said, adding many votes are wasted in the current system. Overall, Papenberg said she is happy the NDP gained seats across the province and she thinks she would have garnered more votes personally had it not been for “strategic” voting. She opined many local voters felt it was too risky to vote for the NDP because they felt too strongly one way or the other about the Liberals or PCs not getting elected. But all things considered, she is happy with increased support locally (she received about 3,900 votes in the federal election in May). Continued on page 3
Weekly Wag
se it’s loser, becau a e b to w o Learn h a winner. a loser to be e b to t n a rt o imp eill - Sanford I. W
Perth-Wellington results Party Candidate PC Randy Pettapiece Liberal John Wilkinson NDP Ellen Papenberg Green Party Chris Desjardins Family Coalition Irma DeVries Freedom Party Robby Smink Total valid ballots cast: 35,176
Votes 14,282 13,652 5,596 877 611 158
(%) (40.6) (38.8) (15.9) (2.5) (1.7) (0.5)