Derek E. Silva

Spreading knowledge & understanding

  • Council Preview: Dec 5, 2018

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    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:

    If all goes well, I will be Middlesex Centre’s representative at the Bluewater Recycling Assocation, and I’m hoping to be appointed Chair of the Committee of Adjustment as well.

    What is the Committee of Adjustment? As per the City of Toronto’s website, “The Planning Act grants authority to Municipal Councils to appoint committees to approve a number of minor applications. Section 45 of the Planning Act permits the Committee of Adjustment to make decisions on Minor Variances from the Zoning By-law and to grant permission for altering or changing a lawful non-conforming use of land, buildings or structures. Section 53 of the Planning Act permits the Committee of Adjustment to make decisions on applications for changes to land configuration in the form of Consents.”

    Councillor McMillan has led the Committee of Adjustment for the two years I have already spent on Council, and I want to continue in the example she has set for demanding respect for all parties involved, ensuring applicants understand the conditions set forth, while also introducing some small tweaks to ensure things continue to run well.

    If all goes well, I think we can accomplish much together, especially with what appears to be a strong lineup of highly engaged citizens taking their respective positions on other area boards! If you have any questions, please let me know.

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  • Council Recap: Nov 28, 2018

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    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

    • Mayor Al Edmondson presents Sifton with Green Builder recognition plaque.
      Mayor Al Edmondson presents Sifton with Green Builder recognition plaque.

      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 plain language planning application notices being circulated.
    • If you have any feedback on the sample notice, or a real notice that you receive, please let us know! The more staff can improve the understanding of a notice from the time you read it, the better!

    Staff Reports

    • Middlesex Centre Council approved extending our service agreement with Lucan-Biddulph for another three years. Now it goes to Lucan-Biddulph Council for approval. Staff estimate revenue of $60,000 per year based on recent experience and what they know of upcoming activity there. Arnie Marsman reported that Lucan-Biddulph’s needs do not impact our staff’s workload enough that we need to re-think this arrangement.
    • Council approved the official plan amendment, which institutes a holding zone pending Middlesex County approval and a few more upcoming steps in the process, such as a site plan. Hopefully concerns raised by the neighbouring property can be effectively accommodated to everyone’s satisfaction during the site plan approval phase.
    • One of the roof top units at the Komoka Wellness Centre has failed, and it’s responsible for circulating fans through the dressing rooms. We’ve been told that Carrier doesn’t design them so large any more because of issues like this, where they fail earlier than typically expected. If we had built the Wellness Centre today, we would likely end up with four, smaller rooftop units instead of two. The work was approved.

    Public Meetings

    • Both applications were approved. It was nice to see that both applicants were well informed, and had a thorough understanding of the conditions they were agreeing to.

    We held a short, closed meeting around 6:30pm. We also took a short break from 6:40pm until 7pm before we could start public meetings. That’s all there is to report at this time!

    Have a great weekend. You can anticipate a preview of next Wednesday’s inaugural 2018-2022 Council meeting this weekend!

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  • Council Preview: Nov 28, 2018

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    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.

    Delegations, Presentations & Petitions

    • We have two this week:
      • The Martin Road Development Drain will be presented by Kevin Moniz of Strik, Balidinelli & Moniz.
        • The majority of the almost $92,000 that will be spent to complete the work, if this is approved, will be borne by landowners that will directly benefit from the drain. A relatively small portion will be borne by the Municipality, making this a good deal in my eyes.
      • Sifton will once again receive recognition through Middlesex Centre’s Green Builder program for voluntarily building homes that go above and beyond the Ontario Building Code when it comes to energy efficiency.

    Consent Agenda

    We have four items on the consent agenda this week, and those are:

    • We have the October Building Report to digest, where October 2018 matched October 2017 for the number of permits issued, and we’re only trailing a little behind 2018 in total permits issued this year.
      • I suspect 2019 is going to be a record breaking year between Clear Skies (Ilderton), EdgeWater Estates (Kilworth) and Kilworth Heights West (Kilworth) start putting up homes.
    • Recognition of Green Builders, which is just the formal report on the presentation already performed. Our staff also support Lucan-Biddulph, and this program has now been adopted by Lucan-Biddulph and a home builder will be presented with the same award at one of their Council meetings in December. Good stuff!
    • A report on public engagement for the 2019 budget thus far.
      • A quick overview of the budget process, all the services provided, and what the Municipality collects money to pay for.
      • Then we have some high level results of the budget survey conducted earlier this year, where we had a strong turnout from Ward 4! High five for you. 🙂
      • Overall most residents appear to be happy with the level of taxation and where the money goes, with a slight exception in the “general government” area. I suspect this mostly just needs more explanation of how that money is used considering how many people also said they wanted to maintain the current cost and service level in that area.
      • You will see that some of the write-in responses on slide 24 directly contradict each other, which highlights how tough some decisions can be at Council. I have to constantly balance people who want more services with those who want to pay lower fees overall.
      • For those of you interested in our own indoor pool, I would highlight some of the issues preventing us from building one on slide 31 of the presentation.
        • It would cost several million dollars to build.
        • It would likely lose $500,000 to $600,000 per year on operating costs.
        • I will be writing something more detailed once I have collected a bit more research on the topic.
    • A report on Plain Language Notices, making planning applications far easier for residents to read and digest! This was an issue I brought forth in my 2014 election platform.

    Staff Reports

    We don’t have any contentious public meetings on the agenda, and neither are for properties in Ward 4.

    Correspondence

    • Items related to clarified cannabis regulations (e.g. retail stores cannot be located with 150m of a school), the provincial government affirming that full-time firefighters can also volunteer elsewhere, like in Middlesex Centre, and AMO’s perspective on the provincial fall economic statement.
    • Middlesex County has also brought in a new road widening policy. This will be especially important to you if you live or own property on Glendon Drive, Komoka Rd, Nairn Rd, Egremont Dr, etc.

    And that does it! I suspect we’ll be done around 8pm, maybe slightly after that. I hope you can attend. If not, please let me know if you have any comments on the items above. Thanks for reading!

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  • Council Recap: Nov 14, 2018

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    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 the water and wastewater rates, along with the infrastructure lifecycle funds.
      • Council is not currently endorsing full funding, according to the Long-Range Financial Plan, of the water and wastewater reserves.
      • Despite that, things are trending in the right direction. We do have a substantial amount of money going into each reserve, but we are off where BMA recommends us to be by hundreds of thousands of dollars in each pot.
      • Taking into consideration affordability and future growth projections, BMA and staff recommending freezing rates for another year, and that is what Council voted to do!
      • Consolidating operations by shuttering the Kilworth Wastewater Treatment Facility in 2019, and reducing the number of pumping stations, is allowing us to reduce operating expenses in 2019 and therefore gets us closer to reducing water and wastewater usage rates or minimum monthly charges. Either way, I continue to be optimistic that bill reductions are on the way in the short-term.
      • The focus here on out needs to be encouraging good, smart growth with an emphasis and more commercial and industrial users. Keep in mind that industrial does not necessarily mean a factory that puts out tonnes of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, but certainly a facility that uses a high amount of water.

    Staff Reports

    • Transferring funds to the Campbell Cemetery Board was approved, with a bit of trepidation over ensuring the funds are used wisely.
    • Request to begin work on the Ettrick Drain Ideson Branch Improvement was approved.

    Correspondence

    • There was some discussion over why Bell cannot effectively limit the 311 service to the City of London’s physical boundaries. Thanks to our past experiences, Councillor Berze and I were able to explain the antiquated landline technology’s ability to do so, and how large swaths of populations share central offices and the phone switches inside them. This is similar to the reason why Komoka and Kilworth residents’ phone lines share the same prefixes to many homes in London, like 519-472-xxxx and 519-671-xxxx numbers.
    • I put the question out there, just in case someone knew the answer, over whether recent developments would allow BRA to start collecting styrofoam in the recycling bin. I was directed to a staff member at BRA, and I will be following up with that gentleman.

    I will be at tonight’s public budget information session at 6pm at the Komoka Community Centre. I hope to see you there!

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  • Council Preview: Nov 14, 2018

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    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 expected planning & development revenue. I don’t think there’s anything to be concerned about, but I will be seeking some clarification prior to the meeting, and then bringing that forth so that the public has the same answers.
    • I am saddened to see that the Komoka Railway Museum needs to ask for a change in their intended use of the funds provided through the Council Grants Program because someone (some people?) saw fit to vandalize the property. That is very disappointing to hear.
    • BMA Consulting and staff went through three different scenarios for the 2019 water, wastewater, and stormwater (WWS) rates. They considered increasing the water rates but decreasing the wastewater rates, which would have provided a bit of relief for 2019 however this would have resulted in increases in 2020 that would more than offset the previous decrease because of reduced funding being placed in reserves. In the end, MXC staff are recommending an additional rate freeze for 2019.
      • The great news that we see in the report is that the changes staff have been making, and Council has been endorsing, are resulting in reduced operations budgets! The Water operations expenses are expected to be over $190,000 lower in 2019, and the Wastewater operations expenses are expected to be over $258,000 lower in 2019!
      • These savings are being realized thanks to reduced equipment and maintenance expenses, and freezing the rates will allow us to get closer to the Long-Range Financial Plan’s goals for the water and wastewater reserve funds.

    Staff Reports

    • It seems the bank account holding funds for the Campbell Cemetery is not allowed, by provincial law, to hold more than $50,000. So we are looking at transferring some of the funds to the Cemetery Board for Campbell Cemetery.
    • It looks like everything is ready to go for the Ettrick Drain Ideson Branch Improvement, so staff are looking for approval to proceed.

    Correspondence

    • The Bluewater Recycling Association’s (BRA) Board of Directors meeting report has lots of very interesting information about the state of the recycling market (China’s existing and upcoming bans, businesses building closed-loop systems, mergers), and the state of operations at BRA.
      • Commodity revenue is expected to drop in 2019 because of China’s surprising changes earlier this year, and their continued reduction of purchasing recyclables.
      • As a result, the municipal levy is expected to rise across participating municipalities by $54,000 in 2019. Thankfully this appears to only affect each property by adding an additional $1.66 per household.
      • It seems Huron County, and elsewhere, continue to experience hardship in attracting truck drivers. The average age is increasing, with no large cohorts joining the industry recently. There is a huge opportunity here for employers to look at hiring hard workers and pay for the training themselves, rather than continually increase compensation.
      • On the flipside, WSIB is reducing rates for trucking, so that should have a net benefit across municipalities, including MXC.
      • There are various other articles of interested in the BRA report. You should check it out!
    • Finally, London is introducing a 311 service. This notice serves to let residents know that calling 311 will likely direct you to the City of London’s phone line because of the way Bell’s phone exchanges work, however the 311 service will give you the opportunity to be redirected back to Middlesex Centre’s phone line if that occurs. Personally, I have 519-666-0190 on speed dial! 😉

    We should hear a County Council update from Deputy Mayor DeViet from Middlesex County’s Council meeting on Nov 13, 2018 (today).

    Also, Middlesex Centre is holding a public budget information session on Nov 19, 6pm – 9pm at the Komoka Community Centre. It will focus on the 2019 capital budget with some operations mixed in. I will be there, and hope to see you there too! You can RSVP on Facebook, or just show up. 🙂

    And that does it! If you have any questions, please contact me so we can talk about them. Thanks for reading!

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