Mayor's Report

Mayor Dale Robinson Municipality of McDougall Mayor
Dale Robinson

MAYOR'S MESSAGE - February 2007

The Municipal Election is now history and I am happy to report that your new council “hit the ground running”. As McDougall residents you have put a council into power with a broad variety of background experience, differing perspectives and a common belief in working hard for a progressive Municipality.

In December we were able to meet the stringent rules of the Ontario Clean Drinking Water Act by making the connection between the Nobel Water System and The Town of Parry Sound Water System to deliver Filtered water into our existing system. This has been a long and costly project. Thanks has to be given to our staff, past and present council, Town Of Parry Sound, Federal Government and Provincial Government for all the twists and turns that had to be faced in order to get us to best solution. At this time we are still pushing our Federal MP, Tony Clement, to come up with the approximately $750,000 shortfall in Federal funding.

The waste management project, to continue and improve operations at the McDougall Road landfill site continues to be on track. The COMRIF II funding that we were able to access has put the Municipality in good financial shape, but it also meant that we had to add the Federal Environmental Assessment process into our operations. Council has asked our Public Works Director to work with our neighbouring Municipalities to see if there are ways for us to improve our recycling efforts and our waste management practices.

This month council will begin a series of meetings separate from scheduled council meetings to work on Strategic Planning. As this process unfolds, I anticipate asking for your involvement in bringing forward ideas. Council is fresh off the campaign trail, so a lot of your ideas have already been given to us.

Budget meetings will also begin shortly and will be dovetailed into the Strategic Planning. We already know that our budget will be stretched to the limit given the increased levy that Belvedere Heights has advised us about and the important capital projects that face us. Our application to COMRIF III for funding of the Burnsides Bridge was successful, but this still means that we have to provide 1/3 of the total cost of $1,000,000 (Approx.) from your tax dollars.

In December the Province announced a one time funding opportunity under the Ontario Government Infrastructure Investment Initiative. Council identified its priority as being our roads projects and an application was made to reconstruct 27.3 km of Municipal roads at an estimated cost of $4,600,000.

Improving communication with you is very important to council and staff has been requested to make the new web page design a priority.

Provincial legislation continues to stretch our staff and financial resources to the limit. The new “Fixed Asset Reporting System” has necessitated the upgrade of our Municipal computer system at a cost of $40,000

Thanks to all of you who participated in democracy through voting, running for office and making your concerns heard during the recent election.