Township won’t budge

Cavan Monaghan councillors vote against reopening negotiations with city on land annexation deal

Cavan Monaghan Township council doesn’t want to negotiate any further with the City of Peterborough over a land annexation deal.

At a special meeting Thursday afternoon, township council voted against revisiting the terms of a potential arrangement that would have given the city 4,140 acres along its western border.

Never mind that city council wants to discuss the deal more township council says no.

Scott McFadden, the mayor of Cavan Monaghan Township, said he wasn’t sure why city council would want to re-open discussions.

McFadden said the job is done – staff from the city, the township and Peterborough County had arrived at a tentative agreement.

“To go back to negotiating would mean we haven’t negotiated in good faith,” McFadden said.

The deal would give Peter borough 600 acres of industrial land, as well as land for 4,400 houses. (The city has a shortage of both industrial and residential land.)

It would also put Peterborough Airport within city boundaries.

The city was being asked to pay the township and the county $74.4 million over 25 years (plus roughly $55 million in further expenses, such as servicing).

At two separate meetings Monday, township and city councillors were asked whether they wanted to arrange public meetings to hear what citizens have to say about the prospective deal.

Township council said yes, but city council said no.

City council wanted its staff to collect further information first, such as actual figures on how much the new casino will bring to city coffers (projections say $3.2 million annually, although the casino isn’t even built yet).

City councillors also wanted staff to consider a wider public consultation, perhaps as part of the update of Peterborough’s Official Plan (which is expected to take the rest of 2017).

After all that information is collected, city council would have been willing to have its staff renegotiate the deal.

But Yvette Hurley, the township’s CAO, told councillors before the vote that didn’t make much sense.

Everyone involved had already hammered out the best deal they could, she said: “I’m not exactly sure what we would renegotiate on.”

There was no debate from council, meanwhile – McFadden was the only one to speak, and he kept it brief. The meeting was over in nine minutes.

Four of the five members of township council voted to stick to the potential deal as written – no renegotiating (only Coun. Tim Belch voted against the idea).

Township council had voted on Monday to hold a public meeting on the prospective deal, but now that meeting won’t happen.

Hurley said there’s no use consulting citizens in the township if the city isn’t interested in doing the same, anytime soon.

The public meetings were meant to happen in April, so all three councils could vote on the deal in May.

That would have allowed a boundary change to take effect Jan. 1, 2018 – which would have left ample time to make changes to riding boundaries, prior to the municipal and provincial elections in 2018.

Meanwhile city council still must vote a final time on its plan to seek more information from staff – and try to renegotiate the deal.

A special meeting has been scheduled for March 20; at that time, citizens can speak to council, and councillors are free to debate and possibly make changes to the plan before the final vote.

Township council, meanwhile, doesn’t have to vote again on its position in the matter.

NOTE: Read the reports the city and township prepared on the deal online at www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com.