New conservation authority board needs conservation expertise: former member
After years of escalating concerns about Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, a former board member hopes last week’s election will set the organization back on track.
Lincoln resident Doug Ransom, who served as a board member from 2004 to 2014, said he hopes to see more people with conservation expertise on the next incarnation of the board — rather than politicians.
“The politicians put a different spin on things. They have forgotten what the purpose of conservation ultimately is,” he said. “That’s a bit disappointing. We’ve seen it continue in that direction, and we end up having the past term that we ended up with. Even who is on there now, really what relevance do they have to the actual conservation purpose at all?”
Ransom, a retired educator with degrees in geography and geology and a continuing interest in conservation, and who took over as NPCA board chair following the 2007 death of Gord Harry, said the next NPCA board should comprise people who are there for the right reason.
Welland’s re-elected Mayor Frank Campion, who agreed with the need for fewer politicians and more experts, said he has no intention of returning to the NPCA board of directors. And he couldn’t even if he wanted to.
A council motion approved this term requires Welland councillors to recommend the city’s NPCA representative, rather than allowing the job to go to a Region representative.
“I found on that board … you cannot get away from conflicts there,” Campion said. “I’m not talking about pecuniary conflicts — it’s ‘Are you working for the Region or are you working for the NPCA?’”
Campion said his city will be looking for interested and qualified people for the job, including city councillors.
Conservation authority communications manager Michael Reles said the organization’s staff have yet to learn when their new board members will be appointed by Niagara Region, Hamilton and Haldimand County.
“We look forward to executing the 201821 strategic plan,” Reles said in an email, referring to the document that is to guide the organization until 2021.
“NPCA’s leadership team is collaborating with all levels of staff to develop key performance indicators that will measure the success of each department and are deliverable in the strategic plan,” he added.
Ransom was also concerned about the escalating board costs that occurred primarily in the years since he left the organization.
For instance, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said in her Sept. 27 special report on the organization that from 2013 to 2017 the average annual payments for an NPCA board member — $3,500 — was more than twice the $1,500 in average annual payments board members in other surveyed conservation authorities received. Total per diem payments to board members also increased to $47,700 in 2017, up from $7,900 in 2010.
In comparison, when Ransom was on the board, he donated his entire honorarium to the NPCA foundation, using some of the money to build a pavilion in Jordan, dedicated to his parents who ran a nearby farm along the banks of the Twenty Mile Creek for more than 50 years.