Top 5 things to know from Windsor council’s final meeting of 2018
Windsor council wrapped up 2018 with a final meeting on Dec. 18, moving it a week ahead to avoid meeting on Dec. 25.
Although much of the discussion surrounding the big elephant in the room, consolidation, is being handled at the transition committee meetings (the next one is in January), the town still has business to attend to. The following are the highlights from the meeting.
1. Windsor council begins livestreaming on Facebook.
Following West Hants council’s lead, Windsor council has decided to begin live streaming its meetings to its Facebook page. This means that public meetings in Windsor-West Hants will now be streamed live to their respective Facebook pages, so on cold winter nights, if you don’t feel like attending in person, you can curl up at home to watch all of the excitement.
2. Service medals presented.
Lieutenant Daniel Lavers and firefighter Jennifer Davison, both with the Windsor Fire Department, were presented with 16year medals and thanked for their service by Mayor Anna Allen and council. They wore their dress uniforms and several fellow firefighters were in the gallery to watch the presentation. Joel Dauphinee also received a 16-year-service medal but he was unable to attend the meeting.
3. New app available.
When do you take the garbage out again? Well now there’s an app for that.
Titled Region 6 NS Recycles, the app, available for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, will send notifications for when it’s time to take out recycling or garbage for collection. The app applies to all communities within Region 6, including Windsor, West Hants and the South Shore. The user is instructed to enter their address for the app to work.
Coun. Shelley Bibby joked at council that even though her teenage children have the app on their phone, they still don’t take the trash out.
4. Windsor mulls festival and banner posts.
Windsor council has moved discussion on installing festival and banner posts onto next year’s budget talks.
Council received a request to put up banners for the Long Pond Classic, but those requests have to go through Nova Scotia Power and Bell Aliant, as they own the poles. But the idea sparked a discussion about the town installing its own poles for similar events.
Town staff discussed how Wolfville and other jurisdictions administered their own poles and found that they come with added costs. Installing the four recommended poles alone would cost approximately $3,200. However, chief administrative officer Louis Coutinho said the banner poles could potentially be used as a way to generate revenue for the town by selling the banner space for a fee.
Some councillors said they were concerned about the potential for costs to balloon and they agree to move the item to budget deliberations next year.
5. Non-smoking signage selected.
Windsor council has confirmed the overall design for new signs it will use to educate residents and visitors about their updated smoking by-law, which bans smoking of all kinds in all public places, including along streets and sidewalks, in town.
The signs, which read ‘proud to be a smoke free community’, will be green in colour.
The town’s CAO said they found the design from another jurisdiction. Staff will be looking into whether they’re allowed to use it first without breaking any copyright law. Once those issues are ironed out, Troy Burgess, with the town’s traffic authority, said the signs could be installed in January or February.