County council weighing cutting the size of council in half
County council was presented with a list of money-saving ideas during a special virtual meeting Wednesday morning.
Some of the solutions included cutting back programming at Lang Pioneer Village, slashing the size of county council in half and having garbage pickup only every other week for county residents. The ideas were recommended in a new operational review conducted by MNP, a Toronto-based accounting, tax and business consulting firm.
Council hired the firm to review all its operations to find efficient ways of saving money. However, the majority of council members were unhappy with the report. Selwyn Deputy Mayor Sherry Senis felt strongly about the concept of reducing the size of council from 16 members to eight, which would mean only mayors of the townships would be on county council rather than mayors and deputy mayors.
“I believe that the increased work for the mayors would result in increased pay — this is what’s happened in the City of Kawartha Lakes which is right by us — so whatever money we’re attempting to save, I don’t think there would be a saving at the end of the day,” she said. Asphodel-Norwood Mayor Rodger Bonneau agreed with Senis. “Sometimes my deputy mayor and I don’t necessarily agree on the same subject and it’s not fair for my township to only have one perspective,” he said.
In regards to one of the recommendations to cut back programming at Lang Pioneer Village so it becomes more of a “passive” attraction, deputy mayor Lori Burtt said it was a pretty emotionally charged subject.
Trent Lakes Mayor Janet Clarkson said the museum is a gem. “I think it is unique. I think we owe it to our young people to have that glimpse of our heritage,” she said.
One of the largest concerns for several council members, including Cavan Monaghan Mayor Scott McFadden, was that citizens in the county, along with Hiawatha and Curve Lake First Nations, weren’t consulted about the report. While McFadden told Jason Ducharme — who presented the report from MNP to council — that he understands the current circumstances with COVID-19, he said the public consultation was supposed to take place Feb. 24 and be completed by March 15, which was prior to when the province went into its state of emergency.
Council ultimately passed a motion to receive the information from the report, for staff to work with Ducharme to coordinate the public consultation and decided that a technical advisory working group be established to work with Ducharme to bring a report back to council.