Jack Hepworth’s Report – April 3, 2018

Jack Hepworth’s Report – April 3, 2018

Seguin Council April 3, 2018 eAgenda

 

Seguin 2018 Budget .52% increase

Overall, this Budget has a 2018 Municipal Tax Rate of .351119%, which is an effective increase of 1.55%; with the provincial Education tax rate of .17%, the combined 2018 Residential tax rate will be .521119%, compared to 0.532726 in 2017.

In 2018, the total average residential property taxes will increase by .52% compared to 2017, an increase of $12.91 on the average residential property tax bill. (See Schedule E)

In 2017 taxes on $100,000 Municipal assessment at a mill rate of  0.353726% would be      $ 353.73.  The Education levy at a mill rate of 0.179000% would be $ 179.00.  the total tax payable would be $532.73

For 2018 the Average Phased-In Assessment Increase for all Seguin properties is 2.305%

The 2018 taxes accordingly are now based on a $102,305 Municipal assessment value and the 2018 Budget has a mill rate of 0.351119%.  Calculated municipal tax will be $ 359.21.  The Education levy mill rate decreased to 0.170000% yielding $ 173.92 tax dollars.  Total taxes due in 2018 on a $102,305 Municipal assessment value will be $ 533.13

Dollar Change in 2018 Municipal taxes will be $ 5.49 and for Education a decline of $(5.08) realizing a net increase of $ 0.40
Percentage change  Municipal is 1.55% and Education -2.84% yielding an overall percentage change of 0.08%

For Residential properties only:

  • Average 2017 Residential Property Taxable Assesed Value $ 469,512
  • Average 2017 Residential Property Tax Bill Municipal 0.353726% – $ 1,660.79
  • Education 0.179000% – $840.43
  • $2,501.22 taxes
  • Average 2018 Residential Property Taxable Value 2.755% – $482,449
  • Average 2018 Residential Property Tax Bill Municipal 0.351119% – $1,693.97
  • Education 0.170000%  – $820.16
  • $2,514.13 taxes
  • Dollar Change in 2018 Municipal $ 33.18
  • Education $ (20.27)
  • Net increase$ 12.91
  • Percentage change Municipal 2.00%
  • Education -2.41%
  • Net change 0.52%

Guidelines for Waterfront Design in Seguin Township

April 3rd Council approved and directed iplementation of the “Guidelines for Waterfront Design in Seguin Township” which will be posted on the Township’s website. Resolution No. 2018-090.

West Parry Sound Area Emergency Response Plan 2018

“In 2016 the West Parry Sound CEMC’s / Fire Chiefs reviewed the capability of their own Municipalities to respond and manage a large scale emergency over a period of days to perhaps weeks.

The conclusion was that there was a large gap in any single Municipality being able to manage a long term emergency in entirety with its own staff. The CMEC’s / Fire Chiefs agreed to develop a cooperative emergency management team made up of senior staff members from participating West Parry Sound Municipalities and base the foundation of the new direction on the Incident Command System, ICS.

The development of the ICS was the result of lessons learned by responders battling bush and forest fires in California during the 1970s. The challenges identified the need to improve and standardize command and coordination of all emergency responders and equipment regardless of the scale of an incident using an all-hazards approach. The adoption of ICS into Canada began in the mid 1990s in British Columbia through its British Columbia Emergency Response System, followed by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). In 2002 CIFFC Canadianized the ICS materials from the
US to improve on-site incident efficiency, improve interoperability for mutual aid and enhance firefighter safety. All Provincial, Territorial and Federal wild land firefighting agencies across Canada subsequently adopted this ICS model.

The Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act (EMCPA) and its supporting Regulation 380/04 require municipalities to develop and adopt a plan to address disaster response within their municipalities. The concept of joint cooperative emergency management team and common Municipal senior staff trained to ICS standards was communicated to Municipal Councils in 2016.

All Municipalities in West Parry Sound are adopting this strategy with the exception of Whitestone. The member Municipalities agreed to assign their CEMCs to the organizing committee with the intention of developing a common and cooperative approach to emergency management.

The cornerstone of this plan, like the ICS model, is the ability to scale the response according to the severity and impact of the emergency. Additionally it is fundamentally important for each municipality to maintain the right to manage emergencies within their own borders if they are able to do so with their own resources. When an emergency occurs, the impacted municipality may choose to manage the emergency with its own staff or request the assistance of the Emergency Command Group to manage the emergency or supplement existing efforts.

The phases of the plan to date are:
• Member Municipalities agree to work together to manage emergencies (completed)
• Assign staff to the Emergency Preparedness Planning Committee (completed)
• Assign senior staff to the Emergency Preparedness Operational Group (completed)
• Train planning and senior staff as a group to ICS level 200 and 300 (completed)
• Develop, adopt and implement a common Emergency Response Plan for member      Municipalities (current phase)
• Participate jointly in annual meetings, training, planning and emergency exercising (in development)

The common Emergency Response Plan and the Emergency Command Group when adopted does not take away a Municipalities authority. It will enhance the ability of the Command Group to respond and relieve operational members of other Municipalities during longer emergency events. It is the goal that all participating West Parry Sound Municipalities adopt the draft ICS based Emergency Response Plan as per attached. re (CIFFC). In 2002 CIFFC Canadianized the ICS materials from the US to improve on-site incident efficiency, improve interoperability for mutual aid and enhance firefighter safety. All Provincial, Territorial and Federal wild land firefighting agencies across Canada subsequently adopted this ICS model.”

Conclusion: Council Approved the new ICS based Emergency Response Plan.

West Parry Sound Health Centre Delegation Update

Donald Sanderson, Jim Hanna and Katie Hogue made a delegation to Council.

Jim Hanna spoke.  Excerps of his remarks are included here for your information.

“Thank you very much to Township of Seguin Mayor and Council for allowing West Parry Sound Health Centre team to speak to you at this time on your busy agenda.

We are also thankful to staff members who have worked with us to schedule our visit here this afternoon.

Jim Hanna: I am Communications and Community Relations Officer, and attending with me here today is health centre and Lakeland Long Term Care CEO Donald Sanderson, and our Nurse Practitioner Katie Hogue from the Rosseau Nursing Station.

Over the next few weeks we will be speaking at council meetings throughout West Parry Sound. This is our first stop. We strongly support the belief that open communication and the strength of our relationship is important to the communities we are privileged to serve  your constituents, our patients and families. We share the need to be careful stewards of limited financial resources.

It has recently been announced that Ontario’s hospitals are receiving an additional $822 million, a much-needed 4.6 percent increase – very close to the request made by the Ontario Hospital Association in its pre-budget submission to the provincial government. We have been told by our funders at the North East Local Integration Network that we will receive somewhere between S100,000 and S350,000 in additional funding – somewhere at or near 1 percent.

We are thankful for every dollar we receive, but, contrary to a recent report that this will “go a long way to help ease some of the pressures” at West Parry Sound Health Centre, it will not cover the inflationary costs that we continue to experience.

Between 2013 and 2017, wages have increased 2.73%, benefits 3.41%, food costs have risen 26.77%, utilities up 16.53%, and our equipment costs 27.45%.  Even in the face of these challenges, we remain confident that we will achieve a balanced budget at the end of this fiscal year.

We are very pleased to be sharing with council today news that West Parry Sound Health Centre is now fully engaged in the northeast region’s largest and most transformational project ever. Our staff and physicians are working together with their colleagues at
Sault Area Hospital and North Bay Regional Health Centre to become the first three hospitals in the North East Local Health Integration Network to share the same electronic health record system. Over the next few years, every hospital in our LHIN will join together in using the same system. That means the seamless and secure movement of personal health information, care providers sharing best practices in support of the very
best patient care, a system working in cooperation and linking to other hospitals throughout the province.

Seguin’s financial support for health professional retention and recruitment – along with our EHR project is helping to create an environment that is supportive and rewarding for the multi-disciplinary team that is needed to care for our communities today, and into the
future. We have experienced how fragile our local health care system can be. I am hopeful that council will continue to support our retention and recruitment work. Recent successes include: a fourth General Internist will soon be coming to practice at West Parry Sound Health Centre, and new practitioners in Family Medicine are being attracted by our community’s Family Health Team.

There is also exciting health care news here in Seguin. I know that council is well aware of the exceptional primary care being provided at the Rosseau Nursing Station. Nurse Practitioner Katie Hogue and her colleagues at all of our nursing stations are in the early stages of a project to expand care – adding new supports in mental health, social work, physiotherapy, and additional nurse practitioner time.

I would like to share some information that comes directly from Katie: “Collectively the six nursing stations serve over 22,000 patients, with a 65 percent influx in seasonal population during the summer months. Patients in need of many health care services have been required to travel to Parry Sound, or larger communities outside of our catchment –
sometimes up to two hours for access to services such as physiotherapy. Over the past five years, our Nurse Practitioners have conducted extensive data collection and undertaken advocacy work which clearly demonstrates the need for additional services. The services will be available to rural residents who access the nursing stations, and the Nurse
Practitioners will be collaborating with the local Family Health Team to bridge services, which may not have been previously available due to transportation barriers.”  Moving more care out into the communities we are privileged to serve is an important accomplishment for West Parry Sound Health Centre. We are very proud of the work being done by Katie and our team of nurse practitioners and the staff who support them.

We conclude our remarks with an important note of thanks to the ratepayers of Seguin Township. This is a generous community, a source of leadership and great enthusiasm for the West Parry Sound Health Centre Foundation. Foundation board Chair Joan Conn, her team, and generous donors from your community help to make our success possible with purchasing necessary equipment for improved patient care in the health centre, supporting extended summer hours at the Rosseau Nursing Station, or helping to raise the millions of dollars that are needed for our electronic health records project.

We are grateful. Thank you to every member of Council for your personal commitment and leadership in the communities we are mutually privileged to serve.”

A summary of the April 3, Seguin Council Meeting

  • Forward the presentation from the West Parry Sound Health Centre delegation to Members of Council.
  • Forward the donation of $200 to Chase Stahls from Parry Sound Youth Bowling for his participation at Nationals in Regina, Saskatchewan. Resolution No. 2018-075.
  • Implement the By-law respecting construction, demolition, change of use, inspections and fees (the Building By-law). By-law No. 2018-018.
  • Proceed with the property tax write offs. By-law No. 2018-021.
  • Implement the tax ratios. By-law No. 2018-022.
  • Implement the 2018 tax rates and operating and capital budgets. By-law No. 2018-023.
  • Proceed with Zoning By-law Housekeeping Amendment Application No. R-2017-0007-F (Park). By-law No. 2018-020.
  • Proceed with the following Consent Applications:
     B-2018-0011-H (2543014 Ontario Inc.). Resolution No. 2018-085.
     B-2018-0008-H (Applegath). Resolution No. 2018-087.
     B-2018-0002/0003/0004/0005/0006/0007-F (Danielson). Resolution No. 2018-088.
  • Advise the West Parry Sound partners and prepare a by-law to implement the 2018 West Parry Sound Area Emergency Response Plan. Resolution No. 2018-086.
  • Proceed with Rezoning Application No. R-2017-0016-H (Hayhoe). By-law No. 2018-089.
  • Implement the “Guidelines for Waterfront Design in Seguin Township” and post on the Township’s website. Resolution No. 2018-090.
  • Award Tender No. 2018-015 for the supply and placement of approximately 16,000 tonnes of Granular A gravel on Clear Lake Road. Resolution No. 2018-091.
  • Award Tender No. 2018-016 for the supply and placement of approximately 4,000 tonnes of Granular A gravel on Salmon Lake Road. Resolution No. 2018-092.
  • Award RFQ No. 2018-002 for road line painting. Resolution No. 2018-093.
  • Forward a copy of the resolution supporting the Open Letter published in the Chicago Sun-Times re Potential Asian Carp Infestation of the Great Lakes to the various parties. Resolution No. 2018-094.
  • Forward a copy of the resolution and organize a meeting with the Town of Parry Sound to further discuss a proposed boundary adjustment. Resolution No. 2018-096.
  • Advise the Ad-Hoc Wellness and Pool Recreational Committee that Council has appointed Councillor Graves as an alternate representative to a committee to review the feasibility of a wellness and pool complex in West Parry Sound in the absence of Mayor Gibbon. Resolution No. 2018-097.
  • Advise the West Parry Sound Municipal Clerks/Returning Officers of the appointment and reappointments to the West Parry Sound Joint Election Compliance Audit Committee for the 2018-2022 term of Council. Resolution No. 2018-098.
  • Forward a letter to Laurel Golle thanking her for her service on the Orrville Recreation Committee and copy the Committee. Resolution No. 2018-099.
  • Forward a letter to Heather Adamson thanking her for her service on the Rosseau Community Action Committee and copy the Committee. Resolution No. 2018-100.
  • Advise Laurie McDonald and the Rosseau Community Action Committee of her appointment to the Committee. Resolution No. 2018-101.
  • Submit ideas for the Ontario’s Main Street Revitalization Initiative to the Clerk’s Department by April 20th, 2018 for discussion and direction at the May 7th meeting of Council.
  • Register Councillor Collins for the District of Parry Sound Municipal Association Spring Meeting. Resolution No. 2018-102.
  • Register/purchase tickets for Councillor Adams and guest to attend the Parry Sound Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Business Achievement Awards Gala. Resolution No. 2018-103.
  • Contact the Clerk/Administrator of the Township of Perry and obtain information on possibly hosting the 2018 Fall District of Parry Sound Municipal Association meeting and report back to Council.

Respectfully Submitted

Jack Hepworth