Wellesley nears completion of new strategic plan

The future of Wellesley Township over the next decade became a little clearer on Tuesday night when councillors were presented with the draft version of their new strategic plan. Fire chief Andrew Lillico made the presentation and provided an update on the process that got underway last fall. The 28-page document provides an overview of strategic goals, program managers, objectives, timelines and progress indicators for a range of projects that fall under six distinct categories; human resources, healthy communities and environments, growth management and sustainable growth, infrastructure, public engagement and partnerships, and customer service. Lillico received input from staff, councillors, and other municipalities when putting together the report, which he hopes will act as a blueprint for the next 10 years.

“We chose 2012 to 2022 because it falls in line with our 10-year capital budget,” he explained.

The vision statement that will be used to develop all future plans is clearly a homage to the historical past of Wellesley, but with an eye forward as well: “The Township of Wellesley is a sustainable community that preserves its heritage while shaping its future,” while the mission statement will be “To deliver quality services through leadership, innovation, partnership and community engagement in a fair and cost-effective manner.”
Without providing any specifics, each of the six categories was given their own guiding objectives, which should help facilitate the decision-making process moving forward.

For example, the strategic objective for customer service is “To ensure quality and accountability in providing effective and efficient customer services that match or exceed our customer’s expectations for our residents and businesses.”

The timelines for each objective range from a few months all the way to the end of 2022, a moving target that Lillico said allows for flexibility and fluidity in the decision making process moving forward.
“I feel that the plan is fairly accurate where we sit today, however, we’re sitting in a situation where the provincial government may make some changes to our environment that could impact the municipality,” he said. “Certainly going into next year when we know the impacts from the budget and the Drummond Report, we could adjust the strategic plan as an ongoing document.”
Councillors praised the work of Lillico and staff, saying the document should be a valuable resources moving forward.

“I think it hits all the objectives we have as a council and hit all the points, and it’s something that we can do indicators on every year to see where we stand,” said Coun. Jim Olender. “I think we have a framework to work with now, and I think that’s great.”

A public meeting to review the strategic plan is scheduled for Apr. 17 to allow public comment, and Lillico is aiming for final council approval in June.

Council clears way for expansion at Safety-Kleen

An expansion at the Safety-Kleen plant in Breslau can proceed now that Woolwich council has signed off on a site plan for work on 15 acres of land adjacent to the main facility. The property will be home to a new 7,300-square-metre warehouse, truck parking area, safety flare structure and storm-water management facility. Although site-plan agreements are usually handled by staff rather than referred to council, this time was different because of concerns raised when the previous council approved the necessary Official Plan changes in the spring of 2010, manager of planning John Scarfone told councillors meeting Mar. 20.

The same issue with underground contaminants also prompted action at the Ontario Municipal Board by Elmira environmentalist Alan Marshall. That was subsequently dealt with in a dismissal ruling last March.
Still, there were a long list of conditions the oil re-refinery needed to address prior to winning approval to go ahead with the project.

Part of the 15-acre parcel has contaminants underneath, a legacy from Breslube Enterprises and other former operations on site. Safety-Kleen has been working for years to clean up the pollutants based on remediation action plan approved in 2002 by the Ministry of the Environment, which urged the company to purchase the property, part of what’s known as the Forwell gravel pit.

Part of the added parcel is to be used as home for a new warehouse that will store finished goods, mostly one-litre plastic containers of oil. Space on the site will also be used by the company’s truck fleet. That would remove the need for a small lot in Breslau’s core – the company has already stopped using oil storage tanks at that location, with the intention of moving those uses onto the existing Safety-Kleen lands.

Any contaminants under the proposed site of the warehouse must be removed prior to construction. The company is also required to create a buffer area planted with vegetation to separate the development area and a nearby drainage creek, to perform air-quality monitoring of the building and to carry out semi-annual groundwater monitoring by sampling nearby wells, said Scarfone in a report to council.

Some 10,000 to 20,000 gallons of oil-based contaminants sit in the shallow aquifer under the site, dating back to the 1960s and ’70s. Safety-Kleen has been pumping out the sludge and treating the waste, recovering about 2,000 to 3,000 gallons to date. Full remediation is expected to take more than 20 years.

Inclusive playground finds home in Elmira’s Gibson Park

Watch for construction to get underway this spring as Woolwich council this week cleared the way for an accessible playground in Elmira’s Gibson Park. A spot east of the creek that flows through the First Street park will be the new home for the project organized by the Kate’s Kause charity. Councillors needed little prompting Tuesday night following a presentation by director of recreation and facilities Karen Makela that showed overwhelming public support for the playground. An open house was held Feb. 23 to discuss the Gibson Park location, and the township solicited input directly from the public – “95 to 98 per cent of the feedback was supportive.”
For Mayor Todd Cowan, the decision was an easy one. “Let’s move ahead. We’ve done our due diligence on this one.”

With the approvals in place, work can begin in earnest to transform the site. The inclusive playground for kids of all abilities is expected to cost up to $575,000,  built in phases as money is raised. Kate’s Kause, which had hoped to raise $250,000 over five years, collected $265,000 in the first 15 months of the campaign. That’s enough to get started, and the group will continue its fundraising efforts.

Headed by Kelly Meissner, the charity is named after her young daughter Kate, who was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome two years ago. Angelman Syndrome is a neurological disease affecting some one in 15,000 people, characterized by a severe global developmental delay. People with AS, or “Angels” as they are sometimes called, can have little or no verbal skills, poor gross and fine motor skills, and possible seizure and sleep disorders. However, Angels do have a unique characteristic: they have a happy, pleasant demeanor with a wonderful smile and contagious laughter.

The goal of the park project is to provide a place where kids like Kate can play without the restrictions of traditional playgrounds. The local group is working with California-based non-profit Shane’s Inspiration, which has helped build a series of universally accessible playgrounds. The idea is to provide a common area for kids of all abilities to do what kids do best: play.

Funding for the project is expected to come entirely from fundraising efforts. The township will provide the land in Gibson Park, as well as in-kind support. There will be some additional expense to upgrade the washroom facilities in the park, Makela explaining, noting some of the improvements are needed regardless of the playground project.

The township is also looking at a splash pad in conjunction with the playground, but is weighing other options, including providing that facility in one of the other communities in Woolwich that, unlike Elmira, does not have a pool, she added.

Wellesley facing delays in review of proposed new position

Wellesley council will have to wait until May for the final consultants report on whether or not they should hire a new tax collector – a timeline that has some councillors seeing red. “I have an issue with how long it’s taking,” said Coun. Shelley Wagner. “May 15th (they) will be coming back to council, and so we’ve been sitting in a position for two months having somebody evaluate this.

“Was there anyone else who could come sooner?”

The New Hamburg-based financial consultant Barcon was contacted following the Mar. 5 council meeting, and has scheduled a series of interviews with township staff on Apr. 12, and the review process will take an additional four weeks.

Township operations manager Willis McLaughlin explained to Wagner that there was no one else who had the same experience with the township as Barcon, and if they had hired someone else, it likely would have taken longer for the review to be completed while they got up to speed with the situation.

“We weren’t happy with the timeline either, but the alternatives aren’t too rosy,” he said. “It’s the best we could do.”

The consultant has been hired to review the township’s need to employ a new tax collector, a position that has gone unfilled since the end of December and has forced other staff to pick up the slack in the meantime.
But the workload is so high that the position needs to be filled quickly and made full-time, director of finance Diane Lorbetski told councillors at the Mar. 5 meeting, saying they were short 1,820 hours of work per year that current staff couldn’t cover.

In a split vote, 3-2, councillors decided to hire a consultant to determine the necessity of hiring a new tax collector at the recommended starting hourly rate of $25.75, or $46,865.00 annually.
The consultant will cost between $8,400 and $9,600 for seven to eight days of consulting time, plus HST and mileage, which will come from the 2012 HR Committee budget of $30,000.
Coun. Jim Olender also expressed his frustration with the township’s lack of foresight in the situation.

“We could have had a part-timer in there from December until now,” he said. “Knowing this was coming up and that we didn’t have a replacement for the person that was leaving, that person could have been asked to stay on until this was resolved.”

The consultant will conduct 30-minute interviews on Apr. 12 with key members of council, the finance department, finance staff, and internal customers of the finance department. At the Mar. 27 meeting the consultant will provide more details on timelines and costs, along with an interview schedule.

Residents go on the offensive prior to OMB process

Woolwich planning staff preparing for an OMB hearing got another earful this week from residents worried about the impact of the proposed Jigs Hollow gravel pit. Reflecting the coordinated effort that’s become the hallmark for opposition to gravel pits near residential areas, speakers addressing council Tuesday night hammered away at a long list of shortcomings in data presented to date by the applicant, Kuntz Topsoil, Sand and Gravel. Not sure if they’ll be able to take part in mediation talks organized by the Ontario Municipal Board, scheduled for next month, the residents want to ensure their long list of concerns are addressed appropriately. From ruining tourism in the Winterbourne valley to unacceptable noise issues, they outlined the reasons why the township should turn down the zone-change application.

The operation received conditional approval from the previous council – one of its final actions in 2010 was voting in favour of the pit – but the new council was brought in on a wave of change, in large part driven by opposition to gravel pits. The township has five applications on the books, three of them larger operations within the vicinity of Conestogo, Winterbourne and West Montrose.

One of those – the Hunder Developments application on 150 acres of land on two farm properties located at 128 Katherine St. S. and 1081 Hunsberger Rd. – was turned down by council. It, too, is the subject of an OMB action, with a prehearing meeting set for Apr. 17.

The other is Guelph-based Capital Paving’s bid to extract gravel from 115 acres near West Montrose and its historic covered bridge. That process was on hold pending the township’s study and subsequent designation of the bridge and its surroundings as a cultural heritage landscape.

Opposition to all three pits stem from compatibility issues where developers are looking to build pits near established residential neighbourhoods with significant environmental and heritage features nearby. Making a case against the Kuntz proposal, Winterbourne resident Jan Huissoon this week pointed to the tourism-boosting scenic tours – hiking, cycling and driving – that would be destroyed by the pit.

“It ceases to be a tourist attraction,” he said of the Winterbourne valley where gravel extraction is taking place.

Citing data that shows water tables in the area are higher than in the original study done in 2005, he questioned the overall economic viability of the proposed operation. Given the 1.5-metre buffer in an above-the-water-table pit, there will be less aggregate available, cutting perhaps 300,000 tonnes off of the applicant’s estimate of 840,000 tonnes available from the 90-acre site at 125 Peel St. Unable to dig as deeply as planned, the pit would present more visual and noise impacts than claimed in studies done by the applicant’s consultants, added Huissoon. That thread was picked up by Lynne Hare of West Montrose, who noted the amount of soil above the less-than-anticipated amount of aggregate – the overburden – appears to be inadequate to form the berms that form part of the noise-dampening plan for the site.With lower pit face walls, noise levels could be higher than anticipated, she added.

Hare pointed to plans to import concrete, asphalt and soil to be crushed and recycled at the site as adding to the noise levels. She called such industrial uses inappropriate for the agricultural land, noting the applicant already has such processes in place at the company’s Bridge Street location, which is more suitable as it’s adjacent to an industrial area.

She also asked the township to look into removing the western portion of the property from the rezoning application, noting Kuntz says the company has no plans to extract there. Removing the section from the zoning would require a whole new licence process if those plans change, rather than simply going to the Ministry of Natural Resources for an extension.

Hare’s arguments about the industrial uses on agricultural land prompted Coun. Bonnie Bryant to request that planning staff look into the issue. Mayor Todd Cowan, meanwhile, asked staff to incorporate concerns raised at this week’s meeting into the township’s position at the OMB hearings.

Director of engineering and planning Dan Kennaley plans to bring back a report to council Apr. 16.

St. Jacobs event proving popular with moms

For those parents looking to save a little money this spring on clothes and toys look no further than the “I’ve Out Grown It Sale” taking place at the St. Jacobs Mennonite Church on Mar. 24. The bi-annual sale event occurs every March and October as parents sell their gently-used kids’ clothing and toys. The sale has also become a fundraiser for two local charities, as a $2 entrance fee is donated to Elmira Kids & I resource centre and Stuffinstockings.ca, organized each year by Carolyn Parks in St. Jacobs.

Elmira Kids & I resource centre is a free drop-in for  children up to Grade 1; the money helps to buy crafts for the kids to use and toys to play with. Stuffinstockings.ca makes Christmas stockings for children in shelters and low income families in the area.

“In March we sell spring or summer clothing and in October we sell winter clothes and snowsuits because that is what moms and kids are looking for at those times of the year,” said Julie Phillips, organizer of the sale. “We also sell toys, strollers and baby gear.”

The sale started a couple of years ago when Phillips moved to the region from out west and found that due to her work schedule she was unable to attend other regional sales and decided to start her own.
“We moved from Edmonton a while ago and it was a big thing out there, so I thought it would work here too. There are quite a few in the area, including Elora and Kitchener,” said Phillips. “Moms are always looking for used clothing.”

Phillips placed ads on Kijiji looking for parents who are interested in selling clothes or used toys and word spread quickly about the sale with 38 participants attending in March.
“We have never had any tables open, we always sell out on the tables, people are always looking to get rid of the stuff that they don’t need anymore.”

Last March Phillips raised $400 for Stuffinstockings.ca and in October managed to raise another $200 splitting that total between the resource centre and the Christmas stocking drive.
Parents selling at the sale keep the money for the clothing they sell and what does not sell is donated to the family support centre in St. Jacobs where they dispense what is given to them out into the community for those that need it, said Phillips.

“We have had a great response from this sale in the past, with over 200 people coming to the first one. People tell me they think it is a great idea especially raising money for the charities and recycling the clothing.”
Doors open at 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. and there is plenty of parking at the St. Jacobs Mennonite Church. For more information, contact Julie Phillips at (519) 206-1000.

Fewer sidewalk snow-clearing complaints

Spring has nearly sprung in Elmira, which means it’s time to survey the damage to lawns from the sidewalk snowplows. Yet as of Tuesday, Woolwich Township had only received 33 complaints from residents concerning their torn-up lawns, a dramatic decrease compared to years past. During the 2010-2011 winter season, for instance, there were 68 complaints, and in 2009-2010 there were 59. Township staff attributes the reduction in calls to the milder temperatures we saw this season.

“There is a lot less snow, there’s no question,” said Richard Sigurdson, engineering manager for Woolwich.

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The reduction is likely a welcome sight to residents as the program has been the source of complaints since its inception in 2004, with residents pointing to slow service, poor clearing of snow and ice, and ripped up lawn edges.
According to the contract that the township signed with Creative Asphalt and Landscape Works of St. Clements, the contractor must pay for any damages done to sod during the winter snow-clearing season.
Any damage done to other lawn features, such as in-ground sprinklers, are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

The current three-year contract is set to expire at the end of this season, meaning Woolwich will begin looking at its options moving forward, including input from Elmira taxpayers, who are assessed a special-area levy to pay for clearing every sidewalk in town.

The township budgets $70,000 a year for the service, but the amount charged to residents only reflects what they actually pay, and in recent years the township has been in a surplus position. Last year, for example, about $59,000 was spent, which equaled a levy of $12.17 for a house assessed at $254,000.

Mayor Todd Cowan said he has only heard a handful of complaints this year from residents that he has talked to about the service, and said that the township is now in the position of deciding how they want to move forward with it. He says that they must weigh the benefits of the service against the drawbacks, which include not only damaged sod but complaints about slow service and poor work in clearing away ice and snow.
“It’s not that people are against the sidewalk clearing, it’s that they’re against the damage and all the associated complaints,” said Cowan.

“There seems to be quite a majority of people that like it because to have someone come and do the sidewalk in front of their house for $12 for the whole year is a great deal.”

Cowan added that before the tendering process begins, staff will tabulate all the complaints to get a better idea of what the problems are, and where they are. He said that problems have arisen in discrepancies between old and new sidewalks. The blades on the contractor’s snowplows are designed to clear newer sidewalks, not old ones that are up to a foot narrower. Those, and other details, would need to be ironed out should the township decide to continue with the service and tender a new contract.

“We’re looking at all the options. We haven’t made a decision one way or the other if we’re keeping it or if we’re killing it,” said Cowan.

Community groups can access trunk full of fun

Community groups organizing an event and looking for some kids’ activities now have access to some fun in a box, courtesy of the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo. The organization’s Youth Grand Trunk offers games, crafts, athletic equipment, and craft supplies for children from three to 15, and is available free of charge to any community group. The Social Planning Council is a not-for-profit organization that provides free community information to all citizens within Waterloo Region.

“The program is available to anyone in the region. As long as someone is willing to travel to our offices on 151 Fredrick St. in Kitchener, they can pick up the games and supplies to use,” said Valerie Manica administrative co-ordinator at the Social Planning Council of KW. “It’s an ideal resource to add fun to any event. It has games for all ages, craft materials, even instructions to help beginners who’ve never organized an event before.”
Originally developed for the Festival of Neighbourhoods program, the Youth Grand Trunk program supports existing neighbourhood events, as well as new events within the community.

“We wanted to give neighbourhoods resources to use, especially for children coming to the different events and we have collect different games, face paint, and anything that might occupy kids at different events,” said Manica. “We offer this trunk with these supplies to anyone who may have a need for them.”

The program is targeted to community service organizations such as churches, recreation centres and child-centred programs.

A group or individual interested in using the material completes a Booking Form and an Inventory Request Form, indicating which resources from the trunk they want for their event.  The available categories include general games, ball games, ropes, costumes, young children items, music items and craft supplies. Included in the fun box are board games, a giant chess set, Twister, a giant parachute and some ball hockey games.
At the conclusion of the event, clients are asked to indicate the quantity returned and to make a note of any supplies that were used up.

“The Youth Grand Trunk aims to provide access to the resources necessary to run community events such as street parties, athletic programs for children or educational programs,” said Manica. “The goal of the project echoes that of the Social Planning Council. We are looking to increase communication, participation and community involvement.  Improving the quantity and quality of gatherings within neighbourhood helps us to accomplish these goals.”

For more information about the Youth Grand Trunk, contact Allison Dunning at (519) 579-1096.

May not have seen the last of winter, but mild weather is the trend

Enjoying the mild weather this week? Thank the warm air flowing from the south, and thank the lack of snow that’s letting the air stay mild as it sweeps northwards. There’s nothing stopping the warm air as it crosses the continent, explains Dave Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada. “We have no snow or ice to slow it down. The ground is thawed out and the first dibs on any of that warm air coming out of the south is that it normally melts those vestiges of winter. We have not had snow for weeks, so the air arrives almost as warm as it left the south,” he said.

The mild conditions may be just right for the upcoming Elmira Maple Syrup Festival – sunny and warm is just the right combination to bring out visitors – but it hasn’t been ideal for those making the golden stuff in the first place, however. Temperatures have pretty much skipped over the perfect syrup-making days of plus-four degrees during the day and minus-four degrees at night, a fact that  may be a bit disconcerting for syrup producers.
“We have had a remarkable string of warm days. Normal highs in the Woolwich area are typically maple syrup weather, with a high of close to four degrees and lows around minus-six,” said Phillips. “That is the normal and that is what would get the sap flowing during the day and slows it down at night so producers can start processing the sap – everyone is happy. Usually we have snow on the ground, which should still be frozen.”
The ground has not been frozen at all this winter, Phillips said, adding it has been quite an unusual winter this year.

“This has been one of the warmest winters with the least amount of snow.”

Spring is definitely in the air as a remarkable string of mild temperatures that began on Mar. 11 will continue through Tuesday in the region. Spring officially arrives on March 20 at 1:14 a.m., we’ve been seduced by mid-to late-spring weather over the last week.

Phillips said his models show that the temperature will stay warm for the next 10 to 14 days, a duration that has the climatologist scratching his head. The region has experienced this kind of heat spell before, however, and these temperatures are not breaking records every day. The duration is longer than normal for any warm spell in the month; typically a mild spell in March lasts six to seven days and then a return to winter occurs, but this one has already lasted 10 days and may go on for 12 or 13 days.

“We will be seeing a high of 21 degrees in the area, which is 12 degrees warmer than it should be. We are also experiencing lows of only 10 degrees, which should be minus six,” said Phillips. “We usually get a little teaser of warm weather in March, but nothing like this.”

With each passing warm day, it gets tougher for winter to return, he explained, but the region is still not out of the woods until the middle of April – we still have more than a month to go.
“April is called the coolest month; we have never had a spring in the community without some snow,” said Phillips. “I think winter conditions will return, but we are not talking mid-January winter we are talking March winter. With all the heat it is going to be hard for winter to return, but I just don’t think it is over until we get to the middle of April.”

At the end of the month temperature should be cooler but still well above average with highs hovering around the eight degree mark and the lows around four degrees, which should make for a perfect Elmira Maple Syrup Festival weekend.

Solar panels present new challenges for firefighters

As solar panels and other renewable sources of energy grow in popularity, so to do the risks for firefighters and other emergency personnel who are responding to a fire. In an effort to increase safety for all its 143 volunteer firefighters, Woolwich Township has been conducting training on the dangers associated with a fire at a structure that has solar panels or other renewable energy project nearby. “We want to make sure that they know the systems, the panels, the inverters, the disconnects, the racking and the storage,” said Woolwich fire chief Rick Pedersen. “We’re trying to teach them how the grid is tied back to the batteries and the potential for electrocution or the roofs collapsing on them.”

Not only do solar panel systems change the dynamics of firefighting because of added weight to roofs, there is also the presence of toxic gases like cyanide as the panels smolder and burn, not to mention the ever-present danger of electrical shock.

Despite there being a main disconnect switch on all residential solar systems, the panels themselves remain a source of danger – even at night. “We can’t just disconnect them,” said Pedersen. “At one of our sessions we talked about them being shut down at night, but the lights from our truck could activate the solar panels, they’re that sensitive.” There is also the danger of backup storage batteries and generators posing an extra element of risk for systems that are not a part of the main grid, such as on Mennonite farms. The number of renewable energy projects in the region grows by about 30 per cent each year, added Pedersen.

The training sessions started on Feb. 13 and are being conducted by a pair of volunteer firefighters from the Conestogo station. Jason Martin is a farmer who has a solar array on his farm, and earlier this year he travelled to the Emergency Services Training Centre in Blyth to receive more training.

Jason Grieb, the other member involved, is a business partner at Earth FX Energy in Maryhill that specializes in geothermal energy and solar panel installations. “We were fortunate to have a couple guys who have a background in this. They’ve done an excellent job,” said Pedersen. The Wellesley Fire Department has already conducted similar training with their volunteers, and chief Andrew Lillico said they sent a volunteer of their own to Blyth in the fall, with training sessions conducted during the winter months at each Wellesley station.

While both chiefs say they haven’t yet had to fight a fire that involved a solar panel system, they say that it is important to conduct this training and be aware of the ever-evolving dangers facing them in their line of work.
“The potential is definitely there, certainly we’re seeing more and more of this technology in our community,” said Lillico.