On Monday night, Jim Hill, a resident of Montgomery Village spoke at Question Period with concerns about tickets that his family is receiving overnight while being parked in the overflow parking in the community. This winter alone, his family has received in the neighbourhood of 30 parking tickets at $25 a piece. Mr. Hill plans to fight each of these tickets. Mr. Hill has lived in the neighbourhood for 20 years and is concerned that the change in the bylaw is going to force him to relocate his family. Members of council said that the bylaw hasn’t changed, rather the bylaw dept has become more diligent with enforcement of the bylaw.
Councillor Wilson proposed an option where perhaps permits could be purchased on a first-come-first-serve basis by residents of the area to allow parking, and this proposal gained no traction.
After a lengthy discussion, Mr. Hill was quite obviously frustrated when Council chose not to pursue any changes to the current bylaw and no resolution was sought.
No Changes to The Way We Vote
On Monday’s agenda, Council was asked to look at various voting options for the 2018 Municipal Election. Options included changing to a ‘Ranked’ system, as well as possibly adding Internet Voting to the mix while continuing with Paper Ballots and Vote Counting Machines.
Trevor Castiglione spoke up at Question Period asking Council to consider adding in the Internet Voting to help combat our low voter-turnout.
Council chose to keep our voting methods the same and opted out of adding Internet Voting to the 2018 election.
In my humble opinion, I would have liked to see Council do some more investigation into the addition of online voting. I can understand why people would not want to cast their vote online, in fact, I don’t think I would ever use online voting personally..however, I would have liked to see some more investigation into this as an option. What do you think? Would you ever cast your ballots online? Would you have liked to see Council change anything about the way our elections are handled?
Council Remuneration Review Committee
This committee is set to review remuneration for the next term of Council and the committee will be formed after a motion to do so was passed.
Mayor Williams recalled that in the previous term of Council, staff were to investigate whether or not the role of Mayor should be a full-time position and noted that no actions had been taken…and this was not including as part of the motion that was passed on Monday.
In my humble opinion, the role of Mayor in The Town of Orangeville should remain part-time…I don’t know that as a Town, we can afford the increase in salary that would come from having a full-time Mayor…what do you think?
Public Meeting for Orangeville Policing Issue is Coming
Councillor Kidd requested that a ‘Special Meeting of Council’ be scheduled through the week of April 24th with the sole agenda item being policing. This would give residents the opportunity to weigh-in on both the OPP costing presentation as well as the upcoming OPS presentation that is scheduled for Monday, April 3rd.
Having it scheduled as a Council Meeting, rather than a Public Meeting will afford the possibility of it being televised on Rogers TV which Councillor Kidd felt was an important factor.
Staff will be looking at dates and coordinating with Rogers TV and will announce the date once it is confirmed.
With this being such a hot topic and HUGE million dollar decision for our Council, will you plan on being in attendance?
Next Council Meeting
The next meeting of Council is scheduled for Monday, March 20th! Hope you see you there!
Have a safe and happy March Break 🙂