*Don’t
miss Sept 16 Council or the Sept 17 Special Midhurst Meetings.*
I really
appreciated the letter from Margaret Prophet from Midhurst in the last edition
of SN. Her concern for costs and long term impacts are legitimate and well
founded. The one disagreement I have is her assumption that the developers
could sue the township if the township stopped the development plans is not
totally correct.
It is
obvious that the Midhurst Secondary Plan (MSP) would have been cancelled if not
for the Amendment 1 and 2 of the Places to Grow Provincial Policy. Both the
province and the county objected to the growth numbers of the MSP as they did
not meet the population criteria of either the IGAP or original Places to Grow
guidelines. If not for the Special Transition Rule for Midhurst, even the first
phase of the development could not proceed. It does illustrate how much
influence the large development community has on planning in our local
municipalities.
It is clear
in the Municipal Act and the Planning Act that the council is immune to
lawsuits for things that have not been approved. Remember, the worst case
scenario saw the approval of a future settlement area in Midhurst even though
the people in the know say it was never a settlement area but a planning area. However
the Plan which was hastily rammed though by the last Council, which included
the current Mayor and Ward 1 Councillor, did not include phasing or controls of
buildout such as where and when and what numbers would be permitted. These are
all policies that the Township has full control over. The Township can get
itself in hot water if it approves site plans and rezones land and then changes
its mind. Since none of that has not occurred or been approved, the Township,
if there was any political will, can reverse this catastrophic ill-conceived
Midhurst Secondary Plan if it chooses to do so. I encourage Midhurst and all
residents of Springwater to get into the discussion. The negative impact as
noted by Ms. Prophet will increase everyone’s taxes and definitely increase
water and sewer rates for those on municipal services in all areas of
Springwater.
On
September Tuesday 17th at 5:30 there is a public information session
to answer a number of unanswered questions about the Midhurst Mega development
plans. You should make a point of being at the meeting regardless of where you
live in Springwater.
We are one
year away from choosing new leadership in Springater and it is definitely
needed. Give yourself an opportunity to judge for yourself what some of these
elected officials are doing with your hard earned tax dollars. See if you agree
that some of them are destroying the very fabric of our rich rural based
municipality through their lack of vision or concern when making decisions. The
long term negative impacts of the decisions they are making today will not be
easily revered even if we toss them out of office.
Now is the
time for all of us to act and put pressure on our elected to make the right
decisions to the benefit of all stakeholders. Tell them to not cave into the
pressures of outsiders who have no long term consequence of the poor decisions
of the 2010-2014 council.
As an added
note I also encourage you to attend the next Council Meeting on Monday September
16th at 5:30 where the infamous Webster/McLean motion will be tabled
to have the Township chase people like me and pay lawyers to do so when we
write things that they don’t agree with. It is of course under the guise of
Slander and Libel a partial duplication of already clearly defined laws and
remedies by provincial and federal statutes. The key is that they want to sic
lawyers on people without being vetted by council as would be the current
procedure. I am still hoping one other person will join Hanna, McConkey and
Ritchie to defeat this unnecessary power. I hope saner heads will prevail and the
motion is rejected as was the last ill-conceived motion to pay a communication company
thousands of dollars to help this council effectively make itself look good. That
approach failed miserably for the County with their expensive communication
company that was trying to sell Site 41 as a good idea and a number of local
Mayors and Deputy Mayors were punished for it..
These two
upcoming meetings will also allow you to consider if you think Webster and
McLean, the drivers of recent events, are acting like senior leaders in our
local government. My opinion is that I expect to see them on the ballot the
next time and one or both I suspect will shoot for the highest office.
