Bell, city wants answers

With telephone service now fully restored to thousands of Owen Sound homes and businesses, Bell Aliant is shifting its attention to the cause of the construction blunder that took nearly a week of work to repair and left a trail of frustrated customers.
Bell spokeswoman Norma Hughes Howard said the company will launch an investigation into why an underground duct structure was heavily damaged and thousands of cables, housed inside, were severed during extensive road work last week.
“In terms of compensation, I can tell you that when Bell’s infrastructure or facilities are damaged by third-party negligence, we generally seek compensation for any associated repair costs,” she said Thursday.
An estimate on the cost of the repair job, which had Bell crews working around the clock for days, was not available, she said.

STOP SPENDING: Wright

The spending must stop, Owen Sound Coun. Arlene Wright told her fellow councillors this week.
“We are up to our eyeballs in financial problems,” she said. “The more I think about it, the more I think we need to have a moratorium on spending.”
Wright, chairwoman of Owen Sound’s finance committee and Grey County’s current warden, said city residents are “getting more anxious” about council’s spending.
Wright’s comments came as council discussed whether or not to spend more cash on the city’s over-budget 9th St. bridge project.
In an interview after the meeting, Wright did not back off, saying she is concerned about how much spending council has authorized this year.
She said the city is taking on some massive projects — including the $38.6-million regional recreation centre and a planned sewage treatment plant upgrade — and is in urgent need of more revenue.
“There’s only so many people here paying the bill,” she said.
The city could soon “get to the point,” she said, when it must refuse senior-government grants because it will not have the money to pay for a one-third or 50% share of the cost.

Hempel gets a no

By DENIS LANGLOIS
Sun Times staff

Christy Hempel says she has no plans to fight city council’s decision to block her from building a four-unit apartment near Harrison Park in Owen Sound.
“We will not pursue the matter at the OMB (Ontario Municipal Board). This kind of project requires solid political support at the city and county level,” she said Monday.
Council rejected Hempel’s application to rezone the southern half of her 2nd Ave. E. property to permit an apartment with four affordable housing units.
A report by city hall planning staff recommended council reject the application because the planned apartment would not fit in with the neighbourhood and the lot would not have suitable space for parking.
Hempel, an architectural designer, said she was seeking federal-provincial funding from the Affordable Housing Program to build the apartments.
She said she wanted to prove that an apartment for low-income residents can be designed to fit into any neighbourhood, including the one by Harrison Park that includes mostly older, single-family homes.
“My goal was to design a four-plex to show that you don’t have to have a horrible apartment building to intensify,” she said in an interview.
She said cities should focus on infilling, rather than permitting urban sprawl. They should also relax the parking rules, she said, if the units are for low-income tenants and are located near a downtown.
City planning rules require five parking spaces, in the rear or side yard, for a four-unit apartment. Hempel proposed to have all five spaces located in the front yard, both on her lot and a severed apartment lot.

Murdoch, others call for bike lanes

By DENIS LANGLOIS
Sun Times staff

Bike lane advocates say now is the time to pressure the provincial government to link together southern and northern Ontario.
The Ministry of Transportation plans to resurface Highway 6 this summer from Mar to Tobermory and from South Baymouth to Little Current on Manitoulin Island.
Half-metre shoulders will be paved. Bike lane advocates are lobbying the province to increase the width to one metre to create dedicated bicycle/fitness lanes.
“If we bit by bit, stretch by stretch, as it’s being resurfaced, create a one-metre paved shoulder, eventually we can have a cross-Canada bike trail,” said Maja Mielonen, who is leading a fight for bicycle lanes on Manitoulin Island.
A rally is planned for Sunday at 2 p.m. in Manitowaning to show support for a cross-island paved bicycle route.
Mielonen and her supporters say bike lanes foster a healthy lifestyle and boost tourism and road safety.
The MTO says adding an extra metre of road is costly — about $15,000 per kilometre.
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Conservative MPP Bill Murdoch has called on Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne to include cycling lanes as part of the $20-million project to resurface 70 kms of Highway 6 on the Bruce Peninsula.

Water rates to rise

By DENIS LANGLOIS
Sun Times staff

The cost to use city water will rise by about $1.25 per week for an average residential consumer in Owen Sound.
A household that uses 300 cubic metres of water per year will see their costs for water-sewer service climb by 7.75%, starting immediately. The increase will drive up the annual cost to run the taps from $850 to $916.
Water-sewer bills for commercial users will increase by about 13.11%, while industrial consumers will pay 15.5% more.
City council approved the rate hikes Monday.
Wayne Ritchie, Owen Sound’s director of financial services, said the increases are needed to finance significant upgrades to the city’s water and sewage treatment plants and to make up for lost revenue caused by reduced water consumption.

Tearing up 10th St.

Owen Sound is counting on receiving a big chunk of cash from the province to help fund a big-ticket road project.
The Ministry of Transportation has indicated, but not yet confirmed, that the city will receive nearly $1.3 million in funding for a project to widen 10th St. E., near the future site of Owen Sound’s regional recreation centre, and improve the outdated intersection at 10th St. and 9th Ave. E.
“It seems very promising. We will be surprised if we don’t get it,” said Chris Webb, the city’s manager of engineering services.
City council has approved spending about $727,000 on the project if the MTO approves its connecting link grant request.

Garbage still Michigan bound

Owen Sound plans to continue shipping its trash south of the border after this year, despite a provincial agreement that bans Ontario municipalities from dumping garbage at Michigan landfill sites starting Jan. 1.
Coun. Bill Twaddle, chairman of the city’s environmental and waste advisory committee, said Owen Sound will continue status quo unless the province ponies up cash to subsidize the added cost of dumping at an Ontario landfill.
“At this point in time, we are not going to increase our costs by shipping to Ontario instead of shipping to Michigan,” he said Thursday in an interview.
The Ministry of the Environment, which inked the agreement with Michigan senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, said Owen Sound is “expected” to comply.
“We do expect municipalities will eliminate all waste shipments to Michigan by Dec. 31,” said MOE spokesman Mark Rabbior.

Murdoch slams McGuinty

By DENIS LANGLOIS
Sun Times staff

MPP Bill Murdoch says democracy is essentially dead in Ontario and Premier Dalton McGuinty is ruling Queen’s Park like a dictator.
“We have one person at the top, the premier, and he tells everyone what to do. We’ve lost representative democracy in this country,” the maverick MPP said Thursday in an interview.
After pushing through the controversial health tax, HST and Green Energy Act, Murdoch said McGuinty now has his sights on steamrolling ahead with plans to reform prescription drug rules, which could kill off small, rural pharmacies.
Murdoch said the latest evidence of McGuinty’s influence is a media release issued this week by Peterborough Liberal MPP Jeff Leal that sharply criticizes the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP for not supporting the drug reform plan.
“Bill Murdoch and the Ontario Conservatives have fallen in line with big chain drug stores, while turning their backs on lower drug prices for Ontario families and seniors,” the media release says.

Liberals pressure for deadline extension

By DENIS LANGLOIS
Sun Times staff

The federal Liberals are mounting a campaign to pressure the Harper government into easing the deadline on stimulus funding, saying the cry from municipalities is getting too loud to ignore.
Liberal infrastructure critic Gerard Kennedy has convinced an all-party standing committee on transport and infrastructure to study the impact of the March 31, 2011, deadline on communities.
“And to understand, so there can be improvements made, the problems that it is creating for municipalities, in particular, right across the country,” the Toronto MP said Wednesday in an interview with The Sun Times.
Owen Sound council voted last month to proceed with its $38-million regional recreation centre project, even though it will not meet the deadline set by the federal-provincial infrastructure funding program, which has committed to paying two-thirds of the facility’s construction cost.
The Conservative government has repeatedly said it will not extend the deadline.

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