mike cluett

Local Library Worker Killed In Plane Crash

Mike Cluett

Thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of Nancy Noakes during their time of grief.

From the Milton Canadian Champion

A long-time and beloved Milton librarian has been identified as one of two victims in Tuesday afternoon’s fatal plane crash in Markham.

Nancy Noakes, 50, worked for the past decade as a part-time employee with the circulation department at Milton Public Library’s Bruce Street location, said Chief Librarian Leslie Fitch.

And she’ll be dearly missed.

“Nancy was a person who prided herself on the work she did,” Fitch told the Champion yesterday afternoon, just hours after she and other staff members were informed of the tragic news. “At this point it’s difficult to find words at all.”

Many people in town who frequented the library would’ve known Noakes — who worked at the library since 2000 — as a friendly, familiar face, Fitch said.

Noakes was killed along with a Burlington pilot — who has been confirmed by other media outlets as Paul Jess — when the four-seat Cessna he was flying crashed through the roof of a two-storey office building at about 12:30 p.m. and burst into flames. It crashed just 500 metres from Buttonville Airport, from where it took off.

The 14 employees at Thinkway Toys, where the plane crashed, got out safely.

As of press time yesterday, police still hadn’t confirmed the identity of the pilot or his passenger. The plane was based out of the Burlington Air Park on Bell School Line, south of Britannia Road. Some newspapers reported it was at Buttonville Airport for radio repairs.

Noakes had started taking flying lessons a few years ago, Fitch said, and it quickly became a favourite pastime.

“She was a passionate flyer since she started taking lessons and it brought her great joy,” Fitch said.

Noakes was a mother of a son and a daughter, who were young adults, Fitch said.

— With files from Daniel Nolan, the Hamilton Spectator

More Crosswalk Talk

Mike Cluett

As I’ve discussed before, there has been a lot of talk about a possible crosswalk near the Metro Plaza.  Over the past few weeks door knocking in the area, I have talked to many Ward 6 residents who are deeply concerned about safety in that area.

Its not just a Ward 6 issue, as fellow candidate Rick Dilorenzo found out.  Rick is running for local council in Ward 7 and through emails and discussions with residents on the west side of Thompson, he is hearing the same things.

Rick posted on his blog recently an email he received from Hawthorne Villager contributor and Ward 7 resident Graham W about his concerns with traffic lights and possible crosswalks in the area.

Just to update those concerned residents, Rick and I are both in contact with the engineering department of the Town of Milton to find out what indeed has to be done to ensure safety of pedestrians and drivers in the area.  It really doesn’t make sense for someone less than 500 meters from the Metro Plaza having to get into their car, drive to the mall to go shopping when crossing the street and walking is so much easier.

The reason why people don’t walk is the potential dangers of crossing Thompson during high periods of traffic, especially on the weekend and during the summer months.  Many residents have children playing soccer and want to take advantage of the great park that’s been built, but again, walking isn’t as safe for people at times and they are forced to drive their cars.

As we get more information, both Rick Dilorenzo and I will be updating our websites and of course we welcome comments and concerns from people in the area.  You can email me mike@mikecluett.ca

Until then, I’ll see you at the doors.

Council to Debate Hospital Tax Levy

Mike Cluett

From the Milton Canadian Champion May 20, 2010 By Tim Foran

Councillors to debate hospital tax levy

Milton council will debate whether to provide cash, perhaps through a dedicated tax levy, to assist Halton Healthcare Services Corporation’s as yet unapproved plans to expand Milton District Hospital.

At Monday’s council session, Ward 3 Councillor Cindy Lunau introduced a notice of motion, which Ward 4 Councillor Paul Scherer indicated he would second, stating the Town would “endeavour” to help HHS cover its share of the costs to redevelop the half-century-old hospital, which hasn’t undergone a major expansion since the mid-1980s.

The motion states the Town would research and identify potential funding mechanisms including the possibility of including a special property tax levy beginning next year.  Council will debate and vote on the motion at the June 28 council session. Lunau said she wanted the long lead time for the community to have an opportunity to provide feedback and plan to attend the session.

Under Provincial funding guidelines that began in June, 2006, Ontario pays for all of the planning costs and 90 per cent of the bricks and mortar for hospital capital projects. Previously, most capital cost share rates varied from 50 to 80 per cent depending on the project, the Province stated at the time.

However, the hospital corporation is still responsible for the remaining 10 per cent of construction costs along with covering the full cost of building revenue-generating facilities such as cafeterias, retail areas and parking lots as well as the medical equipment inside the hospital.

In total, depending on the equipment a hospital needs, that means the Province will cover around 70 per cent of the total project costs, with the hospital corporation paying the remaining portion, dubbed the local share.

The hospital has three ways to pay that local share: its own revenues from, for example, parking lot fees or stores; fundraising done by the Milton District Hospital Foundation; and through financial assistance from municipalities.

The problem Milton council tried to wrap its head around Monday is that HHS won’t provide the municipality with an estimate right now of how much money it would need.  “At the end of the day, if we put too much (money) away, that’s fine,” Scherer said to HHS President John Oliver during Monday’s council session.  “But we need a starting point.”

Oliver said he understood council’s frustration but he doesn’t want to float a dollar figure that would inevitably turn out to be wrong years later after more detailed planning has taken place.

The hospital provided a preliminary cost estimate when it presented its business case for the expansion to the Ministry of Health in September, 2008 but Oliver said after the council meeting that number is already out of date and he doesn’t wish to release it.

“It’s not just inflation, the original size and scope has evolved from the original business case,” he explained. He said he also doesn’t want to jeopardize a competitive bidding process by leaking expected total costs.

However, Oliver did provide council with a benchmark for comparison when he said the redevelopment planned for Milton’s hospital is at least as big as the one proposed for Burlington’s Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital. The first phase of the redevelopment of Jo Brant is projected to cost $312 million, with the local share pegged at $120 million. In December, Burlington’s city council committed to covering half of that cost, or $60 million, and has already started a dedicated property tax levy this year. The City of Vaughan last year committed $80 million to a proposed new hospital for its community. Both projects are also unapproved and are in competition with the Milton hospital expansion to get on the Province’s next 10-year list of infrastructure projects, to be released next year, likely as part of the 2011 budget.

However, the competition is not just among those three hospitals. The Ministry of Health is currently prioritizing at least 50 other proposed hospital projects before submitting its list of requests to the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, which will ultimately decide on the 10-year capital plan.

Other ministries are also prioritizing their own lists of proposed capital projects, one of which includes the proposed Wilfrid Laurier University campus in Milton. That prioritization is expected to take place over the next three months, said Jason Grier, a professional lobbyist from Hill and Knowlton working on behalf of HHS.

One of the things the Ministry of Health will be looking for during this time when prioritizing projects is whether the hospital corporation has a firm plan to meet its local share commitments, Grier said after council Monday.

“They don’t want to move forward on projects that aren’t going to have that local share commitment because then the project isn’t going to happen,” explained Grier, who served as executive assistant to George Smitherman when he was health minister in the provincial government.

Oliver told council it would help the hospital if the Town made a firm commitment of financial support. “I don’t know if you need to put a dollar figure behind it right now.”

Well That Was Interesting

Mike Cluett

Last nights council meeting had it all.  Expectations were running high by some members of council that it could either be a very short meeting or a very long meeting.

I had reported before that council salaries would be discussed at this meeting but apparently it went through on consent items and didn’t even make a blip on the radar.

Ward 3 councillor Cindy Lunau had a notice of motion to include a quick presentation by Halton Healthcare Services to Milton Town Council to give them an update on Milton District Hospital and its possible expansion.

John Oliver from Halton Healthcare made a presentation outlining the fact that expansion of the Milton DH is essential and must happen.  The provincial government has put a freeze on capital projects and will be reviewing them for the 2011 budget.  He made it very clear that Milton needs to be on the radar and get approval fast.  Even if they were given the green light today, it would be at least 2-5 years before anything will happen.

Regional Councillor Colin Best was frustrated with the process, as all councillors are, and with the fact the provincial government KNOWS Milton is growing but is doing nothing to help out.  We are being mandated to grow our population and size but yet have a hospital that is well under the required size for our community.  Mayor Krantz also shared in that frustration as well.

Mr. Oliver also outlined his pleasure with the community as a whole that came out as a result of the Friends of Milton Hospital campaign when over 35,000 people signed a petition to raise awareness with the provincial government that we need something done and soon.

He said that more work is needed and the community and council need to get behind this full force.

Councillor Lunau also put forward a notice of motion for staff to review possible ways for Milton Town Council to fund expansion, as if it were to happen, the local level of government would be required to put money forward.  Council’s idea is to start saving soon for that eventuality.

The problem council faces is where do you start?  And how much do we save for?  John Oliver couldn’t give us a number, although pressed by Councillor Paul Scherer a few times, as legally he could not give a number.  Council was advised to review other area municipalities and what their costs were as a starting point.

These possible funding options include, but are not limited to:

Increase of Development Charges; Special Tax Levy on Milton taxpayers to go to a dedicated hospital expansion fund only to be used for that purpose; Combination of the two.  Another possibility is using the GTA funding poll that has been collected from Milton taxpayers to support Toronto (don’t get us started on that) and now is no longer needed as another source of funding.

Needless to say, this will be something that will require community support like we havent seen before.  Last year, 35,000 people came to the table and to go forward we will need more!

There were some other discussions last night about parking on Queen Street, which is not allowed.  Councillor Greg Nelson failed in his attempt to put forward a motion to reopen the discussion to allow parking on either one side or both.  But after a very convincing presentation by the Milton Fire Chief, which included pictures of the street with one emergency vehicle and how it would impede traffic and cause a safety issue, it was voted down and parking on Queen Street will not be allowed.

And of course, the highly anticipated motion from Ward One Councillor Rick Day was ruled out of order.  Im not going to get into it here, but if you wanted to read what he was going to talk about, here is a link to his proposed notice of motion.

I also experimented with live Tweets from the council meeting last night.  Judging from some of your emails and comments to those posts, it was pretty successful.  I will try for future meetings to post updates via Twitter, which of course you can keep track by going to www.twitter.com/mike_cluettor follow here on the home of the Mike Cluett.

As always I welcome your emails and comments so keep them coming.  Until then, I’ll see you at the doors.

Council Salaries To Be Discussed At Monday’s Meeting

Mike Cluett

From the Milton Canadian Champion

Kim Arnott, SPECIAL TO THE CHAMPION  

Councillors to consider pay raise

A pay hike for local politicians is likely to be a hot topic of discussion at next week’s council meeting.

On Monday night, the Town’s administration and planning committee voted to recommend a 2 per cent pay raise for non-unionized staff employed by the Town.

However, the committee recommended that councillors not receive the same raise.  Salaries for Milton’s non-unionized staff are reviewed annually, and compared to those paid in seven nearby municipalities.  According to a staff report, non-unionized employees working for area municipalities have seen an average 2.39 per cent wage increase this year.  The report recommended a 2 per cent increase for Milton staff, effective July 1. It also recommended that councillors receive the same raise.

Ward 2 Councillor Greg Nelson moved to eliminate the council increase, saying he was uncomfortable with voting himself a third pay raise for this term of council.  Councillors and non-unionized staff received raises of 3 per cent in 2008 and 2.5 per cent in 2009.  However, Town of Milton CAO Mario Belvedere said the aim of reviewing the salaries annually is to ensure they don’t fall behind as inflation and growth occur.  “What you see before you is the policy we’ve been following for years,” he told the committee, noting that staff and council raises have been linked for about seven years.

Ward 4 Councillor Wendy Schau isn’t a member of the administration and planning committee, so she didn’t have a vote.  However, she said she favours providing the pay raise to both staff and councillors.  “I wouldn’t want a good candidate for council to be discouraged by an inadequate remuneration,” she said.

Local resident Mike Grimwood, the only delegation speaking to the matter, argued that Town staff should receive raises based on individual excellence and initiative, not simply as an across-the-board bonus “just for showing up.”  Noting that 2 per cent is above the rate of inflation for the year, he said, “Milton taxpayers’ pocketbooks seem to be depleted on a regular basis for the sole reason that others are doing it. This is ludicrous.”

The provincial government recently imposed a two-year freeze on the salaries and benefits of all non-unionized employees in the Ontario public service, including school board, hospital and provincial government workers. That included extending the current salary freeze for MPPs from one year to three years. Regional politicians also voted to freeze their salaries for the year, at a meeting in December.

The pay increase would only be applied to employees not represented by bargaining groups. Raises of 2.5 to 3 per cent have already been approved for the Town’s unionized employees, including Milton firefighters.  The cost of a 2 per cent increase for non-unionized staff was included in the approved 2010 budget.

The issue will be considered by the full council at a meeting Monday.

New Lights Coming

Mike Cluett

As I mentioned in a previous entry, there have been a lot of concerns raised while out at the doors about the area around Thompson Road and Kennedy Circle/Louis St Laurent.  After talking with some candidates in the ward across the street (ward 7) those concerns are shared by a lot of people.

I received an email from the engineering department at the town of Milton informing me that some changes are coming.  They told me there will be a set of lights installed at the intersection of Clark Blvd and Thompson Road, possibly up and running by the end of July.  Further studies have been and will be done again for the following intersections:  Thompson & Hepburn, Thompson & Kennedy Circle and Thompson & Louis St Laurent.

Now before the “too many lights” people start raging, this doesn’t mean that there will be lights at each of these intersections.  In order for that to happen that intersection needs to meet certain warrants (traffic totals in each direction) before anything happens.

I got further clarification of what is required for a signalled crosswalk, the most popular choice of people living in these areas, to be installed.  During a period of study there needs to be approximately 200 pedestrians crossing the street in an 8 hour period.  I don’t know exactly when these studies were done in the past but Im sure it comes close to that amount during the summer time.

People on the west side of Thompson Road directly across from the Metro Plaza have repeatedly told me and other Ward 7 candidates that its a challenge to walk to that mall.  While they live less than 1KM from the plaza, they are forced to get into their cars and drive over for the fear of crossing Thompson Road.  The same goes for the people on the east side of Thompson (our ward 6) trying to take advantage of the beautiful park and soccer fields.  We shouldn’t have to get into our cars, to go to a park or go shopping when we live so close.

A signalled crosswalk would be beneficial for these and other people who want to walk in the town of Milton.  Who knows when the lights will be put in at Louis St Laurent.  LSL is slated for a major expansion this year and next in order to keep up with the growth of the Boyne Survey.  There needs to be something at this location sooner.

Send me your email at mike@mikecluett.ca to add your name to a list of people interested in finding out if and when we can get a signalled crosswalk there sooner.

Until then, I’ll see you at the doors.