town of milton

Priorities

Mike Cluett

An interesting letter to the editor earlier this week from Zeeshan Hamid regarding Milton Town Council.  In his letter he outlines that Milton Town Council directed staff to apply for some funding from the federally run Recreation Infrastructure Canada and the provincially run REC for two projects of interest.

In a motion earlier in June, town council had approved the application for $5.3 million for renovations and improvements for John Tonelli Sports Centre and the Nassagewaya Tennis Club.  In that application, $2.9 million would be directed to improve the NTC which has approximately 200 members.

The Town of Milton already has arrangements with the NTC which include $100 per year rental and a 50% sharing of some improvement costs among other perks.  As Mr. Hamid points out, that funding works out to be roughly $15,000 per member.

Is this a priority for the Town of Milton?

The problem that comes up is the NTC is a membership only club.  Does council have the justification to apply for and spend that much taxpayers money on a club of 200 people when the organization receives so much already?  Can that funding be used for something else that would benefit more people in the town of Milton?

Here’s his letter.

Club renovation costs outrageous

Letters
Jul 01, 2009
DEAR EDITOR:
This letter is in response to the recent Champion article entitled ‘Town of Milton applies for recreation stimulus funding.’

The article mentioned the Nassagaweya Tennis Club, which is a private club that the Town subsidizes by paying 50 per cent of the court re-surfacing costs, 100 per cent of the exterior and structural clubhouse upgrades and 100 per cent of the cost of security and damages. This is in addition to the fact that the club only pays the Town $100 a year in rent.

All this may actually make sense, but I couldn’t help but be appalled to read that town council directed staff to submit an application for a $2.9 million redevelopment of the club that only has 191 members. That translates to more than $15,000 for each member.

Am I the only one who’s shocked at this waste of public money? Is this really the right time for this? Wouldn’t this money be better spent on some of the urgently-needed infrastructure improvement projects that far more residents could benefit from?

ZEESHAN HAMID, MILTON

Milton Canada Day 2009

Mike Cluett

Its here again…

Fireworks, fun, frolic, and fun times.  All the information can be found at www.miltoncanadaday.ca

Heres some highlights.

“Canada Day” at MILTON FAIRGROUNDS – 136 Robert St.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 – 12:00 p.m.
Free Admission & Transit Service

Enjoy a whole day of fun celebrating “Canada Day” in Milton

“Milton Canada Day” celebrates the richness of Canadian culture and heritage attracting over 10,000 people to Milton Fairgrounds. An array of exciting events include fantastic live music, wide variety of entertainment, diverse food choices, arts and crafts, fun activities for people of all ages, and the grand finale featuring spectacular fireworks under the stars.

HIGHLIGHTS
Breakfast with The Veterans at Victoria Park
Swearing-in Ceremony for New Canadians
Live music featuring “Hotel California”
Kids Zone, Teen Zone and Family Activities

TRANSPORTATION
FREE Canada Day Shuttle Service Courtesy of Mattamy Homes

PARKING
Parking available on nearby streets and Downtown.  There is paid parking available at north entrance.

SPECIAL NOTES
We ask kindly to leave pets at home due to the animal attractions on site.  Please refrain from smoking in the following designated non-smoking areas:

Pathways, refreshment areas, family tent, kids and teen zones and nursing station

NEW FEATURES
Resting station for nursing mothers

ATM Machine on site for the day

We are always in need of volunteers to make the event a success!  Volunteers are required before, during and after the event.  June 27tth – July 2nd Set-up, day of event and dismantle  High school students are welcome to participate and receive community volunteer hours.  
Call Kirsten Pedersen at 905-691-7470 or email: kirsten@MiltonCanadaDay.ca

Milton Canada Day promotes waste reduction, reuse and recycle initiatives.

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Want to become an official Canada Day Sponsor? Sponsor this year’s Canada Day Celebrations and have your logo displayed on official Canada Day advertising and at the fairgrounds on Canada Day.
Call Pat Rideout at 905-875-7040 or email: Pat@MiltonCanadaDay.ca

Street Festival this Saturday June 6 2009

Mike Cluett

Logo_final_street_party_feb

The list of the entertainers is out for this weekends 3rd Annual Street Festival.  All the details can be found at the Milton DBIA website .

One of my personal favourites The Randalls will be playing again along with dozens of other entertainers and bands throughout the day.  If you were there last year, you’ll know what I mean that there is no shortage of things to do.

The fun starts at 3pm and goes until midnight.  Milton Transit will be free that day, courtesy of Mattamy Homes, so if you can avoid taking the car it would be great as parking in and around will be pretty tough.

milton transit sched

Here’s a copy of the bus schedule for the day.

Whether its to take a nice walk down main street and partake of the vendors or if you want to kick back and listen to some good entertainment, it is really a great way to spend an afternoon taking in what makes this town as great as it is.

Hope to see you there!!!!

Common Sense

Mike Cluett

If you head on over to the Hawthorne Villager site, you will see the results of my completely unofficial, unscientific poll regarding the salary increase for town staff and Milton Town Council.

As of today the results were…

Should Councillors be able to vote themselves a pay increase?
Yes…they deserve it for the hard work they do.
7%
 7%  [ 2 ]
Yes…but it should be effective when the next council is elected.
33%
 33%  [ 9 ]
On a case by case basis … maybe.
18%
 18%  [ 5 ]
Nope…not at all.
40%
 40%  [ 11 ]
Total Votes : 27

Im really glad the discussion on the forum isnt “hang them all” or “they are all crooks” because that would take away from the real issue and thats common sense and accountability.

No one is denying the right for our elected officials to having a fair salary for the work they do.  Milton Town Council is a part time council, meaning that most of the individuals around the council table, with exception of the Regional Councillors and Mayor, are part time.

You can not compare their salaries to those in other municipalities such as Mississauga, Brampton or even Oakville or Burlington.  The population of each of those areas are not comparable to Milton, yet. 

Generally the work thats involved for a local town councillor is they have to attend council and committee meetings (3 meetings in 4 weeks…one full council meeting and two committee meetings).  Of course they have to look after the concerns and questions of the community.

Some attend training courses (which can be debated at another time) and other municipal events throughout the months.  Im sure there are a few more items of interest that they work on, and the door is open for any current councillor to post what they do on this blog. 

With that being said, its hardly a full time job.  Some treat it as such, but in the end they dont need to be full time.

As Ive talked about in many blogs in the past, is that municipal government and our elected officials need to be more transparent and accountable to the people who elect them.

The current system of pay evaluation is faulty.  Right now, along with many other municipalities, there is a citizens committee who meets and discusses how much the elected councillors should be paid.  These committees are picked from volunteers in the community and are reviewed on a regular basis.  From there, the committee comes up with a recomendation as to how much etc, and its brought before council.

As the Mayor and other councillors have said in the past, they dont have an issue with accepting the pay increase because it is not THEM who makes the decision as to the amount, but an impartial citizens committee.

Here’s where common sense should enter the discussion.

Here in Milton, manufacturing jobs are disappearing faster than snow in June.  Retailers in the downtown core and other parts of Milton are feeling the pinch.  In some areas, spending is the same or going up, but in other areas they are barely holding on.

You cant go a day without some economic report showing how fragile our economy really is.  Am I a “doomer and gloomer”?  Not a chance.  I think the Canadian economy is on the mend and improvements will be shortly following.  This should be taken into consideration when making decisions like pay increases and prioritizing spending.

Council passed a pay increase shortly after they were elected in 2006.  Here they are again, getting a further increase of 2.5% right when we have fellow Miltonians feeling the pinch of losing jobs or wage cutbacks and manufacturing plant closures.

With many reports showing that our economy is on the mend an option for this council would be to at the very least postpone the increase until the new council is elected.  The term of council is 4 years (up from 3 years until Dalton changed that) and the salary for that position should be frozen for the term of council.  Some argue that the increase is rather small, so if thats the case, put it off for one more year.

I, along with many others, ran for town council in 2006 and we knew then what the salary would be.  For a part time position, the salary is fair and some former councillors say its too fair. 

The salary should remain the same for the duration of the term.  If any pay increases are to be made, those increases should be made effective the date the new council is sworn in.

Just makes sense.  This way, the optics of politicians making and raising their salaries is improved.  They can focus their efforts on improving the infrastructure of the town, making sound financial decisions regarding our taxes and help make the Town of Milton better.

I dont know the legalities of the pay grids that town employees are classified under, but a seperate one should be made for elected officials therefore when town staff salary increases are improved, the optics of elected officials direclty impacting their pay is gone…and problem is solved.

Am I wrong here?  Doesnt that make common sense to you?

Milton Councillor's Give Themselves a Pay Increase

Mike Cluett

I thought I was in a time warp when I read this…but alas its real and recent.  The pay increase being talked about isnt a cost of living adjustment but rather an annual review of the salaries. 

As Ive talked about in the past, ad nausem apparently, the optics of this is off the chart.  I understand that town staff’s salaries need to be reviewed.  When youre talking about union adjustments, thats fine, seeing how theyve been negotiated in the past.

Where MY problem comes in, town council is put on the same pay grid as town staff.  WRONG!  Plain wrong!

Added to that, town council has already increased their pay just after they were elected in 2007.  Only one councillor at that time voted against it, and that was someone who attending their first council meeting after a bi-election.

Town councillors should not have the opportunity to increase their salary by votes.  Most municipalities, like Milton, use citizens advisory committees to come up with what their increases should be.  But, in the case of the councillors, the pay increase should take affect the when the NEXT council sits. 

Politics is perception and this wont sit well with Milton taxpayers.  The last 3 years we have had higher than normal increases in our mill rate with what to show for it?  More Milton Transit buses that run empty throughout town that we spent over $3 MILLION dollars in the  last 3 years?  Have there been more roads developed for that money?  Who knows.  But its wrong for town council, not shortly after their LAST increase, to have their salaries increased….AGAIN.

When will it end?  What council needs to do (and maybe someone can help me with the legality of this) is have councillors taken OFF that pay grid and into a grid seperate and distinct from everyone else.  This way, they WONT be able to vote for increases in salaries that would benefit themselves.

Does there need to be an automatic increase in town council’s remuneration?  Should it be on performance based rankings?  IE  They do they job they say theyre going to do?  Hard if not impossible to do that.  But changes on how our elected public representatives need to be made. 

Some might say these increases are minor and they would have an arguement.  Problem is, in case no ones noticed, we are in some pretty tough economic times right now and municipalities need to focus on saving taxpayers dollars not spending more when they can wait.

Here’s Tim’s article in this weekends Champion!

Councillors, staff to get 2.5 % pay raises in June

 Tim Foran, Canadian Champion Staff

Published on May 29, 2009

Town council voted Monday to give themselves and the municipality’s 183 non-union staff, including managers, a 2.5 per cent raise at the start of June.

The pay hike isn’t a cost-of living hike but rather a market adjustment, which is done annually and is based on comparable increases given to non-union employees at other similar municipalities, according to staff. The Town’s non-union staff have received an average 2.7 per cent market adjusted raise over the past three years, slightly below increases negotiated with unionized workers.

Generally, such increases for white-collar municipal workers fly under the radar, but due to the economic recession the issue has received more attention from the media. The City of Toronto’s Mayor David Miller announced recently that municipality would be freezing any hikes to non-unionized staff and he, along with some other councillors, would be returning their own pay increases to the City.

Only one Milton councillor decided to discuss the issue Monday night. Ward 3 Councillor Jan Mowbray responded to an e-mail she received from a local resident asking her to vote against the council and staff salary increase.

“I do believe we have an obligation to approve this report because the unionized staff have already received their raise in March,” said Mowbray, arguing she didn’t want to create a problem of inequity between the Town’s workers.

The councillor was referring to three three-year agreements recently bargained by the Town. The 29 unionized staff of the Town’s fire department will receive annual 3 per cent pay hikes this year and the next two years. The 27 staff in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers negotiated annual 2.5 per cent hikes over the same time period, as did the 37 library staff represented by CUPE.

Tim Foran can be reached at tforan@miltoncanadianchampion.com .

Somebody Likes Thompson Road

Mike Cluett

You cant read through a Milton web forum on the internet without stumbling over someone complaining about the roads, and more specifically Thompson Road.

There are usually a variety of complaints about it, but the one that stands out the most is that there are too many traffic lights in a short period of time.  Personally, I find that its hit and miss.  There are somedays I stop at every one of them, while most times, its clear sailing.

Reading a letter from the Champion this weekend, there is another person who likes Thompson Road.

Here she is.

DEAR EDITOR:

At last, the Thompson Road work is done. What a beautiful job.

My only hope is that it’s kept that way. I would like to see more garbage cans put along Thompson, at least at the bus stops. I walk my dogs along the path and find more and more garbage being tossed along the way.

While I attempt to pick it up, I think more garbage cans would reduce the trash being tossed.

This summer, enjoy the beautiful sod that was laid because by next spring it will be all weeds without weed control. Too bad.

Here’s to a quieter summer along Thompson.

TERRI-LYNN PROCENKO, MILTON