MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012
2011 is rapidly drawing to a close as we write this newsletter. The entire SEPO executive extends our collective thanks for our members’ support and we wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season with friends and family. Many challenges face us in 2012 and above all we extend best wishes for happiness, prosperity and good health.
MISSION STATEMENT
- lead collective action in support of the long term affordable enjoyment of our properties in an unspoiled natural environment.
- encourage responsible attitudes for sustaining the high quality of life on our St. Edmunds properties.
The Official Plan Review
Our Fall 2011 Newsletter explained in some detail the Official Plan Review process. SEPO has subsequently made a written submission to the Bruce County Planning and Economic Development Department specifically with respect to Tobermory. The complete submission can be viewed on our website, www.sepo.ca
Municipal Heritage Committee
Last October 24, John Bainbridge brought a motion before Council for the establishment of a Municipal Heritage Committee for our municipality. The motion noted that section 2.6.1 of the Provincial Policy Statement 2005 requires that significant built heritage resourcesand significant cultural heritage landscapes shall be conserved and that, where there is a significant cultural resource, consideration must be given to this resource at every step in the planning and decision-making process.
It was also noted in the motion that the identification of buildings and landscapes, which were significant to the community, should be achieved by a consensus among community members with an interest in the preservation, use and development of cultural heritage. Further, the Ontario Heritage Act s. 28 provides a mechanism for finding this consensus among community members by enabling the municipality to establish a Municipal Heritage Committee (MHC) to advise Council. The motion was defeated 4 votes to 1.
SEPO has formally appealed Council’s decision in the strong belief that the establishment of such a committee is vital to the orderly preservation of cultural heritage resources in our community. The complete submission to the Mayor and Council can also be viewed on our website. www.sepo.ca
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH
Your SEPO Executive is committed to the Neighbourhood Watch Program. It is an effective crime deterrent. This past summer, in cooperation with the OPP, David Almack and Bob Wilson, SEPO’s sub-committee on policing, toured every municipal road in the former St. Edmunds Township. It was determined that 15 new “Neighbourhood Watch” signs were required in order to have complete signage and in several locations, to replace existing weather beaten signs. The new and replacement signs were purchased and paid for by SEPO. We had several of the existing signs moved and others had brush removed from around them. Thank you to The Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula for donating the signposts and the labour to install the posts and signs. Neighbourhood Watch signs are located at the start of all roads in the former Township of St. Edmunds.
Neighbourhood Watch has evolved in recent years from using neighbourhood captains to encouraging everyone to be vigilant and to report suspicious behaviour directly to the OPP. We acknowledge and thank the many people who have previously played a role in Neighbourhood Watch.
Everyone is encouraged to report any suspicious activity in your area. The Police prefer to answer a false alarm, or stop a crime in progress, rather than investigate a “Break and Enter” after the residence has been cleaned out. 911 is intended to report a crime in progress such as a break or a holdup or an impaired driver. Do not take or attempt “heroic actions” such as intervening personally.
There are two numbers to call depending on the situation.
- 911 is an emergency number reserved for life threatening situations, such as a health emergency or a fire or to report a criminal act in progress.
- 1 888 310 1122 is used to report a break in after the fact or a suspicious vehicle in your area and infractions such as unsafe situations on the road, this includes vehicles with no lights, inadequately secured load, snow or ice blowing off a truck or erratic driving.
Everyone’s awareness and co-operation will help to reduce and minimize the effect of crime in our community.
Big Tub Lighthouse
If you read the November 30, 2011 Owen Sound Sun Times or the November 22, 2011 Bruce Peninsula Press you will know that there is a petition being circulated to preserve the Big Tub Lighthouse as a heritage property and an integral part of the heritage landscape of Tobermory. This lighthouse, the only one of the three lighthouses in St. Edmunds which is visible from the village of Tobermory, is an iconic part of our heritage landscape. The image is used by many local businesses and the municipality.
The lighthouse is currently owned by the Government of Canada and maintained by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
A year ago the government declared more than 400 lighthouses surplus. Interested members of the public may apply to adopt any of these lighthouses for preservation or else the government will demolish them.
The first step in the process of preserving the Big Tub Lighthouse is to send a petition with a minimum of 25 signatures requesting the minister responsible for Parks Canada (the Minister of the Environment) to designate the lighthouse as a heritage property under the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act. The petition must be received by the minister on or before May 29, 2012. The minister will determine whether to designate the lighthouse as a heritage lighthouse on or before 29 May 2015, provided that a person or body has also submitted a written commitment to buy or otherwise acquire the lighthouse and to protect its heritage character. The written commitment to buy or otherwise acquire a lighthouse does not need to accompany a petition, but it will be required before the Minister can make a determination that it is a heritage property on or before 29 May 2015.
The terms and conditions for the sale or transfer of a surplus lighthouse will be negotiated and finalized between Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the group wishing to adopt the lighthouse in question.
The petition will also be important as evidence of broad public support for preserving the structure and of its significance to the community as a heritage structure when it comes to applying for grant money to restore and maintain the structure. Accordingly, more than the minimum 25 signatures are necessary. Currently, at least 300 people have signed.
SEPO is assisting with the formation of a group who can negotiate a transfer of the property to the community. We will place an invitation in the Bruce Peninsula Press in the New Year for people interested in being part of this process.
If you have not already done so, please sign the petition which can be found at Peacocks Grocery and the office of the Bruce Peninsula Press.
Waste Management and Dumpsters
Readers will recall that two years ago the Municipality tried to replace the rural dumpsters with curb side pick-up and a user-pay fee. Further, in order to prevent bagged garbage from being scattered by animals, residents would be required to buy individual $300 bear proof roadside containers.
This proposal was not popular among residents who already felt burdened by annual property tax increases and SEPO led a successful fight against removing the dumpsters.
Once again, with the election behind us, the Municipality is hatching another plan. Earlier this year Gamsby and Mannerow, consultants from Owen Sound, were hired by the Municipality to prepare a Long-term Waste Management Plan. This was presented to the Municipal staff last summer and, presumably after considerable input from them, it was finally presented to the Waste Diversion Group, a committee of Council, in the Fall.
The Waste Diversion Group (a committee of local residents) had prepared its own Waste Diversion Plan in November 2009. It did not recommend immediate replacement of dumpsters with curb side pick-up. Instead it focussed on what the Municipality itself could do to reduce waste by adopting a “zero-waste philosophy” which included education and improved signage, significant improvements to the current re-cycling programs, and exploring partnerships and opportunities for diverting more recyclable materials from the landfill sites. These recommendations were ignored in favour of removing dumpsters and expanding curb side pick-up, which the public, subsequently, soundly rejected.
You may wonder why the Municipality is so determined to remove the dumpsters, which is a significantly cheaper form of collection system than curb side pick up. The root of the problem is the shortage of landfill space. There are three landfill sites in the municipality. At the current rate of use St. Edmunds will close in ten years, Eastnor in about 12 years, and Lindsay in about 16 years. Assembling the land and paying for the minimum five year approval process for a new landfill site will be extremely expensive and it will significantly increase property taxes for all residents of the municipality.
Furthermore, the geology of the peninsula means that any new landfill site must be in the former Eastnor township. Consequently, the remaining space at the existing landfill sites represents a valuable but decreasing asset to all taxpayers.
It is believed by the municipality that, because they are unregulated, dumpsters allow more recyclable waste to find its way to the landfill site than is the case with curb side pick-up. It is also believed to be easier to control the amount of residential waste that finds its way into the landfill site by introducing a user-pay fee through the ‘bag tag’ system. There is no question that these views are reinforced by the actions of residents, cottage renters, or businesses who leave appliances, large items like furniture, and recyclables, etc. at the dumpsters. However, the one thing we know for certain is that the municipality does not know much for certain. There are few reliable statistics on waste in the municipality. Most of the assumptions about waste are derived from Provincial averages, which do not always apply to the MNBP. Almost nothing is known about waste generation and recycling in the industrial and commercial sector of the municipality. This is complicated by the municipal practice of rolling all tourist generated waste into the poorly understood industrial and commercial sector.
In addition to the lack of good data, particularly about industrial and commercial waste, a further problem is that the Municipality has no enforcement by-laws related to waste disposal in dumpsters.
When a person is observed wrongfully disposing of waste at the rural dumpsters or elsewhere (and this frequently happens) they cannot be charged with an offence. Thus, in the two years since the Council’s own committee recommended sensible measures for improving the diversion of waste nothing significant has been done by Council to conserve our valuable and diminishing landfill sites, other than to commission a second report
The new waste management plan, will be presented to Council in January 2012 after which the public will be allowed to read it. There will be a public meeting, located at the municipal office on Lindsay Road 5, miles from where most taxpayers live. In spite of this inconvenience, we urge all taxpayers who may be concerned about waste diversion, Council’s approach to the enforcement of waste disposal or diversion measures, the eagerness of the municipality to expand the expensive curb side pick-up with an user pay system, the removal of dumpsters, or the imminent increase in our taxes as the need for a new landfill site approaches, we urge you to pass your views on to the Mayor and Council, if not by attending the public meeting, then at least in writing.
Follow the Deputy Mayor’s blog for information on how to get a copy of the report and for information on when the public meeting will take place at http://johnbainbridge9.wordpress.com
Electronic Mail
In our last newsletter, we included a Membership Renewal form on the back page. Thank you to all who responded, and renewed their membership for 2012. On the bottom of the page, we asked whether you would like to receive your newsletter electronically. Many of you answered Yes, and we would like to test whether sending newsletters to you via email is an effective way of getting this important information to you.
We are going to conduct a trial E-mailing of the newsletter in January, and would ask you to advise whether you received the email, whether it was received in a format you could easily read, and whether you find it beneficial to receive it in such a fashion. Please respond by emailing our Treasurer, Jace Weir, at jace@heinfinancial.com.
If the trial is successful, then it will save on printing and mailing costs, which will benefit everyone, including the environment! Your Board of Directors has a number of issues we are pursuing on your behalf, and we believe it is vital that you are aware of what is happening on the Northern Bruce Peninsula. Thank you for your support, and encourage other property owners to join to help strengthen our voice.
2011 – 2012 SEPO EXECUTIVE
President Udo Nixdorf
Vice-President David Almack
Secretary Rob Davis
Treasurer Jace Weir
Directors: Jack Schenk, Bob Wilson, Bill Wright, John Zych
MEETINGS IN 2012
Members’ Forum
Saturday, May 26, 2012
9:00 – 11:00 A.M. – Tobermory Community Hall
Annual General Meeting
Saturday, September 1, 2012
9:00 – 11:00 A.M. – Tobermory Community Hall
VISIT US ON THE WEB at www.sepo.ca
To find us, “Google” St. Edmunds Property Owners or sepo
