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Dead highway trees bad School trustees shut for city’s image; Council out of city council’s tells MTO district boundary vote By Bill Hutchins Reporter
EMC News – It’s time to get out the chainsaw. City council is asking the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) to start doing regular tree maintenance along a 37-kilometre stretch of the Highway 401 corridor through Kingston. Coun. Jeff Scott says dead or dying trees along the highway do not create a good first impression for tourists. “They’ve got trees out there that are completely dead right in the middle of the highway and they just don’t look great for a tourist town.” Coun. Scott says MTO changed its highway landscaping policy so only trees that are a threat to traffic are removed. His motion asks the ministry to restore regular highway maintenance to include the “pruning of dead tree limbs and the removal of dead trees for aesthetic reasons.” “It’s improper mainte-
nance,” he says of MTO’s current policy. “We couldn’t get away with that in the City of Kingston. We have property standards bylaws to make sure residents don’t do that to their neighbours.” Coun. Scott plans to present the council-approved motion to transportation minister Glen Murray at the upcoming Ontario Good Roads conference, along with a series of photographs to illustrate his point that barren highway trees are an eyesore. He says there’s a certain irony to the MTO’s practice of planting new trees along the 401, but no policy to properly maintain them. He points to newly-planted trees along the recently reconstructed interchange at the 401 and Division Street. “One area has new trees and there are dead ones nearby.” He added: “Why on earth are you planting new trees when you have no intention of maintaining them.” CAO Contract
City council has extended the contract of its chief administrative officer (CAO) for another five years. Gerard Hunt, who first became Kingston city hall’s CAO in 2008, will have his contract renewed until the fall of 2018. “This will be my second term,” he added. Hunt says he’s looking forward to meeting the challenge of balancing service priorities while keeping property taxes as low as possible - dual policies of council. He touts the phased-in launch of Kingston Transit’s new express service, in 2013 and 2015, as important accomplishments of the next few years. Hunt also says conflicting meeting schedules will delay council’s upcoming strategic priority meetings to April. The sessions will determine council’s priorities for its remaining two years in office. Hunt is also city hall’s highest paid bureaucrat, pulling in a salary of more than $191,000 in 2011.
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The Kingston EMC - Thursday, February 28, 2013
By Bill Hutchins Reporter
EMC News – City councillors don’t want a 14th member sitting at their table. They have rejected the mayor’s unusual request to allow a school board representative to join their formal deliberations to decide new district boundaries for the 2014 civic election. Limestone District School Board trustees have a vested stake in redrawing the civic election map since their urban election boundaries mirror those of a city councillor. Council says the school board’s elected officials are welcome to provide a briefing on the redrawn lines through a public delegation, but they cannot join the actual debate and vote as the mayor had requested. “It would be unorthodox,” mayor Mark Gerretsen acknowledged. However, he says boundary changes would impact the way trustees are elected and they deserve to join the 13-member council’s upcoming debate on the final staff recommendations. The mayor also says it would promote a good working relationship between councillors and trustees. “They genuinely need to feel their voice is heard on a matter that directly impacts them.” The Limestone board has five elected trustees from the City of Kingston who
represent all 12 municipal districts. But instead of having one trustee per district, as City Hall does, each trustee represents two or three districts at a time. The mayor’s motion would have required a twothirds vote to waive council’s own procedural bylaw to allow one or more designates from the school board to “participate in the council discussion.” But others say allowing trustees to become de facto councillors – with the same debating and voting privileges – sets an awkward precedent. “I don’t think we should forfeit the debate … on how we do business,” said Coun. Dorothy Hector. “In the future, others will come,” said Coun. Kevin George. He says the school board should be treated as other stakeholders and invited to provide a briefing to council, but should not be allowed to have a direct voice or vote in the final outcome. Instead of approving the mayor’s motion, council amended it on a 10-2 vote to invite the school board to provide a briefing on the final boundary recommendations. The city is currently examining a variety of scenarios to redraw the 12 district boundaries for the first time since the 1998 amalgamation to better reflect shifting population trends and the growth of new neighbourhoods.
There has been some debate over the definition of “effective representation” with some councillors favouring district boundaries that reflect the city’s total population – including post-secondary students and other transient voters – as opposed to the past practice of district populations based solely on the property assessment and Censussupplied data of registered electors. The outcome could have a serious impact on the future boundaries of Sydenham and Williamsville districts that have a large population of full-time students who are not registered to vote. If Kingston’s 24,000plus university and college student population is included in the new district boundary count, the average number of residents per district would be slightly more than 11,500. A final staff recommendation on the revamped boundaries is expected to be presented to council in March or April.
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