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November 21, 2013 | 72 pages
www.insideottawavalley.com
By DESMOND DEVOY desmond.devoy@metroland.com
Hugh Colton is mountain building in the Perth community. — Page P1
COMMUNITY Photo by DESMOND DEVOY
Kettle Campaign hopes for chime time cha-ching! News – The Salvation’s Army’s annual Kettle Campaign kicked off at Brownlee’s Metro supermarket in Perth on Friday, Nov. 15. Assembled for the first donations are kettle volunteers Jeanne Jenner and Shirley McLean, joined by Salvation Army Rev. Shirley Abrahamse and Maj. Faith Cameron, and Metro manager Brent Brownlee.
SPORTS
The Perth Blue Wings raise close to $50,000 for injured player. — Page P19
Darou Farm set for demolition following renovation sticker shock By DESMOND DEVOY desmond.devoy@metroland.com
News – With an $800,000 price tag, the cost of saving the Darou Farm has proven to be too rich for council’s taste. “Taking the building down, stone by stone, and reassembled on another site… was the best (option) overall,” said Coun. Judy Brown, at the Perth committee-of-the-whole meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Dr. Warren Hollis has been given approval now, by council, to come up with a plan for the re-use of the buildings in Lombardy. “There is some serious dollars here,” said Deputy Mayor John Gemmell. “We should take that money and put it into heritage buildings where people and tourists are.” Council looked at four possible scenarios, with a wide range
of financial implications: • Do nothing: $1,000 (liability) • Building removal, site remediation, keep site under town control: $9,598. • Maintain the buildings on site, basic restoration, site maintenance: $123,200. • Maintain the buildings on site, restore to a livable condition: $814,498. Gemmell dismissed the latter two options, which he said “just reek of money pit.” “We came to a pretty unanimous conclusion,” said Coun. Beth Peterkin. She was part of a sub-committee which looked at the longterm viability of the town-owned property. “We felt strongly that this was the best option that we had available to us...If we had a million dollars in our back pocket, we
could do it. But we don’t have a million dollars in our back pocket, and there are other things we need to put our money in.” Coun. Jim Boldt was part of the same committee, and while he agreed with Peterkin, he added that the heritage aspect of the property was not without merit. “The icing on the cake for me was when we did the walkthrough on the house… there was definitely some heritage value,” said Boldt. “(But) I was expecting a lot more. I was shocked at what disarray the building was in. It is the best decision. We’ve been looking at this for two-anda-half years. It is time to put it to bed.” Mayor John Fenik, however, was a very vocal critic against demolishing the building in any form. See DAROU page P2
News – Perth could reap the windfall of lower policing costs, if a new OPP funding model is adopted. Stephanie Gray, the chair of the Perth Police Services Board (PSB), told the Thursday, Nov. 17 meeting that municipalities where policing costs are more than $400 per household would likely see their costs go down. “Perth is in the $750 range,” said Gray, during a meeting held in the provincial offences court at Perth town hall. “It is good news for Perth in that they will pay less under the new funding model.” Not all area municipalities would benefit under a new model, however. George Braithwaite, the provincial appointee to the Lanark Highlands Township PSB, recently told his board that the Highlands’ might see increased police costs, and “Tay Valley was quite vocal that their tax bills could go up $110 to $200 because of this,” said Gray. The new funding model, if adopted, would come into effect in January of 2015, before the Perth OPP contract expires. Any changes would replace that contract, though there will be talks on the matter before that happens. Perth’s chief administrative officer, John deRosenroll, recounted how Prescott Mayor Brett Todd told a consultative conference he attended that “we’ve been overpaying for a decade. “We can’t wait any longer. We need this today,” deRosenroll recounted Todd as saying. Deputy Mayor John Gemmell noted that while some communities have been overpaying for police service, “the rest have been underpaying and have been carried.” Gray explained one of the reasons why Perth’s costs may have been higher than those of surrounding municipalities. “This is a hub community,” she said. “People come here, they drink, they get into bar fights, and we pay for it,” she said by way of example.
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“This evens it out,” she added, though she admitted that, “no model will be perfect.” She surmised that, “maybe, Tay Valley should pick up the bill if people come from there and pick fights here,” though she hastened to add, “not to pick on Tay Valley.” Gemmell, however, pointed out that it may not be possible to send Tay Valley, or any other municipality, a bill for cop costs incurred by their residents while in Perth. The Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services has been working on a new billing model since March, following “calls for reform to the process for several years,” said Gray. “The current billing model is based on the deployment model,” which is based primarily on calls for service. By the numbers According to documents obtained by The Perth Courier, the current 15-year-old model uses an hourly-based methodology, with one full-time position accounting for 1,467 hours, which is used to calculate detachment staffing requirements. However, Gray noted that the model “varies widely from place to place,” and that the new model seeks to even the playing field as much as possible, by taking “into account that all police services require a base level of infrastructure, supervision, administration, and sufficient front-line policing,” according to the documents. Municipalities would be an “equitable share,” of “essential base level policing services,” to about 73 per cent of total costs. They would also pick up the bill for calls for service, about 27 per cent, based on net calls for service. The base service level with the new model is estimated to be about $250 per household, plus calls for service, for an average of $369 per household. This would mean that, with a current household average of about $750, Perth residents could save about $381.
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