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bilko@rgcmail.com Vol.21 No.11
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
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On Pelham finances, another deferral Column Six Polite meets persistent
Regional Council Audit Committee hears defense of Town practices
His journey coming to an end, our man in Mexico has his patience tested
BY VOICE STAFF The Town of Pelham finally had its chance to address the accusations of financial mismanagement asserted by Port Colbrorne Regional Councillor David Barrick in the motion he presented to Regional Council in March. Speaking on behalf of the Town, CAO Darren Ottaway led a delegation consisting of Interim Treasurer Teresa Quinlin and Deputy Treasurer Charlotte Tunikaitis. Ottaway worked his way through Barrick’s motion, tackling each of the assertions made within it. Referring to Grimsby Regional Councillor Tony Quirk’s accusation that Pelham unleased a “data-dump” at the March 30 meeting to distract Regional Council from Barrick’s motion, Ottaway claimed that these allegations were simply untrue. “The Barrick motion was so full of misinformation and falsehoods that it took 335 pages to go through the 'whereases' that were contained in that motion,” he said. “As you can see there were a lot of documents that had to be provided in order to demonstrate clearly that that motion was unfounded and was false. So, it took some time to put that together. Every piece of paper in this book is relevant. It is not a data dump, it is simply reflecting the responses to Barrick’s motion and its
BY SAMUEL PICCOLO
Special to the VOICE
I Pelham resident Curt Harley, speaking to Regional Council's Audit Committee on Monday. inaccuracies.” Niagara Falls Regional Councillor Bart Maves asked how the Town of Pelham was planning to pay for its $36.2 million Community Centre. Ottaway explained that they were planning to collect $12 million in development charges, $15 million from land sales and $2.3 million through a fundraising campaign. The rest, Ottaway said, will be acquired through the debenture that was approved by Regional Council in 2014. Maves continued his line of questioning, asking Ottaway to clarify what Barrick had defined in his motion as a “Devel-
opment Charge scheme.” Ottaway stated that the motion made reference to a deal between Town of Pelham and Fonthill Gardens — a subsidiary of the Allen Group, a real estate development company. He said it pertains to an area of land in East Fonthill, 32 acres of which is owned by the Town and approximately 33 acres owned by the Allen Group. Ottaway said that because the Allen Group was building a commercial plaza on the land, and owed the Town a significant amount of money in development charges, and the Town owed the Allen Group for
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the road and the parkland they purchased from them, the Town made an agreement to pay the developer in credits. As they came in to apply for various functions at the Town, Ottaway said they would draw down on those credits. When the developer realized that they had more credits than they could make use of, Ottaway said they began selling some of those credits to other developers. Though Ottaway admitted the idea may seem controversial, he asserted that it was permitted by law. “The issue for us was that when Fonthill Gardens
VOICE PHOTO
started to sell credits to multiple other developers it was creating a difficulty on the accounting side for us in keeping track of it,” said Ottaway. “So, it made better sense for us at that point in time to pay the difference. We actually negotiated a two percent discount on that amount so we ended up saving money by paying the remaining balance back to the developer in September of 2016.” Highlighting the “inaccuracies” Ottaway addressed in his presentation, Mayor See AUDIT Page 8
N HELL THERE IS A certain icy area behind velvet ropes kept on reserve for people who are rude to service workers. As my time in Mexico comes to a close, I worry that I am getting nearer to earning a membership card, the bouncers guarding those ropes now memorizing my face so that I may be greeted with the appropriate pomp when they see me coming. In my previous trips to other countries I was swaddled in the conviction that as a Canadian I was part of the politest, if not necessarily the nicest, nation in the world. This conviction was intensified in Europe, where I was, on numerous occasions, jostled, jabbed, bumped, berated, and given good reason to again breathe easy when I returned home, where I could expect apologies for every real or imagined slight and gratefully reciprocate the same. Mexico has been different. I suspect that much of the blame for my shifting sense of politeness belongs See COLUMN SIX Page 16
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