SERVING MAPLETON AND MINTO
THE
COMMUNITY NEWS VOLUME 51 ISSUE 42
1 Year GIC - 2.70% 3 Year GIC - 3.05% 5 Year GIC - 3.26% Daily Interest 1.40%
638-3328
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2018
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Town insuring against possible cyber attacks By Patrick Raftis
Junior firefighter - Mapleton Fire Rescue volunteer Cassandra Hamilton helped Shae Becker complete the kids firefighter obstacle course at the firefighters breakfast at the PMD Arena on Oct. 13. Mapleton Fire Rescue provided swag bags for the children and had fire trucks and a fire safety house on display. Additional photos on page 2. Photo by Jennifer Goertzen
MINTO – Cyber security is becoming a major concern for municipalities and the Town of Minto has taken steps to insure against the possibly of hacks, virus attacks or ransomware incidents. “Cybersecurity has been of increasing concern in smaller municipalities especially in the past few months,” treasurer Gordon Duff advised council in a report at the Oct. 2 meeting. Duff said several municipalities and small to medium-sized businesses have been attacked through viruses in e-mails, which cause databases to be seized and encrypted with demands for payment before they can be unlocked (ransomware), as well as fraudulent transfers of funds out of business bank accounts. “Many of these organiza-
tions had good back-ups of their data, but these backups were also lost to ransomware,” noted Duff, adding that in 2018 the cities of Cambridge and Hamilton and towns of Wasaga Beach and Midland have been hacked with the loss of data, privacy and cash. “There may be more which have not been made public,” Duff suggested in the report. “The ones that are grabbing the headlines are these ransomware attacks, where basically you get a message that your data has been encrypted … and you give us so much in bitcoin or cryptocurrency and we’ll release it,” Duff told council. While Duff said Minto has up-to-date firewall and anti-virus protection and uses other cyber security controls, “our systems are still vulnerable to sophisticated attacks.
“It’s beyond your antivirus. It’s beyond your backup,” said Duff. “If Facebook can’t prevent it, we can’t either.” Duff pointed out the town’s insurance carrier, JLT, offers insurance that covers certain cyber security losses and he requested direction from council. The cost for $5 millionper-claim coverage is an annual premium of $10,250, while the cost for $2 millionper-claim coverage is $4,000. The coverage includes no deductible for cyber incident response and a $10,000 deductible for internal cybercrimes. “We have an option to buy insurance to cover a lot of our direct or indirect costs,” said Duff, who explained coverage might include reimbursement of an actual ransom payment or the cost to hire an IT firm to restore SEE CYBER CRIME » 4
Rezoning would facilitate sale of former public works yard By Patrick Raftis MAPLETON – Township council is moving forward with a proposal to rezone the former Maryborough public works garage in Moorefield. The rezoning is needed to facilitate the sale of the property for uses that could include a distillery and associated retail outlet. A public meeting on the
proposed rezoning was held on Oct. 10. The Township of Mapleton has applied to redesignate and rezone the portion of the property on Hilwood Drive in Moorefield where the former public works garage is situated to permit light industrial and commercial uses, including warehousing and a distillery. CAO Manny Baron con-
firmed to the Community News the township has accepted an offer of $300,000 for the property from a numbered Ontario company, conditional on the Official Plan amendment and rezoning being completed. The application will facilitate the sale and transfer of the garage building, explains a written report from Wellington County senior
planner Curtis Marshall. His report notes permitted light industrial and commercial uses will be subject to screening and approval by Wellington Source Water Protection as the lands are located within a wellhead protection area and are within 100m (238 feet) of a municipal well. The property contains the former township pub-
lic works garage, salt/sand shed, fire hall and the municipal well building and water tower. Surrounding land uses include an office use, undeveloped residential lands, and agricultural lands. The land under consideration is located within the Moorefield urban area and is currently designated residential under the Wellington
County Official Plan. The public works garage has been declared surplus. Proposed uses specifically permitted under a draft rezoning bylaw amendment before council include: business and professional offices, brewery with an accessory restaurant and retail store, catering service, commercial recreation use, commercial SEE ZONING » 2
Candidates address staffing, safety and financial issues ALMA – Mayoral candidates were asked at an Oct. 11 public forum here to address the steady stream of changes at the top of the municipal staff structure over the last four years. The local Optimist Club hosted a meeting at the Alma Community Centre to allow the public to hear from and question incumbent Mayor Neil Driscoll and challenger Gregg Davidson. Other candidates for township council and the local county council ward seat are acclaimed. Noting “an incredible amount of money spent on severance costs and recruiting costs in our township,”
the first audience member to ask a question wanted to know, “Are we going to get four more years of the same? Or do each of you have a different plan.” “You’re right, we have had a lot of people leave,” Driscoll responded. “We have some people that have left on a severance, you’re right.” However, Driscoll stated during the last election campaign, “I said right here in this building ... my theory is if you don’t want to work your honest hardest that you can for Mapleton residents we’re not going to have you there at the township.” Driscoll continued, “We have some of the best staff right now in place and as far
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Taking questions - Incumbent Mapleton Mayor Neil Driscoll, left, and challenger Gregg Davidson took questions from a large crowd at the Alma Community Centre on Oct. 11. Photo by Patrick Raftis as the next four years, I hope there’s no more change.” The mayor pointed out
Mapleton’s biggest challenge in terms of attracting and retaining staff is competition
WEEKLY WAG
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By Patrick Raftis
“If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.” - Stephen Wright
with other municipalities. “Because of our pay grid and our commitment to try and keep taxes low ... council did make a commitment that we want to have our staff in the middle of the wage bracket for all our surrounding municipalities,” he said. “So we have lost six good people that way; they went to other municipalities for more money. But I’ll be honest with you, yes, there was people dismissed, and with severance, but since those people have left I believe - I know for a fact - that Mapleton’s a better place, as far as the office goes.” Davidson agreed staff changes are “a main concern” among local residents.
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“When I went door to door people talked about how we’ve had three CAOs, three finance directors, three public works directors, all in these last four years and also a lot of staff underneath have also changed,” said Davidson. “All of that has cost us not just in severance, but in productivity. Things have not moved along as well as it should have in the last four years and it all started when we got rid of Patty Sinnamon, the CAO. After that it was a domino effect and things started going down and then we had a second CAO … there are people who couldn’t work with him and they left.” SEE CANDIDATES » 3
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