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HAWKESBURY – Pants on? Pants off?
The shell game was back on in Hawkesbury November 19 over whether to install water meters in hopes of getting a provincial subsidy, or whether to get a firm funding commitment before imposing water meters on residents. Meters would alleviate the town’s sewage treatment problems.
However, no study has yet been commissioned to establish potential costs. This could be newly-appointed Chief Administrative Officer Normand Beaulieu’s first task when he comes on board December 3.
The issue came up during the meeting of the Committee as a whole, as councillors discussed a November 7 letter Glengarry-Prescott-Russell MPP Jean-Marc Lalonde sent to all the mayors in his riding, asking for a clear list of priorities by November 28. The sewage treatment plant was listed as the top priority.
According to Mayor Jeanne Charlebois, water meters could increase sewage treatment plant capacity by 25 per cent: “You’re going to stop making excuses. You’re going to put your pants on (vous allez mettre vos culottes),” she snapped during the meeting. “We need those meters!”
While several councillors were in agreement, others were less sanguine. One skeptic, Michel Beaulne interjected that if the town put in the water meters and there’s no subsidy, “somebody’s going to lose their pants!”
For the past several months now, the Corporation of the Town of Hawkesbury has faced charges over incidents occurring from 2005 to 2006. They involve failing to comply with conditions to operate and maintain the sewage treatment works so that effluent parameters are not exceeded. The first period extended from the beginning of June 2005 to the end of April 2006; and the second, from the beginning of June 2006 to the end of November the same year.
Though Christine Groulx, the Clerk for the Town of Hawkesbury, confirmed the charges were already several months old, the news has only come to light in the past week. As of press time, it was not clear why the information has taken so long to go public.
The court date is set for January 17, 2008 at 9 a.m. in L’Orignal.
While Charlebois insisted that “If we’re not ready to invest in ourselves, how can we ask others to support us,” Councillor Gilles Roch Greffe said he had no problem with water meters, but wants a commitment from the government before imposing them on citizens: “It would be nice to have a report… everybody’s asking me how much does a water meter cost and I answer, I can’t tell you, it’s anywhere between $200 and $700.” He added: “We’re in this mess because of downloading from the provincial government. The federal government dumps on the province and the province dumps (on municipalities), then lowers taxes.” Instead of other levels of government lowering taxes, he said, the money should be transferred to municipalities.
Meanwhile, the consolidated statements for the town’s financial situation to October 31, 2007 indicated a deficit of $780,974 for user fees for water, sewage, and waste.
Charlebois conceded in an interview that perhaps Hawkesbury got turned down for funding in the past due to studies not being ready. She further stated that “the Ministry of the Environment has warned us if we don’t take care of business they’re going to freeze all development in the town. We have to take ourselves seriously.” The mayor pointed out that, even though she voted against looking at replacing the fire truck, “we can’t cut everything, because each department has emergencies. Sewage treatment is our number one priority and number two is far, far behind… That doesn’t mean we can let everything go to pieces all around us.”