COUNCIL GRAPPLES WITH BUDGET FIRST DRAFT

Chopped, slashed, and cut.

As much as that might be the language of your hairdresser, those were the watch words when it came to over five hours of budget deliberations in what would be the first of several meetings intent upon bringing forward a new budget for 2025 in Renfrew.

If there was any fluff, either real or imagined, in previous municipal budgets, then Council had a machete stroke to apply to it. There will be no fluff left unattended by the look of it.

Councillors Kyle Cybulski, John McDonald, and Andrew Dick sported the sharpest knives during the opening session, at times making Elon Musk look like just some guy with a chainsaw. The three councillors were the most heard-from when it came to a line by line presentation by Renfrew Treasurer Charlene Jackson.

In fact, it was Councillor Cybulski who showed up with a document representing twenty-some hours of homework whereby the councillor determined that axing any number of expense items was the way to move forward, because, as he said, “it all adds up.”

Addition by subtraction.

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April 7, 2025

RECORDED VOTES THE NEW NORMAL?

Renfrew Clerk Carolynn Errett is going to find herself busier than she currently is.

During the last Renfrew Town Council meeting, no fewer than three councillors requested recorded votes. Usually votes sail past without this technicality, but when they do, anyone beating around the bushes for voting records of politicians would be stymied by the fact that the vote would be recorded as passed or defeated, and the vote count, but not the names of the individual councillors, nor the names of the mayor or reeve, would be attached to those votes.

It appears the campaign machines of three councillors have cranked up, and the sage advisors behind those campaigns have advised their boys to request recorded votes with names attached.

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March 3, 2025

A MUNICIPAL EXERCISE IN BLAME SHARING

The Town of Renfrew wants your input.

Actually, they want your complicity.

The town is pumping a survey of theirs where they hope to get some direction on where to go as they approach the time when they have to do The Big Reveal, also known as the 2025 Municipal Budget.

It’s not a document they’re overly excited about, mostly because it’s going to be brutal on you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer of Renfrew, Ontario, the people who foot the bill and the people who will be most angry when their tax bill shows up in the mail.

The very people who will be most angry at…them.

They’re going to present this as an example of their commitment to openness and transparency, to demonstrate to you how sensitive they are to your feedback, how they’ve discovered the advantages and benefits of being up-front with the people they provide services for and to.

Sure it is.

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February 24, 2025

THE LIGHTS AT MA-TE-WAY

It was back in October 2024 when Councillor Andrew Dick announced at Council that the ballparks at Ma-Te-Way were going to be lit in the summer of 2025 and “It doesn’t matter what it costs.”

It’s February 2025 and baseball season is just a little over three months away, so we seem to be approaching a time of critical decision-making when it comes to this issue.

There is one thing that’s generally regarded as being certain and where agreement is unanimous. The lights at Ma-Te-Way are a mess, and that mess is going to require some cash to fix. And if the fix is to include the Dog Park and a parking lot, then the cash required will be more than to just light the three fields.

Councillor Dick is a ballplayer, so he’s close to the issue. That’s not a problem in any way, as these ballparks are pretty heavily-used, and they do bring money into the community in terms of user fees and peripheral spending from ball teams on game day or on tournament weekends. So, while calling the ball fields economic engines might be a stretch to a degree, any time a ball team comes to town or stays in town, that peripheral spending does have an impact on restaurants, convenience stores, motels, pizza shops, and yes, beer and liquor stores, although that last area can now be folded into grocery and corner stores as well.

The situation regarding lighting at Ma-Te-Way involves not a crumbling infrastructure, but rather a crumbled infrastructure. In other words, the best-before date was, to put it bluntly, a long time ago, and perhaps mitigated by decisions that could have been made by past councils, but that’s a moot point in that they weren’t made, and so here we are, in the dark.

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February 10, 2025

MFIPPA: A JOKE THAT’S NO LAUGHING MATTER

After taking a second look at the MFIPPA document — Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act — I feel about as ready as I can be to offer commentary with the attached proviso that in no way am I suggesting said commentary is an exhaustive and thorough exercise. I do, however, feel comfortable enough in concluding that the points and examples I bring forward are more or less translatable to the entire document, and thereby serve as an honest interpretation or representation of the Act as a whole.

Remember that lawyers fight about this stuff all the time, so if there’s disagreement around my interpretation, then fair game as far as I’m concerned.

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December 18, 2024

RENFREW TOWN COUNCIL: MEETING PREVIEW 10/12/24

It’s Tuesday, December 10th and everyone’s phone calendar is beeping and pinging, flashing lights and spitting out confetti. Because tonight is the next episode of a Renfrew Town Council meeting, a must-have on any self-respecting phone calendar app.

What makes tonight so special? Well, nothing, really. I mean there’ll be some stuff, because there’s stuff enclosed in the 200 page agenda output, so sure, there’ll be some stuff.

Will there be the push and pull, the thrust and counter-thrust of argument and ideas? Will there be a clash of philosophical and ideological narratives? How about giant personalities, standing out and apart from the pack, voices ringing in oratorical hyperbole, inducing tears of inspiration?

In order of appearance, the answers would be no, no, and, well, no.

If you want that kind of thing, maybe you should just stay at home and wait for something to happen there. Then maybe go to bed.

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December 10, 2024

THE RENFREW TAX MAN COMETH. AND HE COMETH WITH A VENGEANCE

In an earlier opinion piece, I threw out the notion that in Ontario, municipalities are not allowed to run operational deficits.

They’re not. It’s as simple as that. I didn’t make it up, agree or disagree, I just stated that fact as it currently stands. Check out the Municipal Act 2001 if you wish.

It’s something that is obviously concerning if you live in Renfrew, pay property tax in Renfrew, and follow Renfrew news — such as it may be, and it ain’t much, unless you enjoy dollops of self-serving platitudes and accept them as “news” — so I can certainly see and understand some degree of anxiousness around someone coming along and telling you that the corporation that you fund — the municipality — isn’t allowed to carry a deficit term over term. Because you know that, if deficits aren’t allowed, that shortfall will have to be made up somewhere. And that you, as the primary source of income for that municipality, may — will — be called upon to make up a big chunk of that shortfall. In other words, through no fault of your own, you’ll be required to pony up to make right the egregious mistakes or lack of rigour that has led to that deficit situation in the first place.

And by deficit, let me be clear. We’re not talking about slipping into maroon territory here, where you you slide gently from black ink to red ink on the balance sheet. We’re talking full-on red, dark red, the ugliest colour of ink possible when we’re talking about money, especially if it’s your money.

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December 3, 2024