Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Collingwood Nixes More Firefighters

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Collingwood
by Catherine Thompson    

Disappointing budget discussions for Collingwood's Fire Chief.

Trent Elyea had asked for four new full-time firefighters this year at a cost of just over 122 thousand dollars including an administrative assistant.

That's for the last six months of 2010.

But many councillors were concerned about the cost and the need for that many new firefighters and the request was denied.

Elyea says he's obviously disappointed, but he's not giving up hope that council will again be discussing this issue.

Budget discussions this week also focused on parking downtown.

Council has decided to bring back paid on street parking in the core area starting in August of this year.

The Downtown Business Improvement Association has committed to spending 16 thousand dollars from August to November to offset lost revenue to continue offering free parking in the municipal lots.

Council has also decided to put 15 thousand dollars in the 2010 budget to help the Affordable Housing Task Force bring more cheaper rental options to town.

The task force had asked for 25 thousand dollars.

A recommendation to set aside 25 thousand dollars to provide loss of income to Councillor Norm Sandberg has been approved.

Sandberg is in the running to be the next president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, but it would be a bigger commitment than his current vice-president status and he would lose work hours at his day job.

Part of the cost, 13 thousand dollars, would actually be coming from the part of the 2009 AMO expense budget that wasn't used up last year.

Council was trying to have the draft budget ready for discussions on February 22, but because there's no meeting next week since Monday is Family Day and some members of council will be away on the 22nd, the draft budget is now expected to be ready March 8th.

A special meeting may be called sometime next week though to go through capital projects  and possibly consider cutting some of them or parts of them.

The budget is starting with 72.6 million dollars in spending and a two and a half percent tax increase.