December 22, 2010
Deputy mayor
challenges "goals"
by Vance Gutzman
Not everyone on Deep River council has the same view of the vision
statement put forward by Councillor Daniel Banks.
Deputy Mayor Mary MacCafferty took great exception to some of the
wording in the statements of the town's goals and priorities (as put
forward by Banks at the town's committee of the whole meeting on
December 8) when it came time to vote on the resolution at last week's
regular council meeting.
The list of goals and priorities Banks wanted to see adopted by the
town are actually few in number.
"We will actively support Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) at every
opportunity to secure a positive future for CRL," is one of the goals,
followed by three others:
- “We will promote the development of a variety of residential options,
especially those options suitable for our seniors, such as apartments,
condominiums, or assisted living;"
- "We will actively take steps to control our costs and perform
thorough reviews of all our operations to achieve a sustainable budget
based on the best value for money;"
- We will conduct ourselves in a transparent manner and improve
communications with a goal that council will be well informed of
residents' views, and residents will have access to information to
understand the decisions made by council."
When he first brought the list of goals and priorities to council's
committee of the whole, Banks said it reflected what he had heard from
Deep River residents while going door to door during the election
campaign.
“Based on (the) expressed opinion of residents, platforms of candidates
and elections results, it is possible to conclude that many Deep River
residents voted for a change to encourage council to be more proactive
to address its very significant challenges," Banks said at the time.
The wording of his goals and priorities had been cleaned up somewhat
for last week' s council meeting, but MacCafferty, who took exception
to much of the wording in Banks' initial draft proposal, was still not
happy with the wording of the final resolution.
The deputy mayor was troubled by the goals and priorities regarding the
promotion of residential development, and specifically to the wording
emphasis would be placed on options for seniors and assisted living.
"Assisted living is not within our mandate," MacCafferty said.
"I represent all citizens of Deep River, not just seniors."
The deputy mayor argued that focusing new residential development on
seniors could leave the town missing the boat on other forms of
residential development for the municipality.
Banks countered by saying that the need for seniors housing was the
number one issue raised by residents when he was on the campaign trail,
but that the wording in the clause MacCafferty was taking exception to
"was not intended to be exclusive."
Councillor Terry Myers concurred.
"I didn't read this as saying we were exclusively focusing on housing
options for seniors," Myers said, while suggesting that MacCafferty's
concerns could be easily allayed by striking the word "especially" for
the word "including" in the phrase which the deputy mayor found
offending.
Councillor Ron Desrochers didn't see what what the fuss was about
either, noting the three opening words in the "offending" paragraph
state "we will promote" and are not binding in terms of sheer semantics.
MacCafferty, however, was adamant that, even with the one-word change
proposed by Myers, the words "assisted living" be taken out of the
resolution,.
She then asked for a recorded vote on the matter and was the only
member of council to vote against the resolution.
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