Once in while, a local council will make a decision that has all of us in the Newsroom scratching our heads.
Such was the case last week when Guelph-Eramosa council made some very odd moves – the type of which this writer has never before witnessed in over a decade covering municipal politics in Wellington County (colleagues in the business for almost three times as long seemed equally puzzled by the decisions).
Admittedly, the proposed quarry near Rockwood has been a controversial and difficult issue for Guelph-Eramosa officials to deal with since James Dick Construction filed its original application in late 2012.
Along the way, and rightfully so, township representatives have been cautious and even-handed, not wanting to make any decisions until they received all the pertinent studies, peer reviews and consultant reports.
But over the course of just one meeting last week, all that common sense and solid reasoning seemed to disappear.
When it came time to make a decision, with an Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) hearing looming this fall, Guelph-Eramosa councillors made perhaps the most foolhardy error elected officials can make: they tried to please everyone.
First, council opted to not appear as a party at the OMB hearing, fearing that official opposition to the quarry would be futile considering the municipality’s own consultant recommended the quarry be approved (with conditions). That position, while likely disappointing for some members of the Concerned Residents Coalition (CRC) and others opposed to the application, is at least understandable.
The moves that followed certainly were not.
Council also decided that although the township is not officially a party opposed to the quarry application, it would still direct its lawyer to file a resolution at the hearing asking the OMB to reject James Dick Construction’s rezoning application and Aggregate Resources Act (ARA) license application.
The move, which really amounts to nothing more than someone spending a moment or two to read aloud the resolution, seems to be in direct conflict with the township’s reasoning for not appearing as a party at the hearing.
To further muddy the waters, council then approved a gift of $70,000 to the CRC, which actually will take part in the OMB hearing, to help the group fight the quarry.
Several councillors delivered prepared statements – rather than their usual off-the-cuff remarks, perhaps indicating they are aware their decisions were out of the ordinary – strongly defending their actions, including the decision to take the $70,000 from the Rockwood Hydro Fund.
“That’s what this money is for,” Mayor Chris White said of the fund at the June 27 special meeting of council.
Actually, that is not the case at all.
The Rockwood Hydro Fund was established in 2000 following the township’s sale of Rockwood Hydro to WEDCO (Wellington Electric Distribution Company Inc.) for $1.76 million. Council at the time created the fund for the betterment of the citizens of Rockwood, with the idea that interest on the fund would be used for capital projects in the Rockwood area.
It’s a stretch to use the fund to listlessly support a private group’s legal battle and simultaneously help the township avoid a tax increase for so doing.
If council wanted to give the CRC money, it should have taken the cash from general coffers.
After all, the majority of township residents are likely opposed to the quarry, which is not located in Rockwood, and rural properties surrounding the proposed quarry site arguably have the most to lose.
