Councillors vote to keep arena, delay budget, and kill cannabis advisory committee
BY JOHN CHICK Special to the VOICE
At Pelham Town Council’s March 18 meeting, the chaos didn’t end with the surprise vote to stop the sale of the old Pelham arena lands.
Approval of the 2019 budget was also derailed because a full costing report on 2018 expenses for the community centre hadn’t come in yet — even though Mayor Marvin Junkin said council had already technically passed the budget earlier in the meeting.
“We approved the operating budget,” Junkin said. “Council approved all consent agendas.”
Councillor Mike Ciolfi pushed back, complaining the information had not yet been received, alluding to a bureaucratic snafu.
“You’re supposed to read these reports before you come to council,” Junkin said. Ciolfi explained there was an email mix up, snapping back, “That’s not right!”
The PDF document containing the meeting agenda ran to 316 pages.
In the end, a motion was made for the detailed report on community centre finances to be due at the next council meeting.
“This is the biggest asset we’ve got,” Ciolfi said. “Waiting an extra week or two isn’t going to hurt.”
The accidental missteps continued in the Policy and Priorities Committee meeting, where council appeared to inadvertently kill the motion for a local cannabis advisory committee.
After debating the merits of renaming the working group a “cannabis control committee,” Ciolfi’s amendment to have the group’s makeup stacked with up to nine residents was defeated. Councilors then voted on the original makeup of four Pelham residents, two-to-three representatives of licenced cannabis producers, one academic, one councilor and the Director of Community Planning.
It was defeated 3-2, sending the entire committee up in smoke.
“The motion is lost,” Town Clerk Nancy Bozzato said. “Staff is going to need to know what to do with the terms of reference, because as of now there is no committee.”
Some councilors appeared surprised they just had voted to kill the committee, seeing as the key hangup was centred around numbers.
With the committee then dead, they agreed to reconsider it at the next meeting.
As far as not selling the old arena lands, Ciolfi said the property may still have a use for the Town, possibly even one day as a new Town Hall.
“Let’s look at the overall plan, and maybe a 40-year plan to see what the Town needs are going to be,” he said. “[Things like] affordable housing, a new Town Hall, things like that, before we get rid of it.”
Hildebrandt didn’t understand the logic of his fellow councilors’ votes on keeping the arena.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” the Ward 3 councilor said. “The residents told us to vote to sell it, I don’t know what went wrong.”
While they’ll still own the land for the time being, one upside is it will cost the Town less than before to service it. Public Works Director Jason Marr confirmed that water and gas service has been decommissioned at the 1120 Haist St. property, although the Town is still paying some $1,200 a month in hydro bills for outdoor lighting and the security system. Public Works says they actively looking to mitigate that.
“We’ve been in discussions with the [neighbouring] paddle tennis club about possibly running a service off their meter for those lights,” Marr told council.
The arena land was earlier appraised at $2.7 to $3 million dollars. While Councillor Ciolfi said he’s heard those numbers, he has not seen an official offer.
“There’s no buyer yet anyways … I haven’t heard of any offer,” he said. “I haven’t seen one on paper.”
Back to cannabis
Pelham resident Bill Heska — an engineer who spoke out against Leviathan Cannabis’ Interim Control Bylaw challenge at the February 19 public meeting — presented to council, pressing them on the creation of bylaws to deal with cannabis producers.
Mayor Junkin told him that work is ongoing behind the scenes.
“I can assure you that this council has been taking big steps,” the Mayor said. “We will be able to build enforceable bylaws that will be in place by October 15 [when the ICB expires].”
Heska fired back, citing inaction by previous council.
“The trouble is, things should have happened back in 2014,” he said. “Our concern is now we’re only seven months away from October 15. We’re just trying to raise the priority and get action.”
Junkin replied dryly, “Thank you for that 20/20 hindsight.”
Gypsy moths
Experts are predicting a brutal season in Niagara for gypsy moths, the critters that consume foliage in caterpillar form. A day after hosting an open house for Pelham residents, Paul Robertson of Trees Unlimited presented before council his company’s plans to aerially spray the biological pesticide BT over the municipality.
As Robertson explained at the open house, private landowners must notify their neighbours of their inclusion in the program before getting the go-ahead — even though BT is widely accepted as a safe, organic pesticide.
Councillor Ciolfi asked Robertson if billing could be replicated the way it was the last time Pelham was sprayed in large volume in 2009 — by adding the cost to the property tax of residents who opt in.
“I don’t think that’s a question for me, but I’m in favour of it,” Robertson said.
The process is highly precise, according to Robertson, with helicopters spraying two applications at an altitude of 50-100 feet. If a neighbour refuses to be included in the project, a property can probably still be sprayed, although less of the BT will land on the trees.
The issue of gypsy moth infestation has been severe over the years in Hillcrest Park, the wooded ravine that runs southwest from Haist Street to Pancake Lane. Area resident Frank Feeley was angry about the Town’s perceived inconsistency in spraying the park, telling council that Pelham should be footing the bill for the private property spraying.
“I think they’ve been delinquent in accepting their responsibilities,” said Feeley, who added he had to remove an infested 75-foot oak tree from his property two years ago.
“I want the Town to accept the responsibility that the infestation came right from the park.”
Junkin told Feeley he could make no promises, and told him to fill out a report and bring it back to council.
Odds and ends
Pelham Director of Recreation, Culture and Wellness Vickie vanRavenswaay responded to council’s query from March 11 on whether the provincial grant for Pelham Transit could be paused until 2020, saying that it could. During the March 11 meeting, Councillor Ron Kore had balked at the idea of adding a second bus to the service, something the Town was obligated to do this year under the grant funding arrangement.
Council also endorsed a report by engineering firm Spriet Associates that pegs the cost of the Poth Street culvert reconstruction at $391,000. The culvert was condemned in April 2017, leading to the closure of a section of Poth that remains in effect. In January 2018, Former Director of Public Works Andrea Clemencio told the previous council that repairs could not be accomplished for less than $1 million dollars.
