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McCarthy pushes for trust fund
Cash would boost local projects
Flamborough Review
Kevin Werner
Published on Jan 28, 2010
Now
that the city of Hamilton receives all the revenues from the Flamboro
Slots, Councillor Margaret McCarthy says the city owes her ward about
$500,000.
McCarthy
proposed the city create a trust fund for Flamborough that could
provide a funding boost to local projects. The cost of the fund, which
would operate similarly to the Taro Trust Fund in the former
municipality of Stoney Creek, would be about $500,000. McCarthy even
had a motion prepared, supported by Mountain Councillor Terry
Whitehead, ready to be introduced to council last week. She said she
had at least five other councillors ready to endorse her proposal.
“It would be a trust fund for Flamborough,” she said.
During
a special committee of the whole meeting last week, councillors were
compiling a wish list of their high-priority capital projects that
could be funded from a special $5-million fund. Last year, the city
used the money to build a recreation facility in the downtown Beasley
neighbourhood.cil.
In
2007, when politicians threatened to eliminate the area-rating of
Flamboro Slots revenue, McCarthy argued if Stoney Creek is allowed to
keep its tipping fees from Philip Environmental (now called Newalta)
after amalgamation to support the Taro Trust Fund, Flamborough should
keep its casino revenue.
In
2007, $3.1 million out of the $4 million in total slots revenues was
taken from Flamborough and used by the city and Ancaster to soften the
expected higher taxes that year. The next year, the entire slots
revenue that had been used to pay down the former town’s Borer’s Creek
debt, was instead removed from the area-rating policy and dumped into
the city’s general revenue stream.
The
move reduced taxes in Hamilton in 2008, but caused Flamborough
residents’ taxes to balloon by, on average, 10 per cent.
The
Taro fund is overseen by the Heritage Green Trust board of directors;
the money is distributed to various organizations to help the local
community.
McCarthy
has argued that in 1999 Flamborough signed a written contract with the
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission that suggests council can’t take
the slots revenue away from the town without receiving approval from
the gaming commissioner.
Whitehead,
who initially opposed McCarthy’s idea, now supports the idea of
providing some compensation to Flamborough. He said the money would be
used for local improvement projects.
McCarthy’s
motion wasn’t accepted by councillors last week. Instead, city staff
will review the idea, along with a number of other proposed
infrastructure projects.
But
Councillor Chad Collins urged staff to use the city’s own criteria for
infrastructure projects as it reviews the requirements of the ideas.
Under Collins’s suggestion, McCarthy’s proposal would not meet the
city’s requirements.
Approved
by City Council was a motion to update our Aggregate Resource
mapping. The reason behind this move is because the old mapping
has not been updated since 1984. Described by FORCE as being
misleading, confirmed by City staff as being inadequate and now
approved by Hamilton Council to rectify, this motion directs staff to
undertake and finance the extensive studies that will identify
incompatible land uses as well as identifying other areas that have
significant resource potential with few land use conflicts.
This
is critical to us on several fronts. It speaks to the need to
identify incompatible uses in, on, and around the potential
Quarry site on the 11th Concession in Flamborough. " The Ministry of
Natural Resources (MNR) has traditionally been responsible for
producing this mapping but have refused to produce the updates leaving
the entire cost and associated justification studies to the City",
stated in their Planning Report (PED06207) June 26/06.
Conversations
with Mike Stone at the Ministry of Natural Resources led me to
investigate the work done by the County of Huron where they worked on
updating 9 Municipality's Aggregate Resource Mapping. They
undertook the work through their own City Staff and completed the
updates in one year for the entire County. Working in conjunction with
Provincial Representatives, G.I.S. mapping experts, and community
groups the team set out to identify Primary, secondary and tertiary
(third) calculations of how many constraints were identified as
obstacles to quarry extraction. They then made recommendations based on
those findings to the municipalities to adopt into their Official Plan
Policies identified as Primary or Prohibitive.
The transferred
responsibility for the mapping of geological factors took place in
1986, moving the responsibility over from the Ministry of Natural
Resources to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. In talks
with Cam Baker of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, he
confirmed that the only updates that are the responsibility of the
Ministry of Northern Development and Mines would be solely based on
geological factors and as stated before the other "identified land uses
are the responsibility of the City to uncover and finance."
So
my gratitude goes out to my Council Colleagues who approved the support
for this essential work to be undertaken to update our Aggregate
Resource Mapping. This is a good news story for the City as a whole!.
Click Here to view the motion
Margaret McCarthy, Flamborough Councillor Ward 15
905-546-2713 Fax: 905-546-2535
mmccarthy@hamilton.ca www.margaretmccarthy.ca
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