The first community open house will take place tonight in Dresden for the 2015 Chatham-Kent budget.
Members of council and the municipal administration will be at open house tonight from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
A brief presentation will be made at 5 p.m.
Similar meetings will be held tomorrow in Ridgetown and Thursday in Chatham.
Administration initially recommended a budget with a 2.4% tax increase, representing more than $3 million in new revenue.
But before the draft budget was tabled, council asked staff to come back the next day with an option for a 0% increase.
Under that option, council would have had to revisit 2013 and 2014 municipal service review demons of the previous council.
Included in the 2013 service review recommendations were such things as closing the Sydenham Pool in Wallaceburg; laying off two firefighters; closing volunteer fire stations in Erieau, Raleigh South, Chatham North and Merlin; closing library branches in Highgate, Merlin, and Bothwell; cutting dog tag enforcement; reducing sidewalk snow clearing in Chatham and Blenheim; cutting the number of summer students; reducing the hours of the Blenheim Emergency Response Unit; and eliminating roadside weed spraying.
Gerry Wolting, general manager of corporate services, said revisiting these items was a better option than pulling money out of other budget areas, such as infrastructure, which would only delay and compound funding issues.
“As tough as those decisions are now, if you can make those decisions, at least that money has been allocated permanently. Otherwise, you are just putting the problem off to next year’s council or next term’s council,” Wolting said.
Council, led by West Kent Coun. Bryon Fluker and Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley did not want to even consider digesting the 2013 service review items.
“To go out to the public meetings with this 2013 list, with some of the items on here, I just don’t want to do that,” Fluker said.
“I will not, for the sake of possibly polarizing the communities, mention what is on that list,” Wesley said. “There is a very good reason why all of those items were rejected in 2013 – because it would have a devastating effect on those communities.”
Wesley and Fluker combined to craft a motion to pull the “three-page list” as Fluker called it, but allowed councillors to bring up items individually over the budget process if they so wished.
The motion passed without opposition.
Following the community meetings this week, budget deliberations will be held February 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12
from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
– With files from Bruce Corcoran
