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Public reps slapped down at waste strategy meeting

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In Simcoe County
Nov 25th, 2009
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By Kate Harries WaterWatch
Public representatives were slapped down at the first meeting of the new waste strategy steering committee as county councillors demonstrated that they don’t intend to yield any authority on the advisory body.
There are 10 voting members on the committee – five from council and five from the public – as well as five non-voting members (from Barrie, Orillia, the Ontario government, the federal government,  and one from Beausoleil and Rama First Nations).
Item One went fine for the elected members (County Warden Tony Guergis, Severn Mayor Phil Sled, Adjala-Tosorontio Deputy Mayor Doug Little, Ramara Mayor Bill Duffy and Innisfil Deputy Mayor Gord Wauchope).
It was the election of a chair.
Public member Nickolas Rowe of Medonte nominated Gord McKay from Zero Waste Simcoe.
Sled nominated Wauchope.
Wauchope was elected in a secret ballot. McKay (who is a Midland councilor) was acclaimed deputy chair.
Then, a hitch.
Rowe proposed that the committee meetings be taped for greater public accessibility. It was clear that this was not to the councillors’ taste but after a short discussion about whether the county had the equipment to undertake such a task, the matter proceeded to a vote.
Duffy voted with Rowe and John Nychuk, a public rep from Tiny, against Little and Sled. The other elected members were either out of the chamber or not paying attention.
A flustered Wauchope declared the motion carried.
Little rose to gesture at our group watching from public gallery, pronouncing himself surprised that there weren’t more in attendance. The gallery is where “all kinds of public input” can take place, he said, taping the meetings was not the answer.
Wauchope decided that since he hadn’t “seen enough hands,” he would have a revote. Duffy reversed his position and Guergis et al raised their hands to squelch the taping accessibility project.
Rowe had another idea: the committee’s terms of reference (decided by councillors) require six people to be present for a quorum, but three of them must be elected members (councillors). Rowe suggested that public and elected members be considered equal, and the terms of reference be changed to simply require a quorum of six members.
McKay backed the change, urging that all committee members consider themselves to be peers, rather than having some “more equal than others.”
“We’re certainly very glad the public’s here, but this is driven by council,” said Wauchope. He called the vote. The councillors prevailed to retain their preferential quorum provision.
The rest of the meeting was taken up by a presentation from Janine Ralph of Stantec.
Duffy asked how much the firm is being paid. Something over $200,000, he was told.
McKay questioned assumptions in the presentation – for instance that a short-term goal is to “incrementally” increase waste diversion.
What’s needed is “substantive change,” he argued.
“If we set our high benchmark at incremental change, we’re going to achieve no more than incremental change,” he said, adding that Zero Waste Simcoe had come “to inject new ideas,” not add a couple of percentage points to the waste diversion rate.
McKay intervened several more times to challenge the way Stantec is framing the strategy and noted that the resolution (drafted by Tony Guergis) to establish the new committee called for “the waste management strategy process to consider and incorporate the principles of Zero Waste.”
“We’re trying to look at this from the perspective of realism,” Ralph answered.
Rowe asked why Stantec had included landfill sites among its list of “proven” technologies.
Ralph replied that “proven” means that the technology is being used elsewhere on a sufficient scale and meets environmental standards.
“Landfills don’t work,” Rowe told her. “They pollute the water, they waste a lot of material that could be captured. Is it proven? No.”

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