Councillors want Essa mayor off committee

By Maija Hoggett Simcoe.com April 13 2010
NEW TECUMSETH – A New Tecumseth councillor is asking for changes to the membership of a Simcoe County conservation authority subcommittee.
New Tecumseth Coun. Dennis Egan said Essa Mayor David Guergis and Oro-Medonte Mayor Harry Hughes sitting on the seven-member subcommittee is a conflict of interest as it was Guergis who called for the dissolution of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority last year.
Guergis and Hughes both made a presentation to New Tecumseth council last year on disbanding the local conservation authority.
“I do totally agree with the comments that Coun. Egan has made,” said Coun. Barbara Huson. “They have been out soliciting municipalities to disband the NVCA.”
Guergis withdrew his motion to dissolve the NVCA in October after seeing the first draft of a policy that would steer how the authority deals with its 18 member municipalities. The policy is called the NVCA-Municipal Streamlining Partnership Agreement for Plan Review and Technical Clearance and Fee Collection. It describes processes for land-use planning, clarifies the roles of the NVCA’s planning and regulations program and outlines fee collection.
In withdrawing the motion to dissolve the authority, Guergis instead called for a third party review of the conservation authority and its fee structure.
While reporting on the story, The Herald learned that Guergis’s wife own’s land on a floodplain in Angus and that the NVCA was reluctant to sign off for development of the property. Canadian Tire was looking at locating a store there.
Since then, the Essa mayor has aligned himself with the Peterborough County Landowners Association and their battle with a conservation authority in that area. He was even guest speaker at the group’s annual general meeting late last month.
Guergis told the group that like the NVCA, the Ontonabee Region Conservation Authority (ORCA) needs to be dismantled too, calling it a wasteful level of bureaucracy.
Guergis said all of the province’s conservation authorities should be re-formed into an “environmental repair” organization.
The “planning side” of the work done by conservation authorities needs to be shifted to a higher tier of government, he said.
“We pay for flood forecasting and flood warning, but I want to hear flood prevention,” he told the Peterborough Landowners group. “I want to hear that my money is being spent to fix the environment.
Because of that attitude, Egan said the members who have a conflict should remove themselves from the subcommittee or that it should be expanded and members of the NVCA invited to sit on it.
“It’s only fair that when the issues are raised that there be members to be able to counter whatever charges and/or positions these two particular people on the committee may have,” said Egan.
The other members of the county subcommittee are Tiny Mayor Peggy Breckenridge, Ramara Deputy Mayor Basil Clarke, Clearview Mayor Alicia Savage, Severn Mayor Phil Sled, and Simcoe County Warden Cal Patterson.
Mayor Mike MacEachern said the subcommittee members have been approved and they’ve already held one meeting.
“The committee would be subject to the same rules we are and they have to declare those conflicts as they relate to items that they are discussing that would have some kind of pecuniary interest in,” said MacEachern.
New Tecumseth staff is drafting a motion for Egan and it will be up for discussion and voted on at the Mon., April 19 council meeting.