Cerantola: Local government transparency and accountability

News release from Gary Cerantola — September 22 2010
Gary Cerantola Councillor Candidate for the Town of Wasaga Beach advocates
for local government transparency and accountability by communicating Wasaga
Beach Municipal Performance results in an open forum to be scheduled on an
annual basis.
The Ontario Municipal Performance Measurement Program (MPMP)
MPMP is a performance measurement and reporting system that promotes local
government transparency and accountability. It also provides municipalities with
useful data to make informed municipal service level decisions while optimizing
available resources.
All Ontario municipalities are required to report MPMP efficiency and
effectiveness measures for services provided by their municipality. Twelve
service areas are included in the 2008 program:
• drinking water
• fire services
• land use planning
• libraries
• local government
• parks and recreation
• police
• roads
• solid waste
• storm water
• transit and wastewater
Municipalities are required to report MPMP results to the province of Ontario
through the Financial Information Return by May 31st following each reporting
year. Municipalities must also publish results for local taxpayers by September
30th using a format of their own choosing. Gary Cerantola will drive a proposal
to create an open forum in Wasaga Beach, to be scheduled on an annual basis,
to communicate results and have them reviewed, discussed and compared
against other municipalities in Ontario. Gary also proposes that the results of the
open forum discussions would then be published by the town in order to publicize
Local government transparency and accountability
all stakeholder perspectives, recommendations and follow up actions and
response plans.