• Protecting Water and Farmland in Simcoe County

Everett will become ‘Little Brampton’

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In Adjala-Tosorontio
Dec 1st, 2012
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Why aren’t citizens involved at an earlier stage?
Letter to Simcoe.com Nov 22, 2012
EVERETT – The municipality has already paid thousands in consultant fees to justify to its citizens a plan that I cannot see will, in any way, benefit us and our neighbours. Why aren’t citizens involved at the earlier stage by referendum? Why do we have to wait that council has dished out thousands to comment? What can a citizen say that a consultant can’t? While your consultants speak volume in numbers and analysis, a citizen speaks from the heart.
I’ve read it all. Just to make sure I understood well. And I’m still crying as I’m writing you this email. I’m so upset by this plan. My husband and I carefully selected a small agricultural town to move in so that we’d be sure to lead a quiet life. We wanted to make sure we wouldn’t hear our neighbours or be too close to them. We wanted to see the starlight at night, something I had not seen in years. We didn’t want to hear or be bothered by traffic.
Your plan just destroyed ours. All I see is over 8,000 more people and services crammed close between Concession 4 and County Road 5 creating incessant traffic, pollution, noise, light pollution, etc. For what? So that you can collect more taxes. That makes the 1,900 of us feeling much better. I read that Simcoe County expected the township to take on 2,000 more people. Why then decide to accommodate over 10,000?
I foresee that we will likely have to move because we won’t be able to handle this mess. I foresee that our house’s resale value will plummet in the years to come because of the years of construction mess this project will bring, and later when the construction stops, because we’ll be camped next to Little Brampton.
There has been analysis done on the environmental impact this project will have, particularly on its impact on the Pine River. It is great that it was done (although I am not sure that it has satisfied me entirely), but how about the impact it will have on the Concession 4 dump? Just imagine 8,000 more people and companies. How much more garbage will that create?
There are concerns that septic tanks are affecting the water supply. In my opinion we have a greater problem. We live close enough to the dump and I have done a little investigation at the Simcoe County’s Municipal Offices with regards to the dump’s impact on the underground water system. We are currently thinking about investigating further how the dump is affecting our well and the underground waters in our area. We hope that there is a study underway to see how the increase garbage would affect the dump and in turn how it will affect the surrounding citizens and their water supply.
At the end of the day, the real issue is that Adjala-Tosorontio needs more money and this project will raise more taxes. And it is nicely referred as planned development. We understand that the Provincial kicks the ball to the Municipal and that you need more money to fix the water system. How much more would you need to raise from each end users to ensure that the system works properly? It seems to me that these thousands of dollars spent in consultants could have been used to find an easier solution to fixing the water system and leave it at that.
I am sure that this project is being couched as a “step towards the future” and “progress”. Not for me.
Chantale Gagnon,
Everett

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