• Protecting Water and Farmland in Simcoe County

Departed NVCA staff and the missing link

By
In Adjala-Tosorontio
Sep 9th, 2014
2 Comments
4318 Views

Was their work unnecessary, inappropriate or just inconvenient?

Letter from David Strachan, Midhurst

It would be hard to find a better example of blatant disregard for public funds and the mandate of the NVCA, than recent actions by the board of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority.

CAO Wayne Wilson’s departure from the NVCA follows the earlier departure, under similar circumstances, of the authority’s senior planner Patti Young, MCIP, RPP, a highly professional and dedicated defender of the Nottawasaga Valley environment. Both seem to have disappeared under the guise of an NVCA “efficiency audit”. Was their work unnecessary, inappropriate or just inconvenient?

On May 29, 2013, Ms. Young wrote a 7 page letter to the Township of Springwater containing 29 questions, or requests for information, regarding the Midhurst Secondary Plan, which would affect NVCA’s area of responsibility. Her work appears to have been disregarded and she is no longer with the NVCA.

On June 5, 2013, Wayne Wilson wrote to the Township of Springwater announcing the launch of the 2013 report on NVCA Watershed Health Checks. (This report provided an update to the 2007 reports). Mr. Wilson writes, “To conserve resources, we are providing you with a link:

http://www.nvca.on.ca/OurProgramsandServices/WatershedMonitoring/index.htm

The link is no longer active and Mr. Wilson is no longer with the NVCA.

We have to wonder how many more professionally conducted studies have been funded by taxpayers only to be ignored by politicians? (The $3 million 2006 Inter Governmental Action Plan for Simcoe County is another example which comes to mind).

But responsibility lies with the public and politicians alike. Both seem to have insufficient time to comprehend the complex issues.

We must not waste our opportunity to vote wisely in next month’s municipal election.

AWARE Simcoe note:

These are the local councillors who sit on the board of the NVCA 

This is how they voted on a recent key transparency issue 

2 Responses to “Departed NVCA staff and the missing link”

  1. Earlier this year NVCA updated its entire website, making it more user friendly and providing better accessible for people with limited vision and for those using tablets and smart phones.

    As a result of this upgrade, links to every page on the NVCA site have changed. Since the new site went live in April 2014, the watershed reports have been located at http://www.nvca.on.ca/watershed-science/watershed-report-cards. They can be easily accessed through the “NVCA A-Z” listing on the NVCA homepage or using the search function available on all website pages.

    The new site also includes a “NVCA Publications” page (http://www.nvca.on.ca/about/nvca-publications) where users can link to a long list of NVCA guidelines, reports, etc.

  2. John Bacher says:

    This is an important article. Essentially the same nonsense (ie. staff firings) happened in Niagara after province with help of conservation authority staff gave proper protection to provincially significant Niagara Falls Slough Forest Wetland Complex. (Thundering Waters)

Leave a Reply to Heather Kepran, NVCA Cancel reply

Commenters must post under real names. AWARE Simcoe reserves the right to edit or not publish comments. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *