Springwater councillor wants clearer picture of meeting outcome

By Laurie Watt Barrie Advance

Springwater Township Coun. Sandy McConkey wants some straight answers about what transpired in a meeting on the Midhurst Secondary Plan with the municipal affairs minister and her mayor.And she’s not alone.

Mayor Bill French and Deputy-mayor Don Allen met with Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Ted McMeekin on March 19, a meeting township council authorized in a Dec. 17, 2014 motion for “exploratory discussions regarding growth management”.

But a freedom-of-information request revealed French’s agenda was far different and two versions of documents discussed at that meeting.

“I felt misled,” said McConkey, who wants to know why there are major discrepancies in documents posted to the township’s website on April 1 and then on July 28.

She has asked for a special council meeting to get answers, but French — whose duties under the Municipal Act include calling and chairing meetings — refused.

“I’d like to understand whey there was a difference. The overview is the main concern. It clearly was not in the original (posted) documents,” McConkey said.

In the revised package obtained from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs through a freedom-of-information request, there are an additional 23 pages.

Posted July 28, that document includes an overview that argued “the proposal for Midhurst is not in keeping with the intent or (provincial) policies and may well be the defining or tipping point of whether the province intends to control urban sprawl or not.”

The overview asks McMeekin to consider a moratorium on development in Springwater and revoke ministerial orders that allow the Midhurst Secondary Plan and approved developments to proceed.

The documents French posted in response to councillors’ questions on April 1 include a one-page introduction called “report to council and senior staff” in which French summarizes questions and requests raised during the meeting. This appears to replace the six-page overview in the other package.

“We asked the minister to consider allowing Springwater to undertake a comprehensive review, growth management study and a Midhurst Core Master Plan study,” French wrote in the introduction.

In an interview, French said he is not trying to hide anything and is sticking to the platform — re-opening the Midhurst Secondary Pan — on which voters elected him last October.

“There was confusion. If people assumed (the first document posted) was the entire thing, I can’t do anything about people’s assumptions,” said French, who pulled together the package that consisted of a report to council and some supplementary reports, as councillors requested.

“The second entry was more a result of a Municipal Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MIPPA) request. There was a request for a complete one.”

McConkey heard about the discrepancies from the Midhurst Landowners Group (MLG), which raised the concern after receiving the complete package resulting from its FOI request with the ministry.

“We have a difference of view and are trying to enforce our rights and (French) is trying to fulfill his mandate,” said MLG spokesperson Sam Reisman.

“We have the legal mandate and would like to work with the mayor in implementing the MSP. We’re sure the mayor wants to maintain his platform of being open and transparent and we want to help him do that.”

The landowners also want to ensure development permissions they have obtained through years of Ontario Municipal Board hearings and working with the township and Simcoe County on growth policies are not retroactively negated.

The group also questioned if French’s overview was consistent with the council motion for “exploratory discussions regarding growth management”.

Springwater CAO Robert Brindley said an internal investigation is underway.

“Originally we were given the documents and later heard there was a different version,” Brindley said. “We are looking internally at how that happened. Somehow copies got mixed up.”

Brindley noted the township does not have a policy that requires a staff member be present to take notes or record follow-up actions when politicians meet with officials from other levels of government.

French said he’s still waiting for a ministerial response to his questions and requests.

“I’m still trying to get a straight answer,” the mayor said.