Stokes Bay Ratepayers Association

Summer Newsletter
June 2005

This is advising of the upcoming Annual General Membership Meeting.
Please find enclosed a copy of the minutes of the Town Hall Meeting of last September. Please read them and if there are any revisions and/or additions due to omission required, please advise Nardina Allwood by email allwood@sympatico.ca or drop it at the Information/Suggestion Box at the Stokes Bay General Store.


Annual General Membershhip Meeting

Saturday, 2 July 2005

10:00 a.m.

Stokes Bay Community Centre

Coffee, Tea and Cookies will be supplied.



Just a reminder, if you haven’t paid your membership for July 2005 to July 2006 you can do it at the meeting or please forward to Martin Hogarth at: 98 Tamarac Road, Stokes Bay, Ontario, N0H 2M0. (Please make cheques payable to the Stokes Bay Ratepayers Association.)

Thank you,
Nigel H. Allwood
President



First, let Dina and I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. Beginning last Thanksgiving due to an ongoing long term illness in my immediate family and our daughter deciding to pack up her van and permanently decamp to Florida at the beginning of November leaving us her house to refurbish and decorate to put on the market it has been a hectic 8 months and we have been keeping a very low profile. In my case some of you probably feel that’s all to the good. For now just a few things to think about before the membership meeting.
  1. Well another increase in taxes this year and that's without the Provincial Assessment Board getting their swing at the cat yet. Those of you with email, I hope received the information I forwarded to you from WRAFT. For those of you who do not have computers, I am enclosing an explanation of this worthwhile group who I feel we should join.

  2. Last October 25 a motion to receive the Fire Chief’s report for information only was put before Council and passed. There was a request from the Fire Chief to pre-station one of the Fire Departments trucks in Stokes Bay at a bay to be built at the Community Center in the report. The Mayor and Deputy Mayor said they wanted a complete study of response times for the whole of the township before they could support this. They say that even though today Stokes Bay and its immediate area probably has the third highest population in the North Bruce and it is only going to increase. What I do know is that when I reinsured my cottage this year the fact that the closest fire station is in Lion’s Head will cost me an extra 200 Dollars on my premium. Can anyone say hidden tax, and it is my guess that Dina and I are not the only ones paying it.

  3. Council assured everyone that the new water system in Lions Head would be user pay. Yes Council has mandated a system of water meters for Lions Head that may or may not cover the day-to-day operating costs of the system. But guess who’s paying to build the system, the rest of the township. Last year Council voted themselves the authority to issue debenture bonds for large capitol expenditures. The capitol expenditures and reserve funds are now in the budget for the Lions Head water Treatment plant. If a Government grant for the full cost doesn’t come through we are going to have one heck of a bill plus interest to pay.

  4. Where do we want the organization to go? Recently, at a meeting of the North Bruce Rate Payers Coalition, one of the attendees reported that while at the Township Hall he overheard one of the senior people who populate the building state that they don’t need to listen to ratepayer groups. This ties in with why no one from Council showed up to the meeting last September. I learned later that even though I had asked Councilor Stewart by phone that if she was unable attend, she would request Deputy Mayor Grieg to attend in her place. The fact that I had stated that we were not interested in having the Mayor attend as the “VOICE” of Council and I would not submit a list of questions that would be asked in writing ahead of time meant no one would come. (More on this at the meeting). Have they listened to the voters of Stokes Bay about the speed limits? Is Stokes River Road being properly maintained, do we really have to wait till Grenough Point is finished as has been suggested, to get it fixed? I hate to mention this but the Stokes Bay Speedway, otherwise known as Tamarac Road is already cracking up in places. If we are really going to fight for our members and have our voices heard then we have to quote the old movie Network and say “We are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore” and get active.