BARRHEAD - Town of Barrhead Coun. Rod Klumph wants to make sure all residents benefiting from the municipality's water and sewer system are paying their fair share in maintaining the infrastructure to provide those services, including the County of Barrhead and its tenants in the Kiel Industrial Park.
That is why he, at least in part, voted against the first two readings of Bylaw 11-2019, the Municipal Public Utilities Bylaw.
On Dec.10, administration brought the bylaw forward for councillor's consideration. If passed it would have seen the residential and non-residential water rates at 4.2 per cent.
The increase is in part to cover the 2.7 per cent increase the Barrhead Regional Water Commission will be charging the town while putting away revenue into a capital reserve fund for future capital infrastructure projects.
Under the proposed bylaw sewer rates would remain the same at 35 per cent of the water fee. The charge for bulk water would remain unchanged at $9.50 per cubic metre. The coin fill rate system would also remain unchanged at $1 per 80 litres.
To go to a third and final reading, the bylaw needed unanimous support during first and second readings — both times Klumph cast the only vote in opposition.
Specifically, he was concerned about whether the industrial park's users, who would be hooked into the town's water and sewer infrastructure, would be paying their fair share into projects such as wastewater lagoon upgrades. In May, the town awarded a $947,000,000 contract to Chandos Construction to complete the project.
As part of the discussion, councillors unanimously instructed administration to generate a report detailing where the funding was coming from for its wastewater lagoon upgrading project.
Klumph asked if there was any tax money coming from general revenue to fund the wastewater lagoon upgrade project.
Corporate services director Kathy Vickery said no, adding it was being paid for by a combination of federal and provincial grants and a capital reserve fund.
She noted with enough lead time, it is the town's practice to put away surplus funds from users to fund such projects.
However, for infrastructure projects where this is no revenue stream, ie a user, "taxpayers" funds are often used to pay for projects.
"What I'm getting at is that Barrhead taxpayers are putting in money towards a capital project, any other hookup whether it is outside of the town's boundaries should be contributing to that," Klumph said. "If tax dollars are being used to fund a user who doesn't pay taxes to the Town of Barrhead, such as users in the Kiel Industrial Park, I believe the town would be within its rights to charge an extra fee."
Chief administrative officer Edward LeBlanc said under provincial legislation they cannot charge utility accounts outside the town's boundary at a higher rate.
"In respect to [Kiel Industrial Park], we would have to speak to the [County of Barrhead] to arrange some sort of user agreement. Because they can tax that property," he said, adding administration is hoping to come to a service agreement with the county for its industrial park.
Meanwhile, councillors unanimously approved an amended recreation fee schedule, including incremental increases to Rotary Camping fees, Agrena kitchen and concession rental as well as aquatic centre fees and approved the Emergency Management Bylaw.LeBlanc noted it is a requirement under the Municipal Government Act. As part of the bylaw councillors also appointed Coun. Ty Assaf, Coun. Leslie Penny and Shelly Oswald to the Municipal Emergency Committee.
The new committee's duties include recommending any amendments to the emergency plan and program, develop relationships with business, industry, special interest groups and residents to improve the municipality's ability to respond to an emergency and educate the public to help them be better prepared for emergencies.
