From mid-August to early September, FoTTSA conducted an online survey to gauge residents’ awareness of 1) Tiny’s proposed new administrative centre, and 2) a new plan for maintaining and repairing municipal assets, which have an estimated replacement cost of $342 million. Both could impose a significant tax burden on residents. Survey results appear below.
The results were unequivocal. Regarding the admin centre, the vast majority of respondents are angry, confused, and frustrated. In an editorial published in the fall 2024 issue of The Tiny Cottager, FoTTSA president Paul Cowley identified two fundamental choices for Council:
1. Proceed on its current path and face two more years of acrimony and opposition, wasting Council’s time and leaving a terrible legacy for future councils.
2. rebuild residents’ trust by doing what should have been done at the beginning:
- pause the new build decision-making process
- hold public information sessions (2-way, not 1-way) that explain the problems with the current admin centre and propose solutions
- help residents inform themselves by turning the Township’s admin centre web page into an easy-to-navigate source of essential information
- call for a referendum so that informed taxpayers have an opportunity to weigh in on these huge expenditures.
Read respondents’ admin centre comments here.
Respondents’ frustration was also evident in their comments about the asset management plan, a provincially mandated requirement for municipalities to devise a strategy for sustaining their assets. Tiny’s assets include roads, bridges and culverts, water, wastewater and stormwater management systems, and municipal buildings and facilities. An independent assessment of these assets determined that 38% were in poor or in very poor condition.
Read respondents’ asset management plan comments here.
