Q&A Responses
The below are a collection of the questions that were submitted online or at a Meet & Greet. I skipped answering a lot of questions that are addressed in my platform already and focused on answering questions I thought might provide new information and insight for voters. I appreciate everyone that took the time to submit a question. Note: For ease of scrolling, click on "Show more..." to see the full response.
Question: How many people reside in each Ward?
Answer:
Good question! My understanding is our overall population is now approximately 12,800 in total. The current Town limits, Ward 4, is around 5600, and each of the other Wards, 1,2,3 and 5 have approximately 1600-2000 in population each. I understand that the Council composition was based largely on the population of each Ward, so I would expect that the province has a more exact number for each Ward, but I could not find where they have published that publicly yet.
Question: Will you still do prom?
Answer:
This question made me smile! As some community members know, I have helped provide a prom the past 3 years during Covid restriction years when the Woodstock High School determined they were not able to take an active role in it due to restrictions, etc. The school has not reached out to me as of yet, nor has a parent committee been engaged by the school for this event yet, so the answer is we will see what everyone decides they want to do this year. 😊 I will certainly help again this year and hopefully the school will reach out to me for feedback on the past 3 years before they make any decisions.
Question: How will user fees be addressed with outside wards with reform?
Answer:
This question was asked in a variety of ways by multiple people, so hopefully this will provide a general answer. As described in the White Paper released by the province (ELG), the provincial government will establish guidelines that will provide direction to regional service commissions on cost-sharing opportunities on recreational infrastructure. The guidelines are supposed to help determine what recreational infrastructure meet the criteria of a “regional” recreation facility that will be cost-shared by our entire region (RSC 12 that Woodstock is part of). Infrastructure deemed a local recreational facility (sub-regional) will be cost-shared within the entity (Woodstock for us). The general idea is it is supposed to be cost shared among all 5 Wards based on a tax base and population formula. Though current Council (including myself) were not part of the Advisory committee that was tasked to help make these decisions, it is my understanding all 5 Wards in Woodstock will be cost sharing and therefore, user fees are essentially eliminated. The final budget has not yet been determined and will be determined ultimately by the province rather than our own Council this year. So, the exact amounts that each Ward is paying towards recreational infrastructure, as a portion of their tax rate, is unknown to-date.
Question: Living in Northampton, during hurricane Arthur we felt very abandoned by the Town, how will the new reform help situations like this?
Answer:
This is an important question as we look to climate change and the potential for stronger and more frequent storm and weather situations. Emergency preparedness is important today and will be critical moving forward. Reform does give us a great opportunity to discuss this at the local level with our new expanded boundaries, and at the regional level within RSC 12. I know from personal experience with overseeing the operations of a hotel, and one in Woodstock during hurricane Arthur, that we still today do not have a clear emergency preparedness plan as a Town. I have discussed this issue, and the concerns we have that impact the hotel directly, with Mayor Slipp and the CAO, to advise them that the town needs to have a plan in place. One specifically that would address how and where we would displace 200 people or more into our community during an emergency that requires the hotel to evacuate. So! Now is a great time to bring forth discussions like this as every area within our region will have unique challenges and concerns, but we can work together to better prepare.
Updated Oct 31st
Question: How can you improve road conditions in town and outside current town limits?
Answer:
Let’s tackle out-of-town roads first. The province has said that roads “outside” current town limits will remain the responsibility of the provincial government, even for restructuring projects that are undertaken after January 1st, when reform laws come into place. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure will develop a working relationship with the local governments and the province will allow for additional local property tax dollars to be invested on roads outside town as we determine. I think it will take a few years to see whether this responsibility will continue to shift to the regional and local government level, but to start, our local government won’t have much control on how much is spent on rural roads, but we can work together with the province to determine where to spend the money and offer to contribute more. As for roads in town, we simply need to budget more funds than we have in the past to maintain and improve our current road conditions. In my opinion we haven’t budgeted enough in the past decade to maintain our roads. Keeping the budget low in the past has allowed the tax rate to remain relatively unchanged for a long time, but I feel we are behind where we need to be today as a result, unfortunately. Repairing and maintaining our roads is going to be more expensive than ever and we need to have a concrete 5-year and 10-year plan for what we need to fix and how much it’s going to cost so we can make better budgeting decisions. This plan needs to be determined along side the water and sewer infrastructure 5-year and 10-year plans so that we are doing the work together.
Question: I work with marginalized population in Carleton County and one of the biggest issues they face is lack of housing and specifically a lack of cheap housing. The average person I work with makes well under $1000 per month. Do you have thoughts on how we can help this population with housing going forward?
Answer:
Supply of housing (at all affordability’s) is going to be one of the most challenging issues all communities are going to face. Unfortunately, there is no one single solution to fix the problems we have today and things are likely going to get worse before they get better. In regard to the lowest income portion of the population you have asked specifically about, I was happy to see the province finally agreeing to tackle and invest significant money into public housing with their announcement last month. I think it has become clear over time that for-profit developers are not going to be able, nor willing, to fill the low-income housing gap that our province, and our community faces. The province has committed to invest $100 million in building an additional 380 government owned public housing units across the province over the next 4 years. That sounds hopeful and it’s a good start, but it will be challenging in today’s environment to fulfill that promise. There is a lack of contractors available to build them and increased cost to build, among other challenges. So, we at both our community level (Woodstock) and regional level (RSC 12) need to spend the time to try and understand our own situation so that we can advocate the province for proper support. We need to accept that there are different levels of “affordability” and what is considered “affordable” in one community might not be in another. If I become Mayor, I will welcome the opportunity to discuss this at local, regional, and provincial levels of government to try and find solutions to help this situation as it is going to take everyone at every level working on it.
Question: I already pay an increase tax for the AYR [Motor Centre] project, if LSD taxes increase, are you supporting a position that mine wouldn’t increase as much as Northampton who doesn’t already pay that amount? As well, what services do you see LSD’s sharing with the town to support an increase in taxes?
Answer:
I included this variation of the question on user fees as it has a common secondary question. This first year of reform is going to be a tough year to give a solid answer on this one before the election is over as current Council has not participated in the budgeting process and the budget hasn’t been finalized or shared yet. To start, there may be shared services, such as costs for funding the RSC and recreational infrastructure costs, plus inflationary costs that increase the overall costs of doing business, which may impact your tax rate this year. However, tax assessment increases will have an impact overall on the amount of revenue received this year and that may balance the costs out, or allow for a decrease. Either way, there is a maximum increase cap in place for this year of 5 cents, and I believe the same cap for the next 4 years. Some cities that are not going thru an election process have stated already what their tax rates are going to be. Moncton was able to lower their rates by 10 cents, and Fredericton decided they needed to increase the rate for new residences that are now part of the city by 5 cents. I won’t make a promise I can’t keep or control, however, there is extra money that the province is going to provide the Town this year due to reform that may make it possible to maintain current rates, or lower current rates, for at least one year. That can’t be decided until the budget is finalized, and the Director of Finance and CAO provide advice to Council before they determine the tax rates. It is not known whether this extra money will be ongoing or just a one-time payment, so any decrease may be short-lived. Long-term, Mayor, Council, and Town staff will need to be transparent for their reasons for any increases and the hope would be that taxes are able to be lowered or stabilized eventually.
Question: Will you consider dividing Woodstock into 4 sections to give each Councillor an area?
Answer:
This is an excellent question and another one that was received from multiple people. The quick answer is the Mayor alone cannot make that decision, but it is something if I get elected Mayor that I hope everyone is willing to keep an open mind about considering as we work our way thru the first four years of reform. In the meantime, there are considerations that could be given to help assign current Councillors to areas, or, at minimum, to sectors such as Finance, Public Safety, Civic Engagement, Economic Development, etc. that we may determine as a Council team we have standing committees. I understand why many people asked this question as different areas of our current Town limits have different issues and needs, and it isn’t clear right now who someone can reach out to on issues. I will also add that it is a big objective of mine to increase communication overall at all levels. I hope within the first year that we make a big enough impact overall that perhaps if the same people were asked a year from January if they still felt it was absolutely necessary to make a Ward system that maybe they would feel it was not. We must consider this Council structure as our starting point and know that overtime it may be appropriate or necessary to make changes to it.
Question: Turn out for elections is poor, how will you help get interest back?
Answer:
Yes, historically our turnout for Municipal elections is poor, the last election only around 29.5% of eligible voters actually did so in Woodstock. Time will tell next week whether we see any improvement on that with this election. As it is the first election, I find in talking with people there is a lot of confusion and people still don’t understand enough information and it will likely deter many people from taking the time to vote. What I do plan to do if elected Mayor is to increase engagement overall in our community and have Council and Mayor as a whole be more present and active with the community. Hopefully in 4 years time when the next election comes that everyone in the entire expanded town of Woodstock understands what is happening and is more informed in general about the community. Best case scenario is that it encourages more people to run in local elections and vote!
Question: What is your opinion on the new water rate proposal? Will it be beneficial to the seniors of the municipality?
Answer:
Current Council is still waiting for a draft by-law of the levy based water rate proposal from town staff that addresses a number of concerns raised by Councillors. Council has not made a decision yet on this and if I’m elected Mayor I hope to get this back on the agenda and better information out to the public regarding this proposal so that Council can have proper feedback to make a sound decision. We must ensure that we are collecting enough funds moving forward to be setting money aside to help pay for infrastructure replacement that is needed in many areas of our town. We have an aging infrastructure and costs for treatment of water to keep the quality high will continue to rise. How we manage this decision needs careful consideration. To answer the question specifically around seniors, one of the main issues Council raised was the need to address residential users, that historically have always been billed the minimum amount required as their water usage is low, and residential users on a fixed income. Those two categories will likely cover most seniors. I don’t have an answer today on how we plan to address those residential users as we have asked for staff to consider and present Council options, which we have yet to receive. So, I would need to see additional information to make a decision.
Question: As someone who lives in an outside Ward, what’s in this for me?
Answer:
This question has been asked A LOT of times as I’ve been talking to community members. I have always tried to be honest with my answer and in general I think it’s important for everyone to try and look at it from the opposite way and ask yourself, if we don’t do this what do I lose? Municipalities are struggling to maintain current infrastructure and facilities already, and there is always the desire from community to add more and do more. My answer has generally been, we collectively stand to lose more by keeping things the way it was as we will reach a point where smaller municipalities, like ours, would eventually struggle to maintain infrastructure and provide new services, and not be able to grow. Though there are still many unknowns with reform, overall, I think we will be better off. I must trust that since every other province has essentially moved in the same, or similar, direction years ago that we are headed now, is an inevitable and necessary step.