July 3rd Council Meeting

At the July 3rd Council meeting, the CAO presented a report with his suggested amendments to be made to the property standards bylaw.
These amendments include:

• the officer will only respond to written complaints, emails are accepted. Emergency situations do not require complaints
• for agricultural properties,  the complainant must demonstrate how they are negatively being impacted by the condition or situation they are complaining about
• the officer can only enter property to determine whether there is a property standards violation or whether an order made under the building code act is being complied with

These amendments have been paraphrased and the full list of amendments can be found on the agenda for the July 3rd meeting on Perth East's website. The CAO stated the these are interim amendments and the Property Standards by-law will be revisited at a later date. 
All of the above amendments were approved by Council. These amendments are a good first step but stop short of protecting the rights of all citizens and properties in Perth East.

      The Reform Coalition presented a delegation at this meeting. Our speech spoke about the misinformation in the flyer the township mailed out, as well as how the proposed amendments did not do enough to protect citizens. We once again presented Council with our suggested amendments, the ones that are listed on our petition.  We gave a copy of our petition to the clerk. Between paper copies and the online petition we had between 500 to 600 signatures. 
          Councilor Andrew MacAlpine put forth a motion to revisit our suggestions every time the Property Standards by-law was opened. Mayor Bob McMillan, started to state that there was no reason to look at our suggestions again as they have all been addressed. Deputy Mayor Rhonda Ehgoetz was quick to remind the Mayor that as chair of the meeting, he is not allowed to give his opinion. At this point, Councilor Jerry Smith, who appeared quite agitated, stated that it was a waste of time to ever look at our suggested amendments again as they have been dealt with, and he could not support Councillor MacAlpine's motion.  Councilor MacAlpine reasoned  that our group represents close to 600 people and as this is such a large group, our suggestions should be revisited. 
             The motion was voted upon, Deputy Mayor Rhonda Ehgoetz, Councillor Andrew MacAlpine, and Councillor Don Brunk voted in favor to revisit our suggestions at a later date. All other councilors voted against it. The motion was defeated. 
 
Time and time again, we have made well researched, well written, and very reasonable arguments to council. Our suggestions do very little to inhibit the officer but do a lot to respect property rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.   Every time our justifiable concerns are ignored. If council and staff truly believe that the officer will not enter property without the owners permission, why is there so much resistance to change the bylaw? 

Attached is our delegation speech to council

july_3_-_letter_response.pdf
File Size:	113 kb
File Type:	pdf

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