Pontiac council report - more money for beach roads?
Mo Laidlaw
Only about 12 members of the public attended the regular council meeting held on 9 December 2008, probably because of the heavy snow.
Joan Letourneau of FRAPP, the federation of road associations, gave a passionate plea for more money in the budget for the 29 km of “tolerance” roads - which receive municipal support in exchange for public access, but can’t become municipal roads because they are too narrow and don’t have ditches. FRAPP represents 22 associations and 1500 voters in the municipality - about a third of the population of Pontiac municipality.
“$3000 per km is no longer enough to maintain the roads, let alone upgrade them,” said Letourneau. She asked for the amount per km to be increased to $4000 in the budget, and a fund of $35,000 to be available for upgrade projects. She said, “In the beach areas where most of these roads are, there are up to 55 houses in 2 km, some of which pay $4000 in taxes”. Guy Bilodeau supported her request, claiming that the average for municipal roads is $8000 per km.
Mayor Eddie McCann explained that there are 440 km of ditches along municipal roads and the road maintenance cost of $1.9 million in 2008 includes ditches. “People paying high taxes own very nice waterfront houses. Taxes from specific areas can’t be targeted only to those areas, instead work is done wherever the need is greatest. We are the only municipality in the Outaouais that supports owners on private roads”, he said. “The other mayors are surprised by the way we do it.” The budget meeting is on 18 December.
Recycling proposal
Lorne Dagenais offered to set up an Ecocentre for recycling for the municipality. His property is already zoned as a scrapyard, so he could sort and store materials, including asphalt shingles. Council will study his proposal.
Bill Twolan thanked all the councillors “except Jean Amyotte”, for supporting his request to the CPTAQ to remove farm zoning from 15 ha of land north of Elm on the river side of highway 148, including 460 feet of riverfront. He described his vision of a project of 25 houses, built of logs or earth sheltered, built into the slope so barely visible from the highway, using Ecoflo® septic systems, composting toilets, solar and wind power, and growing grapes fed by filtered grey water.
Money matters
Bills for $63,327 and fixed expenses of $451,310 for November were approved.
Other amounts approved:
$82,051 was appropriated from the surplus to help pay for the sewers in Quyon.
$4,350 to buy 29 sets of Nomex coveralls for firefighters.
$937 for Raymond Daigle to do insulation work at the Luskville fire station.
Other
Patrice Séguin is appointed to the town planning committee (CCU) as the ward 7 representative.
The Ministry of Transport will be asked to check the ditches from 1988 to 2024 highway 148 and clean if necessary.
Pierre-Louis Chartrand, a municipal inspector who is also a fire fighter, will be allowed to respond to 911 calls during office hours.