Plan now for more infrastructure stimulus money

Federal government help for local infrastructure projects is due to return, but municipalities have to be ready to take advantage of it, Centre Wellington Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj says.
The Building Canada fund will apparently return in 2014, it was announced at a recent Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference the mayor attended.
"The money will be there ... and we were strongly encouraged to get plans in place for 2014" when funding is expected to be made available, Ross-Zuj told councillors recently.
Ross-Zuj stressed the importance of being ready for the funding.


Local fire department cost-efficient

Centre Wellington Fire and Rescue is one of the most cost-efficient fire departments in the province, township councillors heard recently.
That's because the township still uses "paid on-call" or volunteer firefighters - it's one of the largest municipalities in the province still doing so, Fire Chief Brad Patton told councillors in his year-end report.
Operating a round-the-clock emergency service with paid on-call staff is "both challenging and rewarding," he says in the report.
The service gets its most calls during the 6 a.m.-6 p.m. weekday time period that's also when staffing levels are lowest - because firefighters are at their regular daytime jobs.
"We will continue to manage our paid on-call staff to ensure adequate coverage throughout the daytime in both stations as a main priority," he said.

Trails, transportation survey gets great response

A lot of people are interested in trails and different types of active transportation - more than 650 have responded to a survey that's part of Wellington County's active transportation plan.
Planners and consultants working on both the county's plan the related Centre Wellington trails master plan are now working to review and compile comments from the first round of public consultation, and plan for a second round of public information meetings and workshops coming up later this month.
Township parks and recreation director Andy Goldie told councillors the level of survey response is pleasantly surprising.
Consultants MMM Group Inc. working on the plans told him the local participation is the highest response rate they've received in similar projects they've been involved with - places with much larger populations have returned 400 surveys, for example, Goldie said.

For these and other local stories, pick up your copy of the News Express today