CENTRE WELLINGTON – One of the quirks of living in a small town, like Centre Wellington, is that rumours spread quickly around the community particularly around township matters like heritage, jobs, taxes and vocal groups.
At least that’s the case according to mayor Kelly Linton, who discussed this in a presentation he called Four Lies and a Truth at the annual Centre Wellington Chamber of Commerce Mayor’s Breakfast held virtually Wednesday morning.
With a municipal election coming later in the year, Linton said in his presentation cheap talk from politicians scrambling to get elected can escalate.
“Over the last seven-plus years as mayor, I’ve heard many stories about what’s going on in our small town,” Linton said. “Often there’s no truth to them at all.”
Linton started by disputing the idea that the heritage downtown areas of Elora and Fergus are under attack.
He presented pictures from 2014 showing an abandoned Elora Mill, a graffiti-filled industrial brownfield on the south side of the Grand River and derelict ruins in the same area.
Linton compared those pictures to ones taken in 2021, highlighting the revitalized Elora Mill and rejuvenated downtown Elora streetscape with new bridges, sidewalks, accessibility measures, nearby parking lots and other aesthetic features.
While he acknowledged Downtown Fergus did not require the same rebuilding, in his opinion it has never looked better.
He stressed there are design standards in place for downtown developments and a rigorous process which includes the heritage committee’s input.
“Our commitment to the downtowns will continue. Any suggestion that our downtowns are under attack I don’t think you should take too seriously,” Linton said.
Next, he highlighted what the township is doing to attract job investments instead of thinking jobs will come automatically as a byproduct of growth.
To avoid becoming a bedroom community for neighbouring larger cities, he said the township has streamlined the approval process for any projects related to jobs and investment.
However, he was most excited about the upcoming opening of the Centre Wellington Business Park in Fergus, expected later this year.
The business park on First Line will have 23 lots with a strict selection process and design criteria for what’s built there.
“If our early indications are any indication of what’s happening we should be sold out and built out from this park in the next couple years based on interest,” Linton said.
But can you have it all without a tax increase? Linton said this isn’t realistic with the geographic size and supporting infrastructure compared to the relatively small population.
He explained a recent asset management plan told the township taxes would need to be raised every year to 2030 by 4.9 per cent and then 2.89 per cent from 2031 to 2036 just to look after current assets.
“Obviously our people cannot afford that kind of increase, so what happens we need to find some balance,” Linton said, with that balance being infrastructure needs compared to people’s ability to pay.
To prove that the township can make this work, he noted the average tax rate from 2015 to 2022 was 3.46 per cent but they are on track to rebuild 21 bridges in that same time frame. He compared that to 2007 to 2014, before there was a 2 per cent tax levy strictly devoted to bridge capital projects, which had an average increase of 3.41 per cent and saw five bridges rebuilt.
Finally, Linton said his favourite of these lies is, “you got to be a squeaky wheel to get what you want,” meaning citizens have to be very vocal about issues they care about to get local government to take action.
He said while being vocal about issues is not a problem and there are many outlets to do so through the township, many citizens don’t have the time to bring every issue to their attention but should have an expectation that local leaders make good decisions.
“The issue is when the prevailing leadership approach to decision making is simply to appease those who are speaking the loudest,” Linton said, adding this is why he originally ran for mayor. “In many cases, I was convinced that their demands were not in line with what the majority wants.”
He closed by encouraging attendees to consider running for council if they are motivated by action and not talk.
Linton said he has not made a decision on if he was running for mayor in the fall when asked.