Town Council takes a final seating on Monday June 19th, 2017 before taking a short break for a month.   While most of the agenda is just a “pass-through” of the items covered in recent committee meanings, there are a few notable items that caught our eye.

All Council meetings are held at Grimsby Town Hall, 160 Livingston Avenue.  Proceedings commence at 7PM and all members of the public are welcome and encouraged to attend.

The full agenda is viewable at:  https://grimsby.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/?preview=85024

52 Garden Drive

We previously covered in our recent set of notes from the Committee of Adjustment meeting the interesting sequence of events that went down in regards to an applicant/developer’s request to build a large home in the stable neighbourhood of Garden Drive.  In short, the Committee of Adjustment went against the Planning Department (which recommended denying the application and supported the resident’s views) and approved the variance.

A report from the Planning Department will be tabled at the Council meeting recommending that the COA decision be appealed to the OMB.  This should come as a welcome surprise to residents on Garden Drive who don’t want to see the character of their neighbourhood altered, just so a developer can turn a quick profit.  Residents are encouraged to contact their Alderman to support this report and if approved follow the progress of the OMB case so that they can participate in the hearing.

Heritage Grimsby

Council will vote on a resolution to (re-)establish a Municipal Heritage Committee.  After the dissolving of the last incarnation of the Heritage Committee by Council, this has become a hot button issue for many members in the community.

Public Works Committee Minutes – CoGen

Rather than do a separate post, we thought we just give a quick run down of the minutes on the meeting on June 14 (that will be briefly glanced over at Council) mainly concerning the CoGen unit adjacent to Town Hall.  It was reported when it ran in January and February, it saved $14,700 but broke even in March.

They then shut both turbines off… and when they went to turn them back on…  neither of them came back to life.

The consultant who flew in from Chicago (and the only one who can assess this unit) said this problem was common with the turbines of that vintage.  He stated that both igniters in the turbines need replacing costing $7,000 for the pair.  As part of the repair process he said the liners often get damaged and replacing *one* (not both) would be another $7,000.

The Director of Public suggested replacing one igniter for $3,900 (per unit cost is higher if you only do one) and if the liner gets damaged, stop and permanently decommission one of the two turbines.  Then go with the other turbine which requires a hard drive replacement for $1,300… for a total of $5,200 (plus taxes).

The Committee unanimously decided to replace both igniters ($7,000) and if one of the liners break spend another $7,000 to replace it, for a total of $14,000 plus taxes.  Now it may be the case that neither liner breaks during repair, but what if both liner’s break when the igniters are put in and the budgeted repair is only $14,000?  Given this scenario the total savings produced by the CoGen would be a measly $700 for the year if two igniters and one liner is done.

It does not seem like it’s worth the hassle does it?  Now before we close off, don’t forget that $100,000  plus consultant fees was paid out to study and build the noise containment walls at the CoGen.  The Ministry of Energy still needs to conduct the noise study to ensure that these walls are up to spec… if not, will the Town throw more money at this “white elephant”?