On Dec. 18, councillors here approved the municipality’s asset management plan.
The document was prepared by Gamsby and Mannerow.Councillor Wayne Stokley said he thought this was a very good report.
“It really allows us to see what assets we have in the community and what we need to do in the future, at least proposed for the future.”
At the same time, Stokley saw “some alarming thoughts, particularly in regard to current funding.”
In viewing proposals of what the township needs to spend for next year, on some of the municipal infrastructure, he commented “It’s too high, obviously there’s no way we can go in that direction.”
Stokley agreed a lot of this information has already happened in the township’s budget meetings.
“I am glad we are finally moving from a five-year to a 10-year capital plan.”
He noted one of the recommendations in the report was that Puslinch should be seeking more grants. “It’s a viscious circle. We have infrastructure we have to work on, it’s getting old, and we’re not getting the support neccessary from the provincial government.”
He added “I’m getting a little bit worried about what is happening.”
Though councillor Susan Fielding stated the report was ‘enlightening’, she agreed with Stokley’s comments.
“These are worrisome trends and predictions. It seems in the future there may be some shortfall in funding conditions to keep things in good shape.”
At the same time, Fielding said Puslinch is not alone in this situation.
“We’re in good company.”
“… but the dollar stops here and we’re going to have to figure out how to fit this all in. It will be challenging in the coming year, that is for sure.”
Councillor Jerry Schmidt quipped that “perhaps we may need to partner with the OLG to pull this off.”
Mayor Dennis Lever added “the report shows we will have a $6 million shortfall spread over 10 years – the troubling thing is that it recommends a lot of the work to happen in 2014. Obviously that is not going to happen. It would bankrupt the municipality to do all that extra work.”
He commented that in conjunction with the recent memory of the defeat of a recent funding application.
Like other municipalities in Ontario, Puslinch was requested to develop an asset management plan which would be used as the basis of future infrastructure grant applications. The plan would be used to identify and prioritize long-term infrastructure needs. Council adopted the asset management plan – in principle.
