Tim Bryson, the mayor of Strong Township, believes there are more pros than cons in amalgamating the municipality he leads with Sundridge and Joly.
Bryson was reacting to community comments he's faced in opposition to merging the three communities. Bryson says that “with amalgamation there are savings nobody can deny.”
Reducing the number of town councillors from 12 to four in the three municipalities and having one mayor instead of three will save about $100,000 annually in addition to the cumulative expenses each member of council incurs, Bryson says.
See: Surprising twist in amalgamation talks in Almaguin
Added savings include having one municipal audit instead of three and no more tri-council meetings which staff attend to provide support.
What also ends are the shared services committee meetings between all three communities which eliminates the need for another 90 meetings per year, which again involve municipal staff.
Another plus is that the three municipalities speak as one voice to the federal and provincial governments, Bryson said.
Bryson acknowledges one consequence of amalgamating is that some grants the individual municipalities receive from upper governments could be lost. However, he points out that under amalgamation the new restructured community could create a grant writer position out of an otherwise redundant position. He says larger municipalities have employees dedicated to this function.
Bryson says the next phase of the restructuring process is a study to help determine the true costs to merge the three municipalities into one.
“It’s important for people to keep an open mind until we get all the facts,” said Bryson, who chairs the restructuring committee.
Bryson says there’s a lot of misinformation about the amalgamation process in general in Ontario and believes “it got a bad name as a result of the forced amalgamations” during the Mike Harris government in the mid-1990s. He says the Harris amalgamations faced tight deadlines and believes the tight timelines resulted in mistakes.
Bryson says this is not the case with the local restructuring process. “This is locally driven,” he said.
“We’ve been taking our time and checking any boxes to make sure we don’t miss anything.”
The three municipalities have been engaged in restructuring talks for six years, going back to the previous town councils. Bryson says amalgamation is a complex matter.
He says people are arriving at their own conclusions through social media posts, but adds they “just don’t have the correct information.” “How could they?" Bryson asked.
“Studies haven’t been completed and the restructuring committee is working on ways to provide that correct information.”
Bryson wants the restructuring process to continue with the next study and says that will give residents much more information so they can make a more informed decision about the matter.
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with NorthBayNipissing.com. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada.