Opening Comments by Mayor Peter J. Malouf - Regular Meeting of Tuesday, August 15, 2023

‘’  Good evening,

 Thank you for joining us and spending a summer evening with us.

Please note that Councillors Seguin and Dreyfuss are on vacation and therefore absent this evening.

Housekeeping

A little bit of housekeeping before we start. Like many residents, the basement of the Town Hall was flooded during the torrential rains of mid-July. We are in the process of doing repairs, but the basement is currently inaccessible, as are the public toilets. We have therefore provided portable exterior toilets.

Accident

I wish to reiterate how saddened we all are about the unfortunate accident that occurred early last week. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. They also go out to the blue-collar employees involved in the accident and their colleagues.

In order to allow the residents of our community to offer their condolences, we have opened a condolence register at Town Hall as well as online.

(Let us take a moment of silence and prayer for our fellow resident who passed away. Thank you for sharing this moment).

Residential Pools - Environmental Footprint Compensation

I realize that some residents have been surprised by the additional bill of $100 they received for being pool owners. However, this amount is to reflect the added costs related to increased waste water treatment due to increased waste in the sewer system, be it from emptying the pool, from the backwash or from added surface water which cannot percolate in the ground.

This decision was made by council during 2023 budget planning process and we concluded, given the increased costs of all parts of our Agglo bill, that this additional usage fee represented a small contribution on behalf of pool owners. Your municipality has faced significant cost increases, just as you all have during your everyday life, whether purchasing groceries, paying for services or even going out to eat.

Rainstorm Flooding

We are continuing to work on the situation of sewer back-up and flooding in homes. A letter has been sent to all homeowners giving an update and also mentioning a few tips which property owners can take to protect their own home and also contribute as good citizens to a community action to help overall. I hope everyone will take the time to read this letter and seriously consider implementing the suggestions and recommendations. Our Technical Services are working with the consultant, and we are evaluating the report received.

Climate change is evident and we are suffering the consequences.

Centre Sportif & Communautaire

As promised, here's an update on the progress of the project. The file for the new sports and community center is progressing well. We have launched our call for tenders for professional services, which will be responsible for preparing the call for tenders and related documents required to complete the project in design-build mode. The project for the new sports and community center is therefore moving forward, as this evening the contract will be awarded to an architectural firm. This firm will be responsible for the rest of the construction of the new center including the PFT, and will support us throughout the process.

The cost of the mandate to be awarded this evening is in line with the estimates we prepared last fall. We are confident that the project will move ahead in a timely fashion and that the architectural firm chosen will meet the Town’s expectations. I am therefore happy to say that we are well on our way to see the realization of this important and long-awaited project.

Fireworks

Fireworks have always been a highlight of our summer offerings to Townies and we are pleased to replace the June fireworks, which were not possible to do due to circumstances back then, by the upcoming ones. We have now decided to hold the fireworks on the evening of the fall multicultural fair of September 23.

There is much discussion on the environmental impact of fireworks and, as a council, we have felt that for this year we will hold the event and then rethink to see if this is an activity we continue or not in the future.

I look forward to seeing you at the multicultural fair and fireworks on September 23rd and hope you take in the many activities we still have planned for the end of the summer-fall season. Bon Conseil and thank you once again for joining us. "