North Grenville’s Council is in for a 12 months of powerful work, if all commitments and guarantees made in 2021 are to be carried out in 2022. Maybe one of many greatest commitments this Council has made is to take motion in the case of the supply and affordability of housing in North Grenville. Mayor Peckford’s Process Pressure on Reasonably priced Housing produced a last report early in 2020, and a few housing initiatives have been spearheaded since then. What is evident, nonetheless, is that the housing drawback is way from being resolved, with the latest public engagement session on housing having occurred on January 17.
One other situation which Mayor Peckford, in a dialog with the Instances, assured could be checked out in 2022 is that of a health care provider scarcity within the Municipality. Late final 12 months, Mayor Peckford stated that the method would come with discerning the extent of the issue along with her Council colleagues, and looking on the new demographic information from the 2021 census, which is about to be launched in levels all through 2022. Even with a transparent image of the extent and nature of the native physician scarcity, attracting further medical doctors is not going to be simple, since doing so usually necessitates shifting them in from different areas, which raises moral considerations and necessitates incentivization.
As a part of routine enterprise, Council will even be tasked with deliberating the best way to disperse Group Grant funding in response to the funding request displays that have been made in late November. A number of hours of displays have been heard by Council over a two-day interval, so it is going to be a labour intensive course of, probably stuffed with robust viewpoints, to find out which group teams and organizations deserve cash, and the way a lot.
These examples solely scratch the floor of what Council will likely be confronted with this 12 months as it really works to wrap up work from final 12 months, and deal with new work put earlier than it because the 12 months progresses. One vital undertaking that may undoubtedly make its method into the Council chambers for dialogue is the proposed provincial correctional facility that's slated to be constructed on the land of the previous Kemptville School within the coming years. The proposed jail has divided many Kemptville residents, and even residents of different North Grenville communities as nicely, with opposition teams combating in opposition to the undertaking, and lots of residents sporting garden indicators urging that the undertaking be cancelled. Mayor and Council have been closely criticized by some locals, and particularly by the Coalition Towards the Proposed Jail (CAPP) for not doing sufficient to struggle provincial officers and maintain the jail out of Kemptville. The Mayor has maintained that the undertaking can't be stopped, and he or she has, as an alternative, targeted on discovering methods to reduce the influence of the undertaking on locals. As with all authorities choices, it doesn't matter what plan of action is adopted, Council’s each transfer this new 12 months will remember to have each supporters and dissenters.