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Orono Town Hall BO WM AN VILLE LIBRARY Vi 62 Temperance St. 1.1.04 Bowmanville, Ont. L1 C 3A8 $1.00 GST Included Wednesday April 9, 2003 Serving Kendal, Kirby, Leskard, Newcastle, Newtonville, Orono, Starkville and Tyrone since 1937 Farmers welcome Agricultural Minister Agriculture Minister Helen Johns stopped in Orono for breakfast Monday morning. The minister was the featured featured guest at the breakfast ment to develop an assistance assistance package to help family farms bear the cost of the new regulation. Many see this as a further eroding of the family farm in favour of factory or intensive farming operations. The legislation is currently currently in the hands of a provincial provincial advisory committee for recommendations of cost- shared funding. Existing large livestock farms will be covered by regulation in the Act in 2005. New livestock farms and those expanding into Provincial Minister of Agriculture and Food. organized by M.P.P. John O'Toole for area farmers held at the Dutch Oven Restaurant on Highway 115/35. Johns was well received by the farmers present, and according to local farmer Bill Tamblyn she's listening more to farm people than any minister we had for a long time. "She's very aware of the problems facing the farming industry today, he said in a phone interview following Monday's breakfast. breakfast. Part of Monday's stop over was a question and answer period, where the number one topic was the government's proposed Nutrient Manage-ment Act; a new law that will set clear, consistent standards for nutrient management on farms and protect the environment. environment. The government is proposing proposing changes to the Act which was passed last June, inviting feedback and input from farm groups. Minister Johns could not answer the question of how much implementation of the new guidelines would cost farmers when compliance becomes a necessity, but she did say her government was committed to some type of cost sharing arrangement, and they were looking at a mixed bag of opportunities, she said. Farm groups had been lobbying the govern- Bob Faulkener reluctantly spent four hours clearing the snow and ice off his Peters Pike driveway in anticipation of the snow yet to come. and within the large category category of more than 300 units, will have to comply with the new regulations by July 1st of this year. Other farms will not be covered until 2008 at the earliest, Johns predicted that farmers will join the program voluntarily once they realize that a nutrient management plan is the best way of moving forward. forward. It's a protection of rural communities, especially especially where they run into the urban community she said, noting that environmental lawsuits were very prominent prominent in Europe, and increasing increasing in the U.S. There are faults with the Municipal Property Assessment Assessment Corporation and how farms are assessed for tax purposes, said the Minister and some changes will, be made in that area. She vowed to make sure that farmers will be exempt from any municipal by-laws banning the use of pesticides. pesticides. On the issue of spreading sewage sludge on farm fields, John's said the "The Premier is very concerned about sludge and bio solids in the province, and is working working on a plan to eliminate the practice in five years. "We need to be more aggressive in that area," she said. John's affirmed her government's government's commitment to the need of a healthy supply management system "I've never seen agriculture as united as they are now," she said, and vowed to protect the supply management system system at all cost "We'll be there for you," she said. The matter of housecleaning housecleaning was on the minds of councillors councillors Monday morning. With the addition to the Administration centre nearing completion, councillors had to decide whether to keep the janitorial services in-house, or to contract it out. The Administration Centre in Bowmanville is currently cleaned by two full time and three part time staff members. Bowmanville Library had been long been contracting out their janitorial needs. When the addition to the Town Hall which includes the new Bowmanville Library Branch, opens later this year, the building building will be more than double its current size. In December 2002 municipal municipal staff met with three major cleaning contractors two of which were invited to submit a proposal for cleaning the town hall and the new adjoining library branch. Based on some advantages to contracting out the janitorial janitorial service, staff recommended that the proposal from Hurley Corporation in Toronto be accepted for a one year contract contract price of $142,868. In the report before council Monday, staff estimated that keeping the janitorial services in-house would cost $190,034 a year. That calculation did not include incidental costs such as additional staff covered covered to sickness, vacations etc. and any supervisory costs which would be included in the overall Operations Department staffing budget. Councillor Don Mac- Arthur presented a motion that council approve the hiring of three full time and two part time staff for one year and to assess the janitorial needs of the corporation during that year. Ward one local councillor Jane Rowe spoke up and wondered wondered why the option to con HOUSECLEANING continued page 3