Milton Town Hall - Special Council & Commitee Meetings

I was at Town Hall on monday to attend the Special Council as well as the Administration and Planning Standing Committee meetings. If you have the time and interest, nothing beats attending town meetings in person. The ratified meeting minutes that are published weeks after tend to be short and sometimes dull to read in comparison to attending in person.

Monday's meeting lasted some time, with informal conversations both before and after official council meetings started. Below are some highlights that may be of interest to residents of Ward 7 and Hawthorne Villagers in general.

• Proposed new Dentist Office on the north-east corner of Kennedy Circle & Thompson (current location has a house there). The property would change to have a small parking lot in front, with the 'medical clinic' further back. You can see the full proposal online. It would include a small wellness center (physiotherapy, aesthetic services, massage, etc) as well.
  
• New photo-id requirements for the 2010 municipal election. Photo ID was not a requirement in previous municipal elections.
  
• Discussion and renderings of the Milton Sports Center Expansion. The renderings were projected onto the big screens so everyone could see (not available online yet). They're currently about 5 million under-budget but there remains some possible 'tweaking' to ensure it's 'world class' which could still cause some future dollars. A good portion of the budget for this came from the federal "Build Canada Program - Infrastructure Stimulus Fund" so there was some comments about whether the federal government might want a portion of the under-budget surplus back (for Milton's benefit, I hope not).
  
• There was a lively discussion about online internet voting and whether it would be possible in time for the 2010 municipal elections. Paul Scherer (Councillor ward 4) seemed interested if it was possible for 2010. Troy McHaig (Town Clerk) seemed less enthused and pointed out there was no line in the 2010 budget for online voting, plus it would be short notice for this year's election. Paul asked what about for 2014 and Troy seemed to give a guarded maybe. I'm taking liberties here in shortening what was an interesting back and forth.
  
  Some points about online internet voting in Ontario.
  
  • Over 16 municipalities did some form of online voting in 2006
  • Markham (pop. over 300,000) added online voting in 2006 for only $42,000
  • It's worked well from a cost perspective when online voting is spread out over multiple days prior to election day.
  • Convenience is the biggest benefit stated by residents in Markham for online voting
  • Security is the biggest concern to be allayed for residents to vote online.

There were other issues discussed (transit in particular), this is just a brief write-up of a few. In future meetings I might bring a laptop, as I can type in notes much faster than I can write.