By Chad Ingram
The following are brief reports of items discussed du ring a July 22 online meeting of Haliburton County council.
The provincial government has mandated that all municipalities in Ontariocreate what it’s calling community safety and well-being plans and inthe County of Haliburton it’s been agreed to by its four lower-tiermunicipal councils that a plan will be contracted through the county to serve the upper tier as well as the four lower tiers.
The countywill strike a steering committee that will review a request forproposals document and approve a work plan. The process is being led byAlgonquin Highlands Mayor Carol Moffatt who chairs the county’scommunity policing advisory committee and has done significant research on what the plans are to entail.
It’s expected the budget for theproject will be $75000 with half the amount coming from the countyand other half split evenly between the four lower-tier municipalities.
Councillors heard an update from Sheila Ziman and Paul Heaven of the HaliburtonHighlands Land Trust about the organization’s improved wetlands mappingproject which is developing and testing a new remote wetland mappingtechnique which provides more accurate data than previous mappingtechniques and can then be used for planning purposes.
The landtrust used money from an Ontario Trillium Foundation SEED grant to do atest pilot project of the technique within the former townships ofLutterworth Snowdon and Glamorgan and based on successful resultsintends to apply for further funding from the Ontario TrilliumFoundation for completion of the mapping throughout the rest of thecounty.
The land trust was seeking and received support from the county on its application for that funding.