The following are brief reports of items discussed during a May 26 meeting of Minden Hills council.
After some discussion councillors approved in principle a renewable energy policy that was tabled by members of the township’s renewable energy task force at a committee-of-the-whole meeting earlier this month.
Council passed a resolution to create the task force last fall after it received a deluge of requests for support for applications to the province’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) program in 2015.
An initial motion on the issue read “that the reeve attend a renewable energy task force meeting to assist with amendments to the draft renewable energy policy to be presented back to council for further consideration.”
Councillor Pam Sayne took issue with this saying the task force meetings were open to the public and that the reeve or any other member of council could attend if they wanted.
Sayne said the township needed to have more respect for the work of volunteers and committees and wanted the policy supported in some affirmative way.
She also noted the township had nothing on the books expressing support for renewable energy.
The initial motion was defeated with council passing a motion that “council supports in principle the draft renewable energy policy” and “further that the reeve attend a renewable energy task force meeting to assist with the draft renewable energy policy to be presented back to council for further consideration.”
Township to buy banners
After the Minden Festival of Banners committee announced it will no longer be organizing the painting and hanging of banners in the village councillors decided at their committee-of-the whole meeting to put out a call to residents to lend or donate banners from previous years.
Community services director Mark Coleman told council the township had received about 10 banners. There are 72 banner brackets throughout the village. Coleman suggested the purchase of 30 generic banners at cost of $75 a piece to at least cover the village’s downtown strip for the season which council supported.
Overnight camping
Council passed a bylaw that will permit overnight camping on township property in certain situations. These include situations where council has passed a resolution for the use; situations where council or the director of community services has approved the camping as an accessory use associated with an event; or on properites that are part of the Haliburton Highlands Water Trails System where a permit has been obtained.
