Grey County council is going to consider striking up a new committee that would study the feasibility of shared or joint services with lower tier municipalities.
At its meeting on March 13, council approved a resolution from Owen Sound Mayor Ian Boddy that called for a staff report about the possibility of starting a Joint Municipal Services Ad Hoc Committee.
In his comments on the resolution, Boddy referenced the county’s collaborative framework – a process the county instituted in 2013 to study issues of mutual concern between the county and local municipalities.
On several occasions in recent years when he was a member of county council, Alar Soever, the former mayor of The Blue Mountains, questioned why the county was not using the collaborative framework during its decision making.
“What I’m envisioning is a small ad hoc committee that perhaps would review the (collaborative framework) policy,” he said. “To identify, maybe, different areas that we could work on that we’re all doing individually that we could do together.”
Boddy noted that in the past Grey County examined possibilities like joint library services and joint waste management services. Currently, the county has been considering the option of a combined county-wide planning services.
“I’m sure there’s other things there that we could look at how we share and how we do it better together,” said Boddy. “I don’t want to throw out too many ideas now. I want the ideas to come in from everybody.”
Boddy said a small committee could work on a list of ideas or initiatives and report back to council on what might be possible and would have an official record.
“Something that is a committee that we can follow up on and it isn’t an idea at ROMA that goes away and that we lose track of,” he said.
In his resolution, Boddy asked for staff to bring back terms of reference for the ad hoc committee. County council unanimously approved the resolution.