The biggest and certainly most expensive challenge Brighton council has had to face this year has been what to do with the town’s sewage treatment system.
The current lagoon/manmade wetland system was never designed to meet modern wastewater regulations and must be upgraded.
However, Mayor Brian Ostrander tells Quinte News council needs to consider the future.
“There’s no sense in just upgrading it to fix the problem when we also need, when we know that we need to upgrade it for development at some point in the relatively near future, so we might as well kill those two birds with one stone.”
Brighton council will continue to lobby both the federal and provincial governments for up to $40 millon in funding to build a mechanical wastewater treatment plant.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent period of high inflation driving costs higher, local councils have been facing financial challenges.
Ostrander says the past year has seen council having to pour more money into services that really aren’t a municipal responsibility.
“We never contemplated having to take on health care. We never contemplated paying for social services or filling the gaps in social service’s funding on municipal property tax dollars. Those were always intended for linear services like snow plowing or sidewalk repair and those kinds of things.”
Mayor Ostrander said call volume was up over 10 per cent from last year and the men and women volunteering for the department performed admirably.
“We have an incredibly dedicated team of volunteer firefighters and I’ll echo the Chief’s statement when he says he’d put this group up against
any professional crew any day of the week and I’ve seen them in action and I would too.”
Meanwhile, on another front, Brighton council purchased 28 acres of land just outside the town’s built-up area which will be set aside for future housing developments, including affordable housing.
Mayor of Brighton Brian Ostrander. (Photo: file)
