It appears most Huntsville Councillors were not in the mood to reopen discussions about adding a new marketing position to the municipality.
At the Monday, November 25 Council meeting, following the passing of the 2025 and 2026 Town of Huntsville budgets, Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock brought the issue up again and asked fellow councillors if they would allow staff to report back to the Town’s General Committee in 2025 about the possible addition.
The position was initially in the budget but did not make the cut at the General Committee when councillors looked at ways of reducing the budget.
“This is not meant as an additional item that we left out of the budget. There was a healthy discussion around the needs for marketing and fundraising for the library and for the Town, especially in light of the new community fund that will come online in the Town of Hunsville in 2025 and Director Frame during the discussions talked about many possibilities how we might be able to position ourselves to do more fundraising and marketing,” said Alcock. “But using funds that we might receive in a different way and also to be able to implement branding and sponsorship, we do have a sponsorship bylaw, but we don’t have any way of implementing it. So all this was doing is [to] provide direction to Director Frame to say ‘could you prepare a way of funding a position like this through the many possible avenues that are available to us…'”
Councillor Cory Clarke said he did not need to see another report about the position. “I’ve already made my decision pretty clear at the last budget meeting, so I stand behind the comments I made at that meeting that we shouldn’t be continuing to create new positions, specifically also looking at adding new positions; I think if we continue to add new positions and create new positions during this term, it’s going to have negative long-term impacts on our budget,” he said. Clarke said inflation in Canada was back up in October from 1.6 per cent. He attributed the increase to the cost of groceries, gasoline and “the Canada-wide increase in municipal property taxes. So increased property taxes right across Canada drove inflation up with the highest yearly increase since 1992, so those are all reasons why we shouldn’t be even considering creating new positions, and I know the argument is going to be, ‘well, you know, we can look at how we can fund this position creatively through MAT tax or whatever other ways there might be,’ but eventually this position will come back and affect the levy…” he said.
Councillor Helena Renwick said she did not think it would hurt to look at it. “In particular, we have a sponsorship bylaw that we have not even had the time or energy to look at because we don’t have anyone to look at that.” Renwick said the position could possibly be supported by initiatives like sponsorships or advertising. “And then we can’t forget about the library because that was really where the initial position came from,” she said, referring to marketing and fundraising support for the library.
Deputy Mayor Dan Armour questioned whether staff had time to put together a report on a marketing position. “My concern is not so much the position coming back just for us to look at it but do staff have the time to actually do the work because we’re always hearing about how busy they are.” Armour said he understood where councillor Clarke was coming from but said he was okay with staff returning with a report if they have the time.
Huntsville CAO Denise Corry said staff is indeed very taxed with their time. She said staff is also always looking at ways of doing things more efficiently to reduce the cost to the taxpayer. “So we do feel that this initiative will satisfy that requirement, and we will slot the time…to get that work done.”
Councillor Scott Morrison questioned why staff didn’t just go ahead rather than ask council for permission. He also said he could not support a report on the position unless other efficiencies are looked at like freeing up other staff member’s time to fulfill the role of that position.
Corry said because council had already turned the position down during budget discussions, and bringing it back without prior consultation would be “disrespectful to council’s position.”
In the end, councillors voted against it.
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I can’t imagine that we need another ‘sunshine candidate’. It seems we have a mayor, totally unaware of the situation of a good number of her fellow citizens. Never turn down the opportunity to spend outside the budget?
Maybe if the person in this new post was to spend the summer filling pot holes, I might reconsider, But only if the larger portion of the hundred grand was to pay for the cold-roll. And what is this person to market? Thought we were up to our knees in condo fabricators as it is.
I did some volunteer delivering last summer. Over stretches of trail (for these were not roads by any stretch) that necessitated the constant repositioning of the ‘spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch’. I parked my truck up after I got home and it whimpered late into the evening.
With the return of the winter season, we will be left snowed in again. I’ve had relatives that worked for every name they’ve had for the Department of Highways and they all said “You plow when it snows and sleep once it stops.” My uncle George was a mechanic and worked in a snow bank when equipment broke down in the field. Doesn’t happen today.
I imagine there are still some who can remember when the sidewalks were cleared by a horse and a V plow. And they actually did the job.
Out our road we have had plows do one side only and return a few days later to get the other. Hardly, if ever see a slusher. The ruts and salt boils are just allowed to freeze again. And then we go through the ‘spectacles, testicles….’ routine all over.
Thomas Spivak notes the steady increase in our taxes. I’m with him. But then there is the comment by the CAO, about “doing things more efficiently to reduce the costs to the taxpayer.” I can appreciate the thought.
I just don’t see that it’s working. At least the reduction isn’t showing up on my tax bill.
Re the comment regarding the library. Why do we need a new library and at what cost to the ratepayers?
The Library has its own board but is integrated into Town services as a public good. I do not know how the new Bracebridge facility ended up with the sponsorship for its arena and library but I expect a lot of public financing was also involved. Our Library has funding needs as it considers a future new building. This is a specific community need that the Town should support, but not necessarily by adding another bureaucrat when maybe that salary could actually be reserved for the library’s building needs.
I guess I missed it but it is bewildering why a sponsorship bylaw was passed but that everyone is too busy to really look at how it can be used.
The 34% senior population in Muskoka simply cannot afford these tax increases, we will be taxed out of existence.
Let’s say it’s 4.5% on current property tax, then 4.5 on that total the time, then 4.5 on that total again, and on and on until we cannot live here anymore.
If at least it was a fair distribution but I’ve seen plows run half a dozen times on bare road in the town center in one day while the rural roads are lucky to get it done once every 2-3 days.
Yes to Corey Clark. He seems to be the only council member who keeps the little people, the public, in mind. WE ARE BROKE. WE DO NOT GET COST OF LIVING OR ANY RAISES ACTUALLY. I REALLY DONT WANT TO SEE MORE STAFF HIRED. WE ARE PAYING FIR ENOUGH.