Jim Whelan Reeve

The Legion in Apsley formed a committee to recognize the youth in the community and picked a Senior and Junior Ambassador for the Township of North Kawartha. Judges for the event were: Joan Forsyth, Pete Dunford and Councillor Carolyn Amyotte.

At a ceremony at the Apsley Council Chambers on March 2nd  the two winners were presented with certificates of their achievements by North Kawartha Council. Council asked the winners questions and Lori White Senior Ambassador advised council of her idea for a mentoring program for youth in the municipality where older youth would have an adult mentor and younger children could have a youth mentor. Junior Ambassador Amanda Hickey explained how she had prepared for the contest by practicing questions at home with her mom and her karaoke machine.

     Apsley Public School:  The Pineridge School Board has deemed the Apsley Public School "prohibitive to repair" and assessed the Young's Point and Buckhorn Public Schools as having too few students.  They are looking at options to combine all students into  Buckhorn or Lakefield or a new location at Burleigh Falls - a process which could take five years. Obviously, closing the school would seriously impact the students through long bus trips and a disconnection with their community.  For North Kawartha, this could start a process of decline which would be difficult to reverse, and local residents have begun to develop responses and alternative solutions.  An innovative idea is to build a multi-purpose building on the school site which would combine school, public library and learning centre

    2004 Budget: Staff and Council are facing significantly higher budget requests over last year, with such items as OPP levy up 33% to $442M, and additional Safe Drinking Water Act testing.  Since our tax base is not growing in real terms, and our commercial tax base is very small, all increases have to be borne by residential taxes.  Also, lakeshore property assessment increased by 22%, higher than the Township and County overall, thus attracting larger  taxes.

    Fire Location Study: A detailed study of fire station locations is being conducted by the Fire Chief, with tentative conclusions being communicated at the May 29 Open House public meeting.  The new station location on 504 (near Glen Alda) has been authorized to replace the existing Clydesdale station in July, and the Balmer and 504 (near Apsley) sites are in question, since their areas could be serviced directly from the main station in Apsley.

    Waste Committee: As you know, our dumps have to close over the next year.  At the May 29 Open House, the committee will likely recommend weekly waste pickup (at each driveway), and area recycle transfer stations.  Early estimates of waste pickup cost only are about $50 per average residence per year ($165M/yr overall), which may be about equal to our current dump system cost.  It is not yet clear whether recycle costs will mean an overall cost increase.