October 2007 - page 2

Fire Stations

You may have heard some buzz about the proposed new Fire Halls recently. As you might recall, an amount of $4,500,000 for four new or enlarged fire halls in Port Carling, Bala, Windermere and Walker's Point were included in the approved 2007 Capital Budget. Here's what has happened since:

• When the bids were received in July, they came in more than $2M over budget Council rejected all bids at a special meeting on July 31, and asked staff to bring a reworked proposal to Council as soon as possible
• A revised plan was presented to Council on August 28 that brought the projected costs down substantially by simplifying the design, removing stonework, reducing contingencies, etc
• Council rejected the bids for three of the four stations, and approved only the station at Walker's Point for a total of $816,000
• The other stations are under review for cost, site, and schedule.

We will be watching further developments on this and other Township spending matters.

Peter Long, Muskoka Ratepayers' Vice President

Proposed Closure of Ferndale Road

The Muskoka Lakes Golf & Country Club is concerned about the safety of cars, joggers and bicyclists. Two meetings have been held to obtain public opinion on four options. These are:

• Do nothing
• Erect barrier fences
• Realign the golf course
• Build a new section of Ferndale Road to by-pass the golf course.

The directors of the Muskoka Lakes Golf & Country Club favour the fourth option.

If chosen, the new section of Ferndale Road would exit the present road approximately across from the old Keswick Resort, owned by the Mattamy's. It would cross crown land and rejoin the existing Ferndale Road close to the Hazlewood Trail. The cost of creating the new road would be borne by the Muskoka Lakes Golf & Country Club, but maintenance would become a District responsibility.

The rationale is the possible liability if a golf ball did serious damage to someone using the road. Golfers are finding the wait for cars, joggers and bicyclists to pass rather onerous. The case was made that 1200 cars crossed the golf course every day. That traffic count is erroneous. 1200 was the peak count, not an average. The counter was placed at Ferndale Road and Hwy 118, thus the amount of traffic actually crossing the golf course is still unknown.

Susan Daglish, Muskoka Ratepayers' Board Member

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