WHEREAS Mississippi Mills maintains two libraries and two arenas as well as many other cultural and recreational facilities at 100% of their costs, and approximately 20% of Carleton Place’s annual costs for their library and recreational facilities;
AND WHEREAS in 1987 the communities of Almonte, Ramsay, Carleton Place and Beckwith adopted a proposal from Howard Allan to use property tax values in order to share the operational costs of Carleton Place’s recreation facilities and library, as determined solely by Carleton Place;
AND WHEREAS Mississippi Mills continued to participate post-amalgamation in 1998;
AND WHEREAS due to the agreement being based partly on rising property values/taxes and partly on Carleton Place decisions on spending, amounts billed to Mississippi Mills have increased by 8%, 8.2%, 9.4% and 12% in the last four years, for an increase of approximately $50,000 from 2016 and totalling more than $1M since 2012;
AND WHEREAS the resulting payments to Carleton Place on behalf of Mississippi Mills residents are higher than the non-resident costs charged to residents of other municipalities both in terms of actual residents and actual users;
AND WHEREAS the Province of Ontario has clarified that establishment of a library services agreement by a municipality for library services with another municipality when it has established its own Library Board is inconsistent with the Public Library Act;
AND WHEREAS the premise for a cost-sharing agreement was originally, and remains, for one municipality without services to help support those services available in another municipality;
AND WHEREAS the cost-sharing agreement abrogates Mississippi Mills Council’s authority, control and management of its expenditures to third parties;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Mississippi Mills Council terminate the cost-sharing agreement with Carleton Place for their Library.