Seaway students assist OSPCA in upcoming National Cupcake Day

 From Kirby the Hermit Crab to Dakota the Poodle, from Florida’s Gatorland to television’s Sesame Street, the young speakers at the 2012 Iroquois Public School Speak Off entertained judges, teachers, family members and their fellow students with some outstanding speeches on Monday, March 5. 

“The eight finalists in our gym were chosen from their individual classroom competitions,” said teacher/organizer Margaret Phifer. “It was definitely tough for grades four to six teachers to choose those finalists because all the classes had some great speeches. This has been an amazing competition.”

This year, after a hiatus of some years, the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 370, Iroquois, is once again involved in elementary school public speaking.

“It is wonderful that we are participating with the Legion again,” Phifer said, “that they are becoming involved with our young speakers.”

This year’s first place finisher was Katie Buter, whose speech, complete with actions and singing, was based on the enduringly popular children’s show, Sesame Street.  Katie will be going to the Legion semi-finals competition in March. She and second place finisher, Darci Dodge, the proud owner of Kirby the Crab, will both present their speeches at Winchester Public School for the South Dundas Family of Schools in April. Third place finisher was Dana Domanko, who shared a wealth of information on a sticky subject, Gum.

Judges for the event were retired IPS teachers Bob Dolan and Gail Burrell, while Maurice Kolff, represented the Iroquois Legion.

At the medals presentation, judge Dolan congratulated all the participants on the tremendous amount of time, energy and effort they all put into writing, practicing and memorizing their speeches.  He also told them that it took real courage to be able to get up and speak before a large audience, and he reminded them to always stay passionate about what they are doing.

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After two full days of deliberations, March 5th and March 12th, the South Dundas 2012 budget is now complete.

At the first meeting on March 5th, Mayor Steven Byvelds began by reminding council that “it’s still tough times out there.”

Chief Administrative Officer Stephen McDonald said, “our budget process is evolving every year. The municipality is in a good financial position with a healthy reserve.”

As for the 2012 budget, “it’s really a no-frills budget. There’s really nothing in this budget that’s not needed. The capital budget is up. That’s where most of the increase is located.”

According to Treasurer Shannon Geraghty, there is a 3.5 per cent increase, dollar for dollar, over last year’s budget. This year’s budget is $4,886,565 whereas last year, in 2011, the budget was $4,721,453.

In terms of money allocated for capital projects, last year council spent $1,190,214 on capital projects. This year, the budget for capital projects has increased to $1,657,113 with the bulk being taken up by the roads department ($1,532,361) and the fire department ($225,855).

The tax rate for South Dundas has gone down by 3.24 per cent.

This doesn’t mean that South Dundas resident’s taxes are going down by 3.24 per cent, however. Each home’s taxes are based on the MPAC (Municipal Propertay Assessment Corporation) as well as the combination of tax rates from three sources: South Dundas township; United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, and the school board.

Geraghty explained that “right now we’re looking at tax rates decreasing, but people will be paying more because their assessments (MPAC) are increasing.”

There is a 5.06 per cent average increase on assessments due to MPAC’s four-year phase in. If an individual’s assessment is over that percentage, they could see an increase. If their assessment is below that percentage, they could see a decrease.

According to Geraghty, last year’s average assessment was $149,090, which equated to $739.90 in taxes for the municipal portion of the tax bill. 

Following the same format this year, adding in the 5.06 per cent assessment increase, the average assessment for 2012 could be $156,634, which would equate to $752.15 in municipal taxes.

The Counties of SD&G council will meet for budget discussions again on  March 19th.

The South Dundas budget will be officially passed at the upcoming March 20th council meeting.

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TransCanada Pipeline officials hosted on open house in Morrisburg to discuss their Energy East project.

Energy East is a $12 billion, 4,400 km pipeline project that will carry 1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan refineries to refineries in Eastern Canada (Quebec City and St. John, Nova Scotia).

Of the 4,400 project, 70 per cent involves the conversion of an existing natural gas pipeline into an oil pipeline, and a portion involves building new pipeline.

The new build portion of the project starts in South Dundas, at the existing Iroquois compressor station. 

Just over 100 km of new pipeline will cross the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and within SDG two new pumping stations will be built. One at Iroquois, in the vicinity of the existing compressor station, and another near Alexandria. 

Nationally, the Energy East project will include the construction of 68 new pumping stations. 

The pumping stations are an integral part of the project. 

Part of the conversion of the existing natural gas pipeline involves the construction additional pumping stations because it takes more pumping stations to pump oil than natural gas. 

More valves are also part of the conversion. For public and environmental protection, valves will be located every 30 km. 

TransCanada Pipeline officials explained that the system is monitored such that in the case of a problem sections of the pipeline can be shut down within minutes.

Pipeline inspections, testing and integrity digs are already underway for this project. It is schedule for completion in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Energy East will transport a variety of crude types including conventional crude oil, diluted bitumen and synthetic crude.

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