Small town weddings hilarious focus of UCP Stag and Doe

Hydro One crews are continuing work on a multi-year infrastructure investment taking place along County Road 40 and 16.

Costing about $1.5 million, the two year project is expected to be complete this month, according to Tiziana Baccega Rosa, senior media relations advisor with Hydro One Networks Inc. 

“This work will improve reliability and increase local capacity,” she said.

Higher poles have been installed to accommodate a new line from the Morrisburg Transformer Station, which is located along Flagg Road in South Dundas.

For this project, composite poles are being installed, rather than wood, due to the significant woodpecker damage found while planning  the project.

South Dundas residents have experienced various power outages, some more localized than others to accommodate this project.

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Chances are when residential property owners in South Dundas opened their mail from the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) this week, they learned that their property values have increased since the last assessment in 2008.

Not surprising as the trend is the same across the province of Ontario, which shows an average increase in residential property values of about 18 percent. Narrowing the scope to Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry residential property values have increased a little more at 18.4 percent,  and in South Dundas alone, that average increase is 19.53 percent.

All increases will be phased in over four years.

Waterfront residential properties are still showing increases, but after the huge assessment increases in 2008, the increases this time are much more moderate at about 17 percent across the province. The smaller increase is due to reduced demand.

Property assessment values on farmland have taken a huge jump since 2008. Looking at the entire province, the average assessment increase on farmland is listed at about 34 percent, but that average is much higher when looking at the local picture. Looking at all of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry the average increase on farmland is a whopping 71.9 percent. Narrowing the scope to South Dundas, that average assessment increase on farmland is 49.92 percent.

Property assessment values are based on recent property sales, and with farmland, based solely on area farmer-to-farmer sales. As a result, the farming community has likely seen this assessment increase coming because they know better than most that farmland is in high demand and selling prices reflect that demand.

In a community with such a large agricultural base as South Dundas, one may think that these huge assessment increases will amount to a huge financial boon for the municipality, but the impact of these increases will be relatively small.

Although there are many variables that could affect the overall number, South Dundas treasurer Shannon Geraghty estimates that the overall increase in farmland assessments will mean additional tax revenue for South Dundas of just over $35,000 in 2013, the first year of the four year phase in.

Although farmland occupies a significant portion of the South Dundas landscape, properties classified as farmland presently account for less than five percent of the $4.9 million worth of taxes levied on South Dundas property owners.

It is provincially mandated that the farmland tax rate be one quarter of the residential rate. On a farm, the home and one acre of land are taxed at the regular residential rate. The remainder is taxed at the reduced rate.

The bulk of the tax burden in South Dundas falls on residential property owners, who carry 72 percent of the tax load. Other property tax classes including commercial, industrial, multi-residential and special/exempt are seeing very small increases in property values of about three to five percent.

In South Dundas commercial property taxes cover about 12 percent of the total levy, industrial and multi-residential carry about three percent of the burden and other categories such as pipeline and managed forest and others together carry about 10 percent of the tax load.

MPAC assesses all property in Ontario every four years. “The assessments provide the foundation on which municipalities across Ontario base property taxes. It is the accuracy of MPAC’s assessments that help ensure property owners pay their fair share of property taxes and nothing more,” reads their Market Snapshot document.

An increase  in assessment does not necessarily mean an increase in property taxes.

If the assessed value has increased more than the municipal average, an increase in taxes is likely. However if the increase is less than the municipal average a decrease in taxes should result.

In a recent media release, Michel Contant, account manager in the Cornwall MPAC office said, “MPAC’s role is to accurately assess every property in Ontario. Property owners should ask themselves if they could have sold their property for its assessed value on January 1, 2012. If the answer is yes, then their assessment is accurate. If not, we are committed to working with them to get it right.”

Property owners can check the accuracy of their assessment at www.aboutmyproperty.ca. 

This website allows owners to easily compare the value of their property to others in their neighbourhood and community. Registration information is included with every notice mailed out this fall.

If property owners believe their assessment is not correct, they have the option of filing a request for reconsideration and MPAC will review their assessment free of charge.

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 By the end of Upper Canada Playhouse’s exuberant, foot-tapping tribute to the music of rock ‘n’ roll, the audience was on its feet, cheering, singing along, demanding more.

Memories of Rock & Roll, the Chris McHarge and Colin Stewart show currently running at Upper Canada Playhouse, is that kind of show. It gets your blood rushing and your hands and feet moving.

The show is built around the life and times of the legendary “Moondog”, the on air name of Alan Freed, a Cleveland/New York radio personality who first coined the phrase, rock ‘n’ roll. Freed almost single-handedly launched the mainstream  careers of black artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry, and white artists like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. 

Derek Marshall assumes the role of Freed, charming and enlightening the audience. In the course of the show, Marshall/Freed takes the audience from the disc jockey’s early years at WJW in Cleveland, playing controversial new beat records to a burgeoning youth audience, to Freed’s phenomenal success in the Big Apple. He “never played a record  on air that I didn’t love myself.” What mattered to him, always, was the music. Was it good? Did it have the rhythm that “got to the kids?” Freed shrugged off the hate mail and threats as he mixed “black and white” music on air, and on the concert stage. The music, the show makes clear, was everything.

And it’s the music in this McHarge/Stewart production that wows the audience.

The back up, on-stage band made up of Brian Asselin, Robin Pitre, Mike Ray, Don Reid and Colin Stewart himself (on bass), is incredible. The singers they pay tribute to would be honoured that such stand out artists are “playing their music.”

What can one say about Aaron Solomon, who carries all the vocals in the show on his own shoulders?

What a voice. What a showman. Is there anything that man can’t sing?

When Solomon sings, you’d swear that it was Johnny Cash standing up there, or Buddy Holly, or Richie Valens, or even the King himself. Solomon’s voice is a phenomenon, with a range you have to hear to believe. His energy  appears boundless. It’s little wonder that the audience was on its feet cheering at the end of Memories of Rock & Roll. 

If you don’t already have tickets to Upper Canada Playhouse’s production of Memories of Rock & Roll, the show is sold out. However there is a waiting list: contact the Playhouse at 613-543-3713 to check. 

Upper Canada Playhouse has another great show opening on November 27: the world premiere of Lights, Camera…Christmas! a holiday family production by renowned  author/actor/director, Jesse Collins. 

Heart-warming, funny, full of outstanding music and dance, this show might just remind everyone (as it does for tv host Gordie Roberts, played by the terrific Derek Marshall) that there just might be more to the Christmas season than “making a buck.”

Tickets for Lights, Camera…Christmas! will go quickly. Contact the Playhouse for information about this next production coming in November.

In the meantime, as Memories of Rock & Roll continues its run at UCP, a final word from the late Alan “Moondog” Freed. “Let’s face it – rock ‘n’ roll is bigger than all of us.”

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