The Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF3) grants are due Friday, October 21.  The Village is requesting the maximum amount of $2 million – of which 90% will be grant.  I believe that our application is very strong.  We are adding an updated Asset Management Plan, which has become a significant component to these applications over the past 12 months.

I have been asked several times over the past few months what you, the residents and business owners, can do to help support our application.  At a recent Committee of the Whole meeting, I agreed with the request to provide a sample outline of a letter to the Minister of Infrastructure that could be included in our submission.

If you wish to send correspondence or speak directly to Minister Chiarelli, here is his email and toll free telephone number.

bob.chiarelli@ontario.ca                 Toll-free: 1-800-268-7095

For anyone who wants to have a letter included in our submission, you can drop it off at Town Hall or send directly to nbressee@villageofwestport.ca.  Below is a suggestion only.

The Honourable Bob Chiarelli, Minister of Infrastructure

900 Bay Street, 5th Floor, Mowat Block

Toronto, Ontario, M7A 2E1

Dear Minister Chiarelli

I am a resident or business owner  (check one) in the Village of Westport.  Our municipal waste water treatment plant has been the subject of a Class C – Municipal Environmental Assessment, received support from the MOECC to proceed with the approved alternate solution and recently was given approval by Municipal Council after reaching the 70% completion stage of the detailed design.

The existing system is called Snowfluent, which treats effluent by turning it into snow.  Well, that is how it is supposed to work.  For a variety of reasons, it has not worked very well for the past several years.  Since 2014, the village has found it necessary to haul effluent to another treatment facility – approximately $800,000 worth of haulage – instead of dumping the waste into Upper Rideau Lake.

We are a small community of under 700 full time residents and need your help for the proposed rehabilitation of the waste water treatment plant, which will remove the public safety concerns and the moratorium on new builds and allow my village to grow.

Please support our OCIF3 application.  Our community is depending on you.

Yours truly,