By David F. Rooney
Council has decided to revoke its old sliding scale for the payment of fines and replace it with a new scale that gives people 30 days to pay a lesser amount.
The old scale, which was instituted in 2005, gave you seven or 14 days to pay lesser amounts. The new sliding scale will let you have 30 days, as outlined in the province’s Community Charter, to pay a single lesser amount — typically about half of the original fine.
The new bylaw, No. 1980, also includes new categories for finable infractions including illegal rentals, dust and noise. Oddly, municipal officials neglected to include illegal idling among the new list of infractions, an oversight that prompted Councillor Antoinette Halberstadt to complain.
“I’m disappointed that yet again there’s no reference to the Anti-Idling Bylaw,” she said during Council’s meeting as a Committee of the Whole (CoW). “Here’s a chance to actually enforce it and it’s missing.”
Well, it won’t be missing for long. Council has directed staff to include idling in the list of things you can get dinged for.
Councillors voted 5-1, with Tony Scarcella voting against, to revoke the original sliding scale and institute the new one.
The CoW meeting permits Councillors to discuss municipal business and make non-binding decisions they can alter or formally adopt during their regular Council meetings.
