" I remain willing to give consideration to proposals submitted by municipal councils that would improve local governance and service delivery systems and that meet the reasonable criteria of property tax fairness for all residents and assured fiscal sustainability of all resulting communities.

In a recorded vote, Council passes a motion to send a letter to Minister Gerretsen,demanding that the Province honour the result of the November 2003 Minister's question: ie. to restore the original municipal structure.

In a detailed report based on data from the County of Victoria and the City of Kawartha Lakes, Adam Found has shown that

the two-tier structure provided more tax fairness than the current one-tier City (ie. individual tax rates and local choices of service levels, vs area rating)

the former municipalities were actually more sustainable than the City. For example, since amalgamation, per-household debt has increased 73.46%. (Note that this is not attributable to downloading costs, as downloading ocurred prior to amalgamation, and those costs were included in the final year of Victoria County.

In addition, Mr. Found's analysis concluded that the savings in governance costs alone would pay the cost of de-amalgamation in one year!