Aware Simcoe should put its money where its mouth is and pay the court costs Simcoe County incurred as it defended a resident’s right to farm, says Warden Gerry Marshall.
Tuesday, county council will consider whether to proceed to recoup court-awarded costs resulting from an Aware Simcoe challenge heard last summer.
“To me, it’s the correct thing to do. We’ll collect the money and put it back into trees,” said Marshall, adding the county has selected an environmental group to work with on adding 5,000 trees in the county’s south end.
Standing in the way, however, is Aware Simcoe – which brands itself as an “environmental and social solutions” group. It asked for a judicial review of a county’s decision and an injunction to stop trees from being cleared in the Beeton area.
Owned by a developer, the site is leased and used for agricultural purposes. The owner had worked with the county since 2012 to obtain permission to remove trees. The county realized it had not notified abutting landowners initially, then tried to make things right by issuing a stop work order and notifying near neighbours and more far-flung residents of the special permit to remove trees, the decision notes.
Last August, the Ontario Superior Court’s Madame Justice Eberhard denied Aware Simcoe’s request to have the court overturn the county’s decision and stop the trees from being cut.
In November, she fixed costs that Aware Simcoe should pay to the county at $5,000 in costs, although the county spent $23,698.98.
The judge noted the county played a role in failing to notify neighbours initially and reduced the award to a level “so as to not chill legitimate public protest.”
Marshall said county councilors deferred the decision to collect the funds from Aware in December to give New Tecumseth county councilor and Mayor Rick Milne 90 days to work with Aware on a solution.
Time has run out.
“When you get to the courts, people are challenging a decision made by 32 county councilors in a democratic process. If you take that to the court and lose, we need to collect that money. It’s taxpayers’ money being spent,” Marshall added.
She also said Aware should pay $27,000 to Tecumseth Estates Inc., which spent $34,710 in fighting Aware’s motion.
Marshall said the county should enforce the Ontario Superior Court’s decision and recover some of taxpayers’ funds as the move defends the democratic decision-making process and boosts the tree stock in the county’s south end, as the county works with an environmental group to plant 5,000 trees there.
