As the year comes to an end, many municipalities are starting their budget processes for 2026. During these discussions, Otonabee Conservation (ORCA), which covers watershed areas in both Douro Dummer and Selwyn, will have impacts on local tax bases.
Last month, Janette Loveys Smith, CAO for ORCA presented to Douro Dummer and explained the impact that ORCA’s budget will present on Douro Dummer resident’s tax bills.
Loveys-Smith said that this year, while ORCA has a zero per cent increase for their operating budget, they do have a 7.4 per cent increase for their Capital Budget.
Operating budgets typically support short-term expenses like payroll and impact day-to-day business decisions while a capital budget supports long-term investments like equipment or software.
The 7.4 per cent increase equals an additional $115,000 for a total budget of $1,652,757 which will be spread out between the eight municipalities ORCA services.
The portion paid by each municipality is calculated by population of the serviced area. This means that the city of Peterborough and township of Selwyn are the two highest paying municipalities for ORCA with Douro Dummer coming in third highest.
Avarie and Kristin Gibson tried their hand at Curling over the weekend at the Ennismore Curling Club as part of their free Try Curling event.
Trent Lakes will take a hybrid approach to replacing signs in the municipality following a staff review of a sign strategy that was presented by a consultant at the council meeting on October 21, 2025.
At that meeting council received a presentation from pl.ural that looked at types of signs, placement and designs.
At that meeting some council members said they are unhappy with the strategy because it did not use Trent Lake’s new logo and did not have any information on where there are signs in the municipality and a list where signs already exist and where signs are needed.
Director of Recreation and Facilities Dylan Cosh told council that staff are working with the consultant to create an inventory of all signs and assess what condition they are in.
Creating a signage strategy was one of the recomendations in the Open Spaces Master Plan which council approved in March of 2023. The strategy was on hold until municipal branding was completed in early 2025.
Staff presented council with three options on moving ahead including:• using existing signs that already feature the logo and updating non Trent Lakes signs to match existing templates
The long standing discussion over accepting Demers Road in the Douro-Dummer municipal roads system was back on the agenda at the regular council meeting on Tuesday evening.
A report was presented by CAO Todd Davis outlining the history of the dispute along with a recommendation
There was also a delegation led by Richard Taylor who was representing a client who lives on Demers Road and is looking to sever his lot for development.
Demers Road is an unopened Township Road allowance that is not maintained and has not been assumed into the Township Road system. The township argues that this has been the case since at least 1999 when an agreement was signed by the applicant when applying for a building permit.
In this agreement the property owner recognized that the road was not maintained by the municipality.
Taylor argued that agreement was signed under duress as there was no way to obtain the building permits if the agreement was not signed.
This short documentary is a portrait of a tiny town, Lakefield, Ontario, and its independent weekly, the Herald. Across North America, newspapers are dying, but in Lakefield, Terry McQuitty, the town paper’s publisher, carries on a rich, 150-year-old tradition. Set to the pace of small-town life, Unheralded is a testament to the vital role newspapers can still play, and the close bond between reporter and reader.
