By: Michael Bennett, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Ridgetown Independent News
After dominating the discussion for two nights at the 2026 Chatham-Kent Budget deliberations, rural residents will see the return of full dust suppressant service next summer.
But it comes at a price to all taxpayers.
Council voted 10-7 to return to the procedure of applying one round of dust control on all gravel roads in Chatham-Kent at an estimated cost of $1.46-million, which added 0.67 per cent to the budget.
This service brought the 2026 tax increase to 4.63 per cent, which Council approved by a 10-7 margin last Wednesday night.
The increase amounts to an annual tax hike of $172 for an average household with an assessment value of $176,194, or $97 per $100,000 of residential assessment.
Deliberations began last Tuesday with a proposed increase of 4.92 per cent.
In last year’s budget deliberations, Council drew the ire of rural residents when it approved the administration’s recommendation to eliminate the dust suppressant service, citing a $1.35-million cost savings.
However, due to public outcry, Council reconsidered eliminating dust control and approved a late-summer application round on limited roads at a cost of around $350,000, with the matter returning in the 2026 budget update.
On last Tuesday’s first night of deliberations, Council voted 16-1 in favour of South Kent Ward 2 Councillor Anthony Ceccacci’s motion for a dust control pilot program that would see treatment applied in front of residences and at intersections on gravel roads.
The $500,000 cost would come from the strategic reserve with no tax impact as a pilot project for the first year.
The approval of this pilot project, along with a $2-million reduction in two motions – also entered by Ceccacci – in the Asset Management Plan lifecycle inflation reserve, lowered the original increase to 3.96 per cent.
But when Council reconvened on Wednesday, Ceccacci entered a revised motion calling for two applications of dust suppressant adjacent to residential driveways and to consider increased applications at intersections.
This increased the cost to $1.1-million, but it would remain a pilot project and would still be covered by strategic reserves, with no tax impact.
The motion passed 13-4.
But right after the vote, Ward 6 Councillor Michael Bondy entered a motion calling for the return of full dust control measures that would be applied once a year.
The $1.46-million cost, however, would be added to the base budget since it was the return of a former service.
Ward 3 East Kent Councillor John Wright backed both of Ceccacci’s pilot project motions and voted against Bondy’s motion.
“Anthony and I were trying to get the brine back on the roads that wouldn’t cost the taxpayers any money,” Wright said. “They were going to do 100 feet in front of each house and take it out as a pilot project for one year.”
Wright said this was the same format as Orford Twp. used before Chatham-Kent took over dust control.
“Orford used to do just spot brine in front of all the houses and intersections, and it worked pretty well,” Wright said. “But it was a point they (Council) didn’t want to try anything new, they wanted to go back the way it was.”
While he supports the return of the dust control measures, Wright still has some concerns.
“I have some issues where there are a bunch of roads, where there’s no houses or one house, so we’re putting a lot of brine on roads where it doesn’t need it,” Wright said.
North Kent Councillor Jamie McGrail asked staff if they could identify roads, such as those Wright mentioned, where dust suppressant did not need to be applied.
“We’re always looking to optimize things, but if we’re looking to change which roads this is being applied to, it’s not a simple exercise,” said Ed Soldo, GM of Engineering and Infrastructures. “We don’t even have all of the parameters of what we’re going to look at from this motion.”
“Between now and the time we’re going to put this out for tender, I don’t think we have time to resolve any optimizations,” stated Soldo.
Soldo said the parameters of Ceccacci’s motions were very defined, as noted in administration’s third of three options in the dust control level of service.
East Kent Councillor Morena McDonald, along with Ward 1’s Lauren Anderson and Melissa Harrigan, Ward 2’s Ryan Doyle and Ceccacci, Ward 4’s Rhonda Jubenville and McGrail, Ward 5’s Aaron Hall, Ward 6’s Alysson Storey and Bondy all voted in favour of returning to the previous level of service along with it’s 0.67 per cent addition to the base budget.
Wright, Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff, Ward 2’s Trevor Thompson, Ward 6’s Conor Allin, Marjorie Crew, Amy Finn and Brock McGregor voted against Bondy’s motion.
Along with Ceccacci’s successful motion for $2-million in cuts to the AMP, Council also approved his motion to increase landfill hosting fees from $150,000 to $200,000, which passed unanimously.
Harrigan entered a motion to approve the budget at 4.63 per cent, which was passed by a 10-7 vote. Allin, Anderson, Crew, Hall, Harrigan, McDonald, McGrail, Storey, Thompson and Canniff voted in favour. Brock McGregor, Bondy, Ceccacci, Doyle, Finn, Jubenville and Wright were opposed. Ward 5’s Carmen McGregor was absent.
The budget then went to Council, which was approved 10-7 in a separate vote, as Finn and Thompson switched their earlier votes.
The 2026 budget update had an original tax increase of 8.77 per cent, but under Canniff’s direction, staff found $9.5-million in savings to reduce the increase to 4.92 per cent entering deliberations.
Of that 4.92 per cent, a full two per cent was due to Chatham-Kent only receiving $10-million from the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund.
Chatham-Kent, Sudbury and Thunder Bay are capped at $10-million in the OCIF. However, the municipality should be receiving $29.3-million, according to local calculations, a gap that falls in the lap of taxpayers.
“This gap isn’t sustainable for municipalities like ours that manage extensive rural infrastructure,” Canniff said. “We remain hopeful that the province will lift the OCIF cap and provide the funding levels communities like Chatham-Kent rely on to maintain safe, reliable roads, bridges, and drainage infrastructure.”
The 4.63 per cent increase includes 1.10 per cent in investments to maintain existing municipal services, which is well below the 2025 inflation rate of 2.03 per cent.
The update also includes 1.76 per cent for capital infrastructure, 0.62 per cent for social issues, and 1.15 per cent for service-level changes, including the return of the dust suppressant program.
