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8- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday August 23, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com Mayor's Message On behalf of your Council I am pleased to provide you with highlights of our 2007 Annual Report. Your Council began 2007 by creating a unanimous vision and four year Strategic Plan for our work together to 2010. We resolved to be goal-driven, performance-based and results-oriented. This means measuring our progress, seeking continuous improvements and holding ourselves accountable to meet the diverse needs of our community. We look for innovation, modern tools and new strategies that take us closer to our goals while helping us to control costs, improve efficiency and maximize value. We are proud to have delivered one of the lowest property tax increases in the GTA in 2007, and will continue working hard to maintain Oakville's economic competitiveness. Our efforts will continue to focus on the things that residents, businesses and staff tell us are most important to them: recreation and transit, accessibility and the environment. I hope you'll take the time to review our full Annual Report, which gives the details of our accomplishments in 2007. Starting this summer, look for Council's new and improved newsletter, Let's Talk Oakville, in your mailbox. We combined the previous six separate Ward newsletters into a consolidated magazine-style newsletter as a town-wide accountability report. Given the progress we've made in our first year, we are optimistic for the future. We've set a goal to create the most livable town in Canada. Every step toward this goal increases our quality of life and our ability to continue to attract residents, businesses and staff who are the best and brightest. Sincerely, Key Accomplishments To be accountable in everything we do An internal audit function was created at the Town this year. This role is helping to improve our business processes and strategies, ensure that we are accountable to the community and make our investigations and oversight activities more rigorous. The Town developed and rolled out its Strategic Plan for the period 2007 to 2010. Setting out our vision, mission and values for the next three years, this document describes the future we want to create for our community and how we will attain it. To enhance our natural environment The Town of Oakville was designated as the 2007 Forest Capital of Canada by the Canadian Forestry Association for its commitment to the strategic management of its urban forest, demonstrating stewardship and sound practices toward sustainable forest development, management and conservation. The Town reached an important agreement with landowners this year, outlined in the North Oakville Secondary Plan. Through it, a major component of the Natural Heritage System ­ 2,100 acres of natural environment ­ will be conveyed to the municipality at no cost. This accomplishment is a major step forward in preserving and protecting our green spaces. To continuously improve our programs and services To provide a temporary framework for assessing development applications until the Official Plan revisions are complete, an Interim Growth Management Plan (Official Plan Amendment 275) which targets growth to three areas long identified in Oakville's Plan and raises protection of our neighbourhoods to the maximum extend possible. With that move, we began the three year process of creating a new from-the-ground-up Official Plan: "Livable Oakville." The Town held public consultation meetings and developed plans for the North Park project. Indoor and outdoor amenities will be integrated, combining a quad-pad hockey facility, recreation centre and library with active sports fields, trails and other park features. The purchase of the former Dominion Twin Rinks arena was completed this year, giving us a much needed new facility called the Joshua's Creek Arenas. A partnership was struck with the Oakville Soccer Club to install an artificial turf field at River Oaks Park, and construction began on the Oakville Little League field house. To have programs and services that are fiscally sustainable Rob Burton Mayor, Town of Oakville A program-based, performance-based budgeting system, PB2, was launched for the 2008 budget preparation cycle. PB2 focuses on the programs the Town delivers and the outcomes of investments and the performance measures that assess them. This year, the Town began to set up a 10-year financial forecasting process linked to Council's strategic plan. This is a living document that will be continually reviewed and updated, helping us assess priorities, identify long-term financial needs and make plans and decisions about revenues and expenditures. 2007 Highlights For a complete list go to www.oakville.ca Who receives your tax dollars Population growth in Oakville Examples of where your tax dollars are spent within the Town Town 32.5% Region 41.3% School 26.2% For the full report, please visit www.oakville.ca. Hard copies will be available at Town facilities at the end of August.