8- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday August 23, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com

Key Accomplishments

To be accountable in everything we doAn 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 environmentThe 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 servicesTo 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 sustainableA 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.

For a complete list go to www.oakville.ca

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,

Rob Burton

Mayor, Town of Oakville

For the full report, please visit www.oakville.ca. Hard copies will be available at Town facilities at the end of August.

Town32.5% Region

41.3%

School26.2%

Examples of where your tax dollars are spent within the Town Who receives your tax dollars Population growth in Oakville

2007 Highlights