Wellesley council reinstates annual funding for Wellesley Township Fall Fair

Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

At their second 2026 budget meeting Dec. 4, Wellesley councillors agreed to reinstate annual support for the Wellesley Township Fall Fair to the tune of $1,500 after representatives from the organizing group, the Wellesley North Easthope Agricultural Society, made an official budget request at the end of November.

Though the agricultural society representatives requested support exceeding the $1,500 previously provided by the township annually in support of the fair, council voted to budget the same amount annually over the next five years to help organizers close a funding gap between what it costs to put on the fair every year and how much is raised.

“I can support this,” Mayor Joe Nowak said. “I think it was interesting when they made the presentation how they addressed each one of the councillors and sort of brought out how the fair has contributed to each of our (communities). It’s their way of bringing down some of the silos that exist in the township. I think it’s a great community event and this was their second year they were at the new (recreation) complex, so they’re still growing and there were some issues that they had to manage. They didn’t go with the carousels and that kind of thing, and I think there was some pushback on that, so they’re learning.

“I’m sure they’re going to be coming up with some new initiatives as well. I think all the support we can give them is very worthwhile for the community as a whole, not just for the Village (of Wellesley).”

During the discussion, township staff noted the township also provide free facility rentals, staff assistance with setup for the fair and support to the fair board for five meetings each year.

The annual $1,500 contribution to the fair will come from the township’s existing proposed $3,000 donations budget for 2026 and will not have an impact on the proposed levy, which still sat at a 4.99 per-cent increase over this year’s levy by the end of the Dec. 4 budget meeting.

A second budget request for $5,000 in annual funding support made by the Immigration Partnership of Waterloo Region at the end of October will not be included in the township’s 2026 budget. Speaking to the request for support of the organization’s new shared priorities and to help address a recent federal funding cut to the organization by $230,000, Nowak said support for the organization should come from the Region of Waterloo and not from the individual townships.

To date, township staff told council none of the region’s member municipalities have included the budget request in their 2026 budgets.

Council to consider restoring greening levy to 0.75 per cent, and looks to reduce overall levy

Though township staff had recommended reducing the annual greening levy – funds levied from ratepayers to combat climate change and support greenhouse-gas-emission reduction efforts locally – from 0.75 per cent in 2025 to just 0.5 per cent or nearly $43,000 next year, Coun. Derek Brick told his fellow councillors he wanted to explore the notion of keeping the greening levy at 0.75 per cent or nearly $64,000 for next year.

“My thought would be that we maintain that 0.75 per-cent levy,” Brick said. “I know we always tell (staff) to bring it down and here I am saying move it up, but my thoughts on that are we have the levy in place, we’re building a fund. We know that nothing in the climate-change industry is cheap. We have (greenhouse gas reduction) commitments and they’ve been brought up many times that they are going to be pretty hard to achieve by the long-term targets. We’re not going to change our targets with this levy, but I think we can offer more.

“I think building that fund can build us up for more tree giveaways, more greening initiatives. To drop it by 0.25 per cent; I think it might be a bit premature.”

According to CAO Rik Louwagie, the township has been collecting a greening levy as part of the overall levy for the past five years. Though the funding has been used sparingly on initiatives like tree giveaways and to cover the additional cost of replacing a township vehicle with an electric model, much of the money collected remains in reserve for “green” components of future capital projects.

For 2026, Louwagie said staff proposed reducing that levy to 0.5 per cent because of the township’s proposal to increase its contributions to capital reserves by more than $600,000 as part of an asset-management plan prepared by Watson and Associates that will help the township address an infrastructure funding deficit over the next decade.

Doing some quick math at the Dec. 4 meeting, township director of corporate services Jeff Dyck told councillors increasing the proposed greening levy back up to 0.75 per cent would see the proposed overall levy increase jump by roughly $20,000 from 4.99 per cent to 5.25 per cent.

As some councillors said they were already looking to reduce next year’s proposed overall levy increase down from that original 4.99 per cent, Brick opened the floor to discussion as to how council could do that. Suggestions included modifying or reducing the scope of planned capital projects or even reducing the proposed cost-of-living increase for township staff from 3.2 per cent to two per cent, as suggested by Coun. Shelley Wagner.

Louwagie and Dyck asked council to allow staff some time to bring back options as to how to reduce the levy increase before councillors make any of the above amendments to the draft 2026 budget. Those options will be presented to council at its next budget meeting on Dec. 18 starting at 5:15 p.m.