On November 18, 2025, council passed a by-law adopting the 2025 Asset Management Plan. That document included Appendix B — a detailed inventory of every asset the Township owns. The document posted publicly on the Township website omits it entirely. Staff confirmed this was intentional. Council was not asked.
Every claim on this page is sourced to a specific document in the public record. The by-law, the agenda package, the published AMP, and the email exchange are all linked below.
Council passed By-Law 2025-32 on November 18, 2025 — R2025-213, moved by S. Kirkey, seconded by J. Scott — to adopt an Asset Management Plan for the Township of Nipissing. The motion carried unanimously.
The document presented to council at that meeting — included in the publicly available Agenda Package for November 18, 2025 — contained eight chapters, Appendix A, and Appendix B: Asset Inventory Details. Appendix B ran four tables across five pages: Table B.1 (Roads), Table B.2 (Bridges and Culverts), Table B.3 (Facilities and Land Improvements), and Table B.4 (Fleet and Equipment).
That is the document the by-law adopted.
Source: November 18, 2025 Agenda Package · By-Law 2025-32 · R2025-213The Township's Asset Management Plan page at nipissingtownship.com links to a PDF titled "2025 Asset Management Plan." That document contains eight chapters and Appendix A only. Appendix B does not appear. The table of contents lists Appendix A and stops. There is no note that Appendix B was excluded, no explanation that it was modified from the adopted version, and no link to the full document elsewhere.
A resident who goes to the Township website to read what council adopted is reading a different document than the one council passed a by-law to adopt.
Source: nipissingtownship.com/other/asset-management-plan/The version posted on the Township website references Appendix B at three specific points. In each case, a reader is directed to content that does not exist in the document they are reading.
A letter was sent to the Municipal Administrator asking why Appendix B was absent from the published document. Her response, received in April 2026:
The Administrator's response explains why staff chose not to post Appendix B. That may be a reasonable administrative judgment. But it does not address the question that matters: is the document posted on the Township website the same document council adopted by by-law? It is not.
Three specific points in her rationale don't hold up against the public record:
1. "It is proposed for internal use." Appendix B is already in the November 18, 2025 Agenda Package — a document published on the Township website and accessible to any resident. It was never confidential. Calling it internal-use doesn't make it so.
2. "The information is subject to change." Page ii of the Asset Management Plan — the version council adopted — contains this statement in the Disclaimer and Notices: "It reflects the best available information at the time of publication and is intended to be a living document that will evolve as better data and methods become available." The "it will change" rationale is addressed in the document itself. That disclaimer exists precisely because asset management data is imperfect and evolving. It was placed there to justify publishing imperfect data — not to justify withholding it.
3. "Posting requirements do not include Appendix B." This may be accurate under O. Reg. 588/17. But the question is not what posting rules permit. The question is whether the document that O. Reg. 588/17 requires to be made available to the public is the same document council adopted. It isn't. By-Law 2025-32 adopted a document that included Appendix B. The document available to the public does not.
The question that remains unansweredThe AMP's own disclaimer on page ii makes a specific commitment about how it will be maintained: "Updates to the AMP will continue to improve the quality of data and projections over time."
If the plan is for staff to maintain an internal working version of Appendix B while the public website holds a static version without it — and without noting that it is incomplete — then the "living document" commitment in the disclaimer is not being honoured. The public version was already incomplete on the day it was posted. There is no indication it will be updated as equipment is replaced, facilities renewed, or road construction completed.
What residents will actually see is the same partial document aging on the website until O. Reg. 588/17 requires the next formal update — years from now.
Source: 2025 AMP, Page ii — Disclaimer and NoticesThis is not the first time council has approved something and staff has implemented it differently — without council being asked, informed, or on record as having agreed to the change. The Landfill Card case study documents the same pattern from earlier this year.
You are reading this case study now.
The Administrator described Appendix B as a "technical listing." That's accurate — but it understates what the information is. This is the asset-by-asset detail that underpins every capital planning decision the Township makes. It is available in the November 18 Agenda Package. Here is what it contains.
The detail matters because it is what connects the AMP's high-level financial commitments to the specific assets behind them. When the AMP says Bridges and Culverts need $1M in 2026 and $594K per year through 2031, Appendix B is where you find out which bridges, in what condition, at what estimated cost, scheduled for what year.
It is also the source document for specific budget decisions referenced in the posted AMP — including the fleet decision on page 37 that is described as being "outlined in the Appendix." A resident reading the budget cannot verify that decision without Appendix B.
Appendix B is available — in the November 18, 2025 Agenda Package on the Township website. It was never confidential. A resident who knows to look for it in the Agenda Package can find it. A resident who goes to the Asset Management Plan page expecting to read what council adopted cannot.
Three road categories with current replacement value, length, overall condition rating, and noted deficiencies. Total replacement value: ~$30.9M.
12 structures: name, replacement value, dimensions, age, condition details, and lifecycle plan. Includes Hummel Bridge (closed, $4M replacement 2027–2031), Bear Creek culvert ($1M 2026), and Hart Boundary culvert ($439K 2027–2028).
21 assets: every building and land improvement with address, age, condition notes, and lifecycle plan. Confirms the Township Office and Public Works Garage replacement is one $4M project planned for 2035 — replacing three structures together.
19 vehicles and pieces of equipment with current replacement value, age, location, and planned replacement year and cost. This is the table the AMP explicitly references as the source for fleet cost projections.
This is not a complicated problem. It does not require an audit, a legal opinion, or a budget. It requires council to be told what happened — and to decide whether it is acceptable.
A motion directing staff to post the complete Asset Management Plan — the version adopted by By-Law 2025-32 on November 18, 2025, including Appendix B — on the Township website, and to note clearly when the document was last updated and what changes were made.
If council decides Appendix B should remain withheld, that is a council decision — made publicly, on the record, with an explanation residents can read. What is not acceptable is a decision made by staff, after a by-law was passed, without council being asked.
This also connects to the broader commitment to consistent documentation: the reserve naming convention, the plain language budget letter, and the complete reserve schedule in every budget. These are not complicated things. They require council to set the standard — and staff to implement it.
This is the document council had in front of them when they passed By-Law 2025-32. Appendix B begins on page 52. It is publicly available — it has always been publicly available — on the Township website as part of this agenda package.
Open November 18, 2025 Agenda Package →This is what a resident finds when they visit the Township's AMP page. Compare page 18 (Table 4.1) and page 37 (Table 6.5 notes) of this document to the same pages in the agenda package version. The references to Appendix B are there. The appendix is not.
Open Township AMP page →This is not a technical issue. When council adopts a document by by-law and a different version is published, residents are reading something other than what their elected council approved. That gap — between what council decides and what residents can see — is the governance problem this campaign is about.