Eroding trust
It didn’t happen. When the Picton councillor asked, a couple of weeks ago, why the Manager of Planning hadn’t reached out to the owner of the roads in Wellington on the Lake about sharing access with another developer to the east, the answer was, “We asked. He told us to go fly a kite.” Councillors […]
Ask questions
It’s the job. The purpose of a member of council is to ask questions. And keep asking questions until you get satisfactory answers. It’s the primary function of any governing body. But who needs to ask questions when you have faith? For some, it is ‘insulting’ to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, and to ensure […]
Dividing line
A road runs along the eastern edge of Wellington on the Lake. This street, Aletha (not Athena, not Aleta, not Eurethra) Drive, is owned by the company that developed the residential neighbourhood. Another developer is looking to build homes on the vacant land to the east. This prospective developer is not permitted to use this […]
Conversations
After years of impulsive measures that served to tell the visiting public they weren’t welcome in Prince Edward County, the message may be changing. The most onerous rules and ham-fisted regulations are slowly—too slowly—being unwound and softened. While not yet able to utter a full-throated embrace of the tourism economy, Council seems less inclined to […]
Everything. Everywhere. All at once.
It’s a lot. Waterworks. A new McFarland Home. And about 100 decaying public buildings. Each file has a price tag of more than $100 million. Add to this list municipal ambitions to build affordable housing. To make every County road smooth. To build a new hospital. To pay doctors. To modernize the fire service. To […]
Into better hands
The second floor of the town hall in Wellington sits empty. Abandoned. Unusable for perhaps a century. No one remembers the upstairs of the town hall ever being occupied. We have no memory of the top half of this building. So it sits. Dark. Year after year. Decade after decade. The County can’t afford to […]
Unfixable
Only once since amalgamation have residents been asked what they think. Officially, anyway. Shire Hall conducts plenty of surveys and consultations. More perfunctory than curious. But only once in its 26 years has a question been deemed important enough to pose on an election ballot. In the 2010 election, voters chose from a selection of […]
Remembering Darryl
Darryl Kramp was the consummate retail politician. He was good at it. He enjoyed serving his community. He enjoyed meeting his neighbours and was genuinely curious to know how he could help. In return, this community rewarded him with four consecutive terms as their federal representative, each plurality larger than the last. His winning streak […]
Searching for purpose
Shire Hall has a property problem. It has too much. Way too much. Worse, when the municipality acquires a property— or finds one it didn’t know it had—it is nigh impossible to dispose of it. So the portfolio of obscure and decaying assets grows. Unchecked. It’s been more than a decade since there was a […]
Pot o’ gold
The scale of the ambition is breathtaking. Roads. Doctors. Waterworks. Housing. Each was once primarily the responsibility of the province. Rural municipalities were expected to help. But it was the province that drove investment and re-investment. The province had the skills, the experience, and the financing capacity to do these things. The province set the […]