Consequences
It cannot be stated often enough. Nor loudly enough. A single developer controls the future of Wellington. A Toronto developer commands how, and when, another home or business is erected in Wellington. If ever. Shire Hall doesn’t decide this. Not council. Nor the market. One developer holds the future of Wellington in its hands. Forever. […]
Promises
Things go wrong. Never quite as planned. A sweeping generalization for sure, but when it comes to the municipality building things—it’s bank. A rock-solid fact. Municipal projects take longer and cost more. Always. Right up until the moment the shovel hits the ground, estimates of time and money are shapeless, vaporous phantoms. Without texture, weight […]
Nope
No, Picton’s wastewater treatment capacity isn’t in crisis, nor is it an “ecological time bomb.” Such reckless and simply incorrect statements are unworthy of serious debate, let alone reporting and commentary in an otherwise respectable newspaper. It is bizarre and frankly disappointing to observe our friends trading in lazy handwringing and feverish warnings—breathlessly intoning the […]
A gaping hole
A reckoning is coming. We have too many expensive things and too many ambitions. It is a freight train that has been chugging toward Prince Edward County since amalgamation 27 years ago. It is near now. We can feel the heat of the engine. Council can no longer choose to ignore it. Lacking material reserve […]
Echoes
Must we experience every lesson? Must we feel searing pain and lasting scars before we know that some choices can be dangerous? Are there some things we can learn from others? From their experience? A couple of stories from across the province over the weekend. In Norfolk County last week, the council scrapped a plan […]
Looking forward
Road trips are great settings to sort out life’s big issues. They offer time to decompress. An opportunity to stare at a different horizon. To allow your playlist to present an uninterrupted soundtrack for the adventure and miles of road ahead. The best part of a road trip—in regards to relationship mending, the focus of […]
Dark places
We are cavefish. This strange creature lives mostly in dark caves and underground lakes where the ability to see offers no advantage. As a result, the cavefish have lost, through many generations, the ability to see. It is blind. Vestigial eyes are covered with scales. It can only exist in the dark. Your municipal Council […]
It matters to us
Heading east out of Swift Current, the TransCanada stretches forever. Nothing but sky and the tabletop carrying you homeward. The effect is numbing. Unrelenting flatness. Time slows. Brain chemistry changes. Then, from the swaying yellow fields of canola, a strange lake emerges. Stretching to the horizon. The sudden body of water is wide, still and […]
Principles first
A reader last week urged your correspondent to set aside criticisms of the municipality’s dangerous $300 million waterworks expansion plan for a week and instead offer some solutions. I’ve been writing about municipal waterworks and escalating water bills for 20 years (to the understandable weariness of some readers). When water rates surged 12 per cent […]
Hollow words
What is left when Council can no longer be counted upon to do the things they said they would do? What happens to a community when it can no longer rely upon its elected leaders to be straight with them? When a pattern of duplicitousness emerges? When trust erodes? Last year Council said it would […]