The municipal election is coming

October 27, 2014. I’ve had a few emails from candidates outlining their platforms, asking for support and wondering if I’d like a lawn sign. Mostly, I don’t like to show my hand publicly. I worry about giving an openly visible sign of support, only to be disappointed somewhere down the road. Funny thing is, this time around, a few people have asked if I would ever entertain the idea of being a candidate. The truth of the matter is until I was asked, I’d never thought of running. I don’t like competing. I don’t need the stress. I’ve never been accused of having any internal dialogue—sometimes a good thing, but mostly not. I don’t want to be on-call around the clock. And I don’t think there’s enough money in any municipal budget to make it a tempting proposition. Regardless, I do have some ideas about what I’d like to see over the next four years.

Having cycled on many County roads this summer, I’d like to see a bit of road repair work done. No, wait a bit, I’d like to see a lot of road repair work done. This municipality had enjoyed (I use the word loosely) low taxes for many years. And just for the record, I’m not talking about the current council. We were delusional at the time. We saved money on our tax bills. Nothing wrong with that, right? Except our infrastructure paid the price through miserly patch-up work and minimal maintenance. I think we’re going to have to suck it up— the County’s roads are a mess. Even if the the scenery is beautiful, the bumpy ride is more than breathtaking—it has become dangerous. If we want to make the rustic state of our roads part of our rural ambience scenario, we could simply continue with the pouring a bit of “hot patch” here and there. Soon we’ll be travelling on dirt and gravel. We’ll truly be the backroads community of Ontario.

Hey, while I’m on a tear, how about providing municipal drinking water that doesn’t come in flavours. Perhaps the water rates are a reflection of the price residents have to pay for flavoured drinking water. For those of you who don’t drink Picton H2O, you might not know about flavours available. The folks who live in Ward One have a choice between mudpie water or chlorine-swimming pool (with a hint of soggy bathing suit) water. Maybe the municipality has a deal with companies supplying filtered water. Goodness knows, many of our guests may come here to enjoy the spine-jolting drives along our roadways followed by a cool drink of flavoured water. If that’s not tourism development, I don’t know what is.

How about adequate funding for our municipally- owned cultural spaces? I know what you’re thinking. We’ve got so many other problems, spending money on culture probably isn’t a good idea. Well, you might be wrong about that, but I won’t get into why tourists visit this community, not today. You know I’ll come back to this.

And, finally—for this column at least—I have something to say about bylaw enforcement. This is not a reflection on the job-well-done by our bylaw enforcement officers. Why do we even bother with bylaws? We certainly don’t have enough municipal staff to deal with the number of bylaw complaints and infractions in the course of a day. Indeed, why have a bylaw about cyclists and skateboarders on the sidewalks if it can’t be enforced? Why have a bylaw about noise abatement if we still have to deal with the noise of transport trucks delivering goods to retailers before 7 a.m. or the incessant, early-morning drone of the road-sweepers, if there isn’t anyone available to enforce it? Wait a minute—the road-sweeper operators are municipal staff.) Why have a bylaw about picking up a pet’s poop when we still have to dodge the dogdoo on our sidewalks and in our municipal parks? I mean, why bother?

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca