County News
Questions in Athol
All three councillor candidates join in lively debate in Cherry Valley
Athol ward voters gathered at the town hall in Cherry Valley last Thursday to hear their council candidates, Stan Grizzle, Tim Vanhecke and incumbent Jamie Forrester speak to local issues, and to ask burning questions.
The evening was well organized, the audience engaged. The Athol Recreation Committee had come in ahead of time to prepare tea and cookies for the crowd. The evening’s moderator, County Magazine publisher and Times columnist Steve Campbell, led the evening with a steady but humorous touch, ensuring for the most part that candidates stayed on topic and within time.
Concerns brought up elsewhere in the County were echoed here: health care, the size of council and the County’s relationship with the province on the matter of green energy.
Still, this evening was a bit out of the ordinary. The audience ranged greatly in age. The youngest person in the room to stand up was 23- year-old Sami Lester, who asked the last question of the evening. She wanted to councillors to offer some concrete ideas to keep young people in the County.
“It’s important. If I didn’t have my job, I would have been in BC a year ago,” Lester said.
Vanhecke answered first. As a County boy who spent decades elsewhere in Ontario for a career, his answer was significant. He sees light industry as the answer, because of that sector’s ability to create jobs.
“We need jobs,” said Vanhecke. “You want to keep [youth here], educate them and give them a job. If not, they’ll do like a lot of us did, we left.”
Grizzle said that education was the answer, suggesting the County push the educational system to offer training in careers that would be relevant in the County. However, some of the jobs he had in mind don’t require education.
“The jobs aren’t there, so we have to be creative, we have to think outside of the box when it comes to businesses,” said Grizzle. “I know that they do plastic injection molding in Belleville, at Autosystems. There’s no reason why we can’t do things like that here—but we have to create something, it’s not just going to happen.”
Forrester suggested the key was not in one solution but a holistic view, considering any industry as the potential for jobs, growth and youth retention. And, with the Community Development Centre, he says, it’s already happening.
“Right now we’re looking at everything, whether it’s micro-manufacturing, whether it be farming opportunities, there’s vast industries out there that we can look at. Just not big industries. Little industries.
“We have the wine industry coming in here. We have a little bit of everything,” says Forrester. “We can’t shut out any particular group that’s come in; we have to have an open mind and look at everything.”
Other questions included one from Tess Girard of Fifth Town Films, who wanted to know about high speed internet. While there has been talk in the past in council about laying down fibre optic cables, the only one near her business is owned by a resort and is therefore off limits. Her slow internet is costing Girard clients who are opting for Toronto-based companies. She wants to know what will change in the new council.
Another audience member suggested the County reclaim Sandbanks provincial park from the province, and wanted to know what the councillors thought of such a plan. Vanhecke and Forrester shook it off as nonsense, but Grizzle proclaimed he liked it—only half jokingly.
The evening ended with mingling between candidates and the audience, allowing others to ask questions. Two days later, advance polls opened in the County, with some Athol voters confident in their choice for councillor.
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