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Wasted resource
The County possesses a vast well of human talent and energy. There are a great many folks living in this community with the know-how, energy and eagerness to participate, and the time to do, build, design, craft and manage things. They want to help. They want to participate. They want to contribute to the place they call home.
But the municipality (and other institutions that have lost touch with the community they serve) would prefer they stayed home. So they erect obstacles to volunteers. Soon enough, they get the message and stop asking to help. Why do we do this? Because our municipal officials live in fear. They fear volunteers will make a mistake or hurt themselves. They fear being sued. Of paying a massive insurance settlement.
They really would prefer not to bear that liability exposure. Thank you, anyway.
For many years the County sponsored a major Trash Bash event each spring. It always made the folks at Shire Hall a little uneasy. When attempts to revive it were discussed at council a couple of years ago, councillors were advised that to do so would require Trash Bash volunteers to undergo training, wear safety boots, gloves and goggles. Roadside ditch clearers would have to be escorted by a municipal truck and flag person to guide traffic around them.
It took a presentation by the Quinte West Trash Bash folks to embarrass the County into bringing back Trash Bash last spring. All they needed, it turns out, was a pamphlet—explaining the risks, potential hazards and safety procedures.
We turn volunteers away because our municipality is afraid.
It is a way of looking at management that is learned, over time. County officials have endured too many legal actions in their careers. And certainly, we live in a litigious age, where minor insults or injury means lawyering up. They have learned to be risk-averse and everfearful of liability exposure.
But it is a dead end. It is a broken business model. And, among other challenges, it’s wasting a valuable resource—our volunteers.
Why is it broken? Municipal employees aren’t paid to be efficient. Or effective. There is no structural incentive to think entrepreneurially or to invest in plans or ideas that will produce a return. This doesn’t make them bad employees—just wrongly motivated. Their job is to keep the lights on, the motors running and the streets clean. And, above all else, they are trained to remain in compliance with the ever-rising standards decreed by a province seeking to offload costs upon a junior level of government.
Our job is to pay for it. It is a systemic problem, and it isn’t unique to Prince Edward County. But unlike many other communities, we have a vast untapped resource that may change the course of our community. We need to put it to work, for the benefit of the County.
Ameliasburgh needs a new washroom and change facility, after the last one was destroyed by fire. Last summer, council agreed to spend $175,054 to rebuild the four-hole bathroom. A concrete block building, 22 feet by 20 feet. About 440 square feet. That works out to be about $400 per square foot to build a concrete walled bathroom. It’s a very expensive bathroom.
By comparison, the average cost to build a new home in southern Ontario is about $200 per square foot. An upscale home may cost up to $350 per square foot. We will spend more than this on a concrete bathroom and the piping to bring in water and take waste away.
Unfortunately, we do this kind of thing a lot. There is no incentive to do otherwise. There is no reason for us to find a more efficient, more cost-effective method of building things.
Perhaps we can consider another way.
I suggest the folks at Habitat for Humanity have a useful model, from which we might take some lessons. Say, for example, we need a four-hole bathroom. I am confident there are retired engineers and draftspersons in our midst who will happily lend their expertise to such a project. Municipal folks would still check it out, making sure it meets their needs in terms of regulatory compliance and building codes. Then we might turn to a pool of master carpenters, masons and framers. Joining them would be a group of volunteer labourers—eager to learn the skills of these masters. We could make a weekend of it. Or two or three. Of folks eager to build something in their community. Or just to help. Buy them pizza and iced tea. And let them go.
I know there are a great many folks—individuals and groups—in this community interested in helping in this way.
We have evidence of this from Barry Davidson’s efforts to rehabilitate the Millennium Trail. The former railway line mostly languished for years after the County purchased it in 2000. Slowly consumed by buckthorn and weeds. There were plenty of ideas, but no money and no leadership. Not from council or anywhere else. So, into the gap, Davidson—initially through the Wellington Rotary Club—assembled volunteers, solicited the assistance of forestry professionals, aggregate suppliers and earth movers. Today the Millennium Trail between Danforth Road and Picton is a welcoming and safe park. It is an ideal way to discover the natural beauty that defines this place. It is a magnificent asset to our community. It likely could not have been done any other way.
It is but a small sampling of the scale of the human resource currently untapped in Prince Edward County.
Consider this: Shire Hall as a hub to mobilize a volunteer corps. It will provide and maintain umbrella insurance and legal support for such project. It will maintain a central online resource of talent and skills as well as helpful hands. It will identify community projects that fit the capabilities, expertise and ambitions of the volunteers.
Rather than discourage and obstruct, let us embrace volunteers. Enable them. Facilitate their efforts. And then get out of the way. Just watch what volunteers can do.
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