Go slow
My wife, Kathleen, and I own and operate a small inn in Wellington—three guest suites, growing to seven later this year. We made our original investment in 2009 based partly on my reporting on a succession of municipal studies that pointed to a shortfall of roofed accommodations in Prince Edward County. It seemed an opportunity. […]
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 […]
Passing
Dave Brown was the glue that held Wellington Dukes diaspora together. He made it his business to know what happened to the boys who became men long after they stopped wearing the Dukes jersey. No one would have more enjoyed the alumni game played in Wellington a week and a half ago—a gathering of players […]
Fresh start
Our new council has an opportunity. It has a chance to radically change the culture of local government in Prince Edward County. For the better. It is much needed. For far too long, County council saw its role as reactionary—responding to files that landed on the council table rather than initiating policy debate or setting […]
Gravity’s goose egg
My good friend, I’ll call him Gord, had one of those experiences this past week—one of those experiences I expect we all encounter from time to time, but don’t choose to disclose widely, if at all. A series of bad decisions, made with perfectly fine intentions, that turns terribly sour and then gets worse. There […]
Calming humps
Sometimes it feels as though our municipal public works folks are just messing with us. Tucked near the end of a long agenda at last week’s committee of the whole meeting was a proposal to install speed bumps—no, traffic calming speed humps—on Union Road. Allow that to simmer a moment. Union Road is a wee […]
New energy
It used to be a dark time of year. Visitors mostly stopped coming after Remembrance Day. By now many residents had also fled or were making plans for a winter in the sun of Florida, Portugal or elsewhere. Others simply retired indoors to venture out again in the spring. Yet, late fall in the County […]
Use once. Discard.
Is recycling working? Is it doing what we think it does? We have three main streams of residential waste in the County—garbage, recycling and compost. Two different trucks circulating along every lonely road in the County each week, ensuring one doesn’t get mixed up with the other. But what happens to all that recycling material? […]
Carbon tax
Whatever Canada is doing, we shall do that too,” said no nation ever. Join me in this quick exercise. Let’s check off the boxes about the carbon tax proposed by Justin Trudeau’s government. Will it make a meaningful difference in global emissions of CO2? No. Will it even take us a measurable distance toward meeting […]
2021
Mayor Steve Ferguson admitted during his first New Year’s Levee that he is still adjusting to giving speeches. Fair-minded observers of our local government may be inclined, therefore, to make some allowance for the massive oversight in his remarks on Sunday. But the truth is, that we are running out of time to be fair […]