Comment
In the dark
Construction happens. Disruption follows. Daily patterns get altered. Delays. Closures. Detours. These are the costs of progress. Of improvement. Most folks understand it. (Although most are not at all clear about who, precisely, is being served by the installation of trunk lines across the village.) Most folks can come to accept most of it. Harder to take is the blatant disregard. For their time. For their livelihoods. Their access and, potentially, their security.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are easy solutions. Explain what is happening. And when. Treat folks like they’re your neighbours. As though you live in their community. Be straight. And be open. And this is the important bit—put boots on the ground when things go wrong. Because things are going to go wrong.
Currently, signs at the entrances into Wellington declare that Main Street is closed until July 2025. It isn’t. And it can’t be closed. Not completely anyway. But these signs seems intended to discourage all traffic through Wellington.
(Thankfully, the bad information didn’t stop folks from participating in one of the best Pumpkinfest celebrations in recent memory.) But because the signs are vague and inaccurate, they are ignored. Irrelevant. It’s a bad way to start a months-long conversation.
Earlier this month, a small section of Main Street was, indeed, fully closed. For three days. Just one day prior, a notice emerged from Shire Hall indicating access would be restricted to a single lane. It wasn’t. It was a full closure. For three days. But the notice didn’t say this. Nor did Shire Hall advise this community when the road reopened three days later.
A small thing, maybe. But it isn’t how you treat your neighbours.
It is, however, what happens when the folks doing the disrupting, managing the disrupting and overseeing the disrupting don’t live here. There is no cost to them. There is no 12- kilometre detour to get a quart of milk. They have nothing at stake. It is hard for them to care.
A 500-metre stretch between the Legion and Lakeshore Farms will see major upheaval in the coming months. Trenches for trunk lines (water and sewer) will descend Cleminson Street, turn right and continue westward under Main Street to the waterworks plants. It will mean serious disruption. Several dozen homes will be impacted. Maybe not all at once, but access to their property or their businesses will be cut off. How long? Hours? Days? Weeks? No one has told them. No one has come to their door to explain what is coming—or when. You just don’t treat folks this way.
Shire Hall is hanging its duty to communicate on thin public service messages emitted from a desktop in Picton. Here is how I figure it works. The contractor decides that tomorrow, it will cut off access to the main artery in and out of Wellington. It will have a good reason, but will not have consulted with any of the neighbours, the businesses or even the municipality. It’s not his job. That decision will be relayed to the Edward Building in Picton. Eventually, someone will figure out that it requires some notice or advisory. Over to Shire Hall. A public service announcement (PSA) will be drafted and approved. Hit send. And that is it. Done.
It is not enough. Not for the pain that follows. Not for the hardship that is inflicted. Especially when it is so easily avoided. Shire Hall’s disruption communication method relies on residents sitting on their email and hitting refresh every couple of hours to get the PSA. It depends on those impacted hanging out on social media, wading through Arnold Palmer jokes, to find the message that drifts down through the confetti of noise, warning them from Tuesday to Saturday, access to their home or business will be blocked.
There is an easy fix.
In August, the councillor from Wellington proposed a working group consisting of a representative from the contractor, a member of the County’s engineering team, the councillor, and reps from the Wellington Community Association and the Wellington on the Lake community. This group would sit down for an hour once a week—or every other week—to talk about what is in the works. What are the challenges? What are the delays? When do the big diggers arrive? A conversation.
Both community groups have extensive networks of neighbours—many of whom are directly affected. The Wellington councillor, too, has an effective means to communicate with residents.
Lean on these folks. Don’t ask the residents in Wellington to live in the dark for the next year.
Be neighbourly.
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