Photo: Ruby and Gary Malcolm (seated) cut the ribbon at Denbigh's Community Food Bank opening.

Members of the Denbigh Griffith Lions Club, the Lakelands Family Health Team, Addington Highlands Council and the community at large joined in celebration at a special ribbon cutting ceremony on Feb. 28 at the new Addington Highlands Communty Centre-Denbigh, the new location of Denbigh's Community Food Bank.

Cutting the ribbon were Ruby and Gary Malcolm, two long-time Denbigh residents who have been operating the food bank there for over 10 years now.

Ruby informed me of how she and her husband came to take the reins of this very needed community service. “The Community Food Bank was originally started 10 years back by Rev. Angela Corey at the Denbigh United Church. When she was transferred to Nova Scotia, we really hated the idea of seeing the service be discontinued so we decided to take it over.”

Ruby said that having worked at the Denbigh Public School for 10 years before retiring in 1990, she saw first hand the people in the community who were going hungry. “That was one of the main reasons we decided to keep the service running.".

The food bank was formerly run out of the basement of St. Luke's United church, which meant hauling heavy boxes of canned goods up and down numerous stairs, so the Malcolms are grateful for the new location. Ruby served on the planning committee for the new community center and specifically asked if there might be space in the building where they could relocate the food bank. She was thrilled when the committee agreed.

The food bank now sits in the former office of the school principal. Completely funded by donations, the food bank accepts all kinds of non-perishable food items and cash donations. The money is used to purchase perishable items from the local store. The food bank works solely on a emergency basis, usually by referrals but also through word of mouth. The Malcolms are grateful for the generous donations it receives from the Matawatchan Market, the churches of St. Andrew's, St. Paul's, St. Luke's and the New Apostolic, the Denbigh Recreation Committee, the Denbigh Griffith Lions Club, T.O.P.S., 41 Stop, the John Landry Christmas Show at the Pine Valley Restaurant, the Matacushie Community Development Program, the Santa Claus Parade committee and many individuals and families from the community.

Councilor Tony Fritch made a few remarks following the ribbon cutting and thanked the Malcolms, all of the donors, the Denbigh Griffith Lions Club and the local municipality. “Personally I wish the day would come when we didn't need a food bank but recent statistics show that the need in Canada is on the rise. I recently did a bit of research and discovered that food bank use has increased by about 30% across Canada in the last few years. In Canada alone 851,000 people use registered food banks on a regular weekly basis." Fritsch said.

That being the case, the community food bank in Denbigh is always in need of donations. It will be open on Tuesdays from noon until 3 p.m. and both food and cash donations can be made at that time.

Frontenac County rebuffs L&A ambulance request

Frontenac County will not be supporting the continued existence of the Denbigh ambulance base beyond paying the agreed-upon cross-border fee when an ambulance from the base answers a call in Frontenac County.

Back in 2008 Lennox and Addington Council requested financial support from neighbouring counties to keep the Denbigh ambulance base open. At that time they received no reply.

Flash forward to three years later, and once again L&A County has sent a letter of request to neighbouring counties, asking for help in keeping the Denbigh base open.

The letter of request that was sent to Frontenac outlines the recommendation from a consultant’s report that ambulance service in L&A be reconfigured by closing the base in Denbigh and building a new base in Loyalist Township. It also points out that “the ambulance service in Denbigh is a unique regional service for a large, sparsely populated geographic area which extends well beyond the County of Lennox and Addington. County Council's question to you: Is Frontenac County prepared to assume a greater financial responsibility for the Denbigh ambulance service in order to maintain the service for your citizens?”

L&A will not receive any official response from Frontenac County to this request, as the letter of request was merely “received for information purposes only”.

Frontenac County Chief of Paramedic Services, Paul Charbonneau, told Frontenac County Council that he had attended the L&A County meeting where the request was discussed. He said L&A was hoping to receive a $125,000 annual commitment from Frontenac, Hastings, and Renfrew Counties to help cover the $500,000 annual municipal cost of running a 24-hour service (the province pays about $500,000 as well).

“When ambulance service was downloaded to municipalities it became a local responsibility to fund the service. We have a cross-border agreement in place for the calls that the Denbigh base answers in Frontenac and that agreement recognizes the higher cost of those calls,” Charbonneau said. “We pay more for the Denbigh calls than L&A pays for the calls we answer for their residents in Loyalist County ... If Council wants to spend an added $125,000 I can find ways to put it to good use for our own residents.”

The motion to receive the L&A County request 'for information purposes only' was unanimously passed without comment from members of council.

The response from Frontenac pours cold water on an initiative that has been contemplated by Mayor Peter Emon of the township of Madawaska. Emon has said publicly that the County of Renfrew might consider supporting the Denbigh base financially, and that he supported the idea.

North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton is appearing before L&A Council this week. He will be urging L&A to maintain the Denbigh base in order to fulfill their responsibility to their northern residents, but will also make it clear he does not support any transfer of municipal funds from Frontenac County for the service.

Fairmount auditorium rebuild back on the agenda

In September of 2010, a proposal from Fairmount Home administrator Julie Shillington to start up a fundraising campaign for renovations to the auditorium of Fairmount Home, the county-run long term care facility, was deferred.

The proposal was for a $250,000 fundraising campaign towards a $1.5 million renovation to the auditorium.

Shillington's report outlined the problems with the auditorium, including a loud, inefficient heating and cooling system, inadequate electrical service, and a leaking roof.

At the time, Frontenac Islands Mayor Jim Vanden Hoek spoke out against starting up the fundraising campaign, expressing the concern that it would eventually force county council to approve the entire project.

“Even though they are not asking us to commit to doing the upgrade, once a fundraising campaign is underway and the public has committed money, how can council say no to the project? This is not the right way to do this. Council needs to debate the project itself first, and if we decide to go ahead, then a fundraising campaign is appropriate,” he said, and concluded, “I would like to see this deferred to the new council.”

With that new council now in place, with Vanden Hoek being replaced on it by Dennis Doyle who defeated him in last year’s election for mayor of Frontenac Islands, the proposal has re-surfaced.

The estimated cost of the project, which was $1.5 million in 2009, will have to be upgraded, according to Shillington's updated report to the new council, and the proposed fundraising campaign is for “no less than $200,000”. She added, “We have already received $32,473 towards the project without any formal fundraising,” and that other grants and subsidies would be investigated should the project go ahead.

Frontenac County Treasurer Marion Van Bruinessen said that when Fairmount Home was redeveloped several years ago, a $2.5 million capital reserve was established, which she indicated might be used for the auditorium since it is part of the home, although it was left out of the re-build.

“We did not bring this to the new council right away,” said County Chief Administrative Officer Liz Savill, “because we wanted to allow new members a period of time to get acclimated to the county.”

Shillington hopes that the project can be brought to fruition within two years.

“With the 150th anniversary of the County of Frontenac approaching in 2015, we would like to see the auditorium renovations completed by the end of 2014 and include activities in the auditorium as part of the anniversary celebrations. This would be a prime opportunity to highlight it as a community resource. With this in mind, I would like to advise county that the auditorium project will be brought forward with the 2013 budget as a capital building project,” she said in her report.

North Frontenac Township Mayor Bud Clayton said that no decision on fundraising should be made until county council makes a decision about the project itself.

“It is fraud to fundraise for a specific purpose and then use the money for anything else. We need to consider this project before we talk about this fundraising campaign,” he said.

Council member John Purdon from Central Frontenac said, “It looks like a lot of cost for a gymnasium which is structurally sound.”

County Warden Gary Davison said, “The redevelopment isn't just for a gymnasium, it is quite extensive, not just painting the walls and changing the air conditioner.”

“I think this particular institution is very beloved,” added Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski.

Shillington's report was received.

Neighbouring counties and Denbigh ambulance

The Denbigh ambulance base, whose fate will be decided by Lennox and Addington County Council as early as the end of October, came to the fore at a meeting of North Frontenac Council this week.

Paul Isaacs, from the Denbigh Ambulance Network, submitted a copy of the presentation he had made at Lennox and Addington County two weeks earlier. His presentation attacked the consultant’s report by the IBI group of Toronto, saying the report, which recommends closing the Denbigh base and replacing it with a base in Loyalist Township, is full of “egregious” errors.

Accompanying Paul Isaacs was Peter Emon, the mayor of the Township of Greater Madawaska, who travelled to the meeting in Snow Road from his home in Calabogie. Emon also attended the L&A County meeting in Napanee on September 14, and a meeting of the Denbigh ambulance network on September 22.

“The Denbigh ambulance is important for our area, your area as well. If there is a single ambulance based at Northbrook, it is still going to be pulled away to Kaladar for backup, or could get called out, leaving North Frontenac and Madawaska Highlands without any service,” Emon said, “so this of interest to our ambulance service in Renfrew. Lennox and Addington made a slight shift in suggesting for the first time at their meeting in Napanee that Denbigh is a regional ambulance. That might be significant. It might be suggested that you look at your own Frontenac service in light of all this.”

“It might be a bit of an uphill battle,” said John Inglis, a North Frontenac representative to Frontenac County Council. “Our land ambulance coordinator suggested that closing Denbigh would improve response times in North Frontenac as the new Northbrook base is located closer to Cloyne.”

“At this Council table, you are preaching to the converted,” said North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton, “we all recognize the importance of the Denbigh base, but that does not mean, as John said, that we speak for Frontenac County.”

At the September 22 Denbigh Ambulance Network meeting, Emon said that he had talked to both the warden and chief administrative officer of Renfrew County, and they were both receptive to the idea of Renfrew County making a financial commitment investment, with certain guarantees, towards maintaining the Denbigh base. The estimated annual cost of running a 24-hour service is $1 million. The province of Ontario pays about half that operating cost, leaving $500,000 for L&A ratepayers to cover.

“There are three other counties that are served by the Denbigh base, Frontenac, Renfrew and Hastings… That would mean a commitment of $125,000 a year for a shared service. In Renfrew County our ambulance costs are $5.5 million a year, so $125,000 is something we might consider,” Emon said at the Denbigh meeting.

The idea of sharing costs did not come up at the North Frontenac Council meeting.

Arcol Road bridges to be rebuilt: Two bridges on the Arcol Road, a crown land road leading to Granite, Hungry, Mair and Govan Lakes, have been declared unsafe by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR). The replacement cost is about $128,000.The MNR is willing to kick in $103,000 and the township has secured a $15,000 commitment from the Eastern Ontario Tourist Association, using grant money the have received from the province. The net cost to the township is about $10,000, but there is a rush to move on the project. For one thing, moose hunting starts on October 17, and secondly, with a provincial election underway, there is a sense that it might not be wise to wait until after October 6 before getting started.

Council approved a proposal to go ahead with the project as soon as possible, and will proceed by seeking verbal quotes from local contractors to complete the work.

Lennox & Addington Council has decided to seek a new home for the Northbrook ambulance base, and a request for proposal for a piece of land located on Highway 41 between Northbrook and Denbigh will be set out this week.

That was the easy part for the council.

It was also relatively easy for them to decide to stop sending the Northbrook ambulance to Tamworth on standby when both Napanee cars are out on calls, a practice that resulted in only 2 service calls last year and 5 in 2009.

It will be more difficult, wrenching even, for them to come to grips with the recommendation of a consultant’s report to close the Denbigh base and replace it with one in Loyalist Township, halfway between Kingston and Napanee. That recommendation will be considered at a meeting in late October, at the earliest.

The Denbigh issue was front and centre at last Wednesday's (September 14) Council meeting in Napanee.

In a presentation to L&A Council, L&A Emergency Services Co-ordinator Mark Schjerning pointed out that more than half of the calls that were answered by the Denbigh ambulance emanated from outside of Lennox and Addington, and while L&A recoups money for those calls through a cross-border agreement, that money is minimal as compared to the cost of keeping the base up and running.

L&A receives about $400 for every cross-border call it makes out of Denbigh, and their cost per call is about $3,500.

Shjerning also pointed out that the paramedics stationed at Denbigh spend a lot of time waiting for calls that do not come.

“In 2010, all told, about 1/3 of the shifts at Denbigh were what we call empty envelope shifts; in other words, over a 12-hour shift there were no calls to the station,” he said. “When this is expressed on a cost-per call basis, each call becomes very expensive.”

The preferred alternative that Schjerning presented, according to the report that was prepared by the IBI group out of Toronto, is the consolidation of northern services in the Northbrook/Cloyne area and the establishment of a new base in Loyalist Township. Currently, most of the calls from Loyalist Township are answered by the ambulance operated by Frontenac County, which is housed in a base on Justus Drive in the western part of Kingston.

“We cannot guarantee that the ambulance will be waiting at the base on Justus Drive to come to Loyalist,” said Shjerning, “it can be moved to downtown Kingston on standby.”

The impact of a new Loyalist Township-based service would be to cut response times from an average of about 20 to about 10 minutes per call for the 1,000 or so calls each year in that region.

On the other hand, closing Denbigh would result in over 80% of the calls in that region taking between 30 and 60 minutes for a response,” according to the IBI report.

County Warden Henry Hogg, who is also the Reeve of Addington Highlands, took a look at some of the mapping provided by Shjerning, and said that many response times will be even longer than the 30-60 minute window envisioned by IBI. He asked Shjerning what speeds were used to project the response times.

“We based those estimates on an average speed of 100 km/hour,” said Schjerning.

“Having driven the roads around Denbigh for the past 35 years, I challenge anyone to average 100 kilometres an hour, so your response times are not accurate,” Hogg said.

A middle ground proposal was also brought forward by Mark Shjerning. It involves keeping a limited 12 hour a day service open in Denbigh at an ambulance post, which is less expensive to build than a full-sized ambulance base. However, while simply closing Denbigh and opening a base in Loyalist Township would not increase the global cost of the system, keeping a limited service in Denbigh would mean an increase in costs, and ultimately, an increased tax burden on L&A ratepayers,

“As I understand it,” said L&A Council member, and Loyalist Township Deputy Mayor, Ric Bresee, “in an environment where we have fixed resources, this change will provide a 10 minute improvement in response time for a thousand calls and will slow response time by 30 minutes for a smaller number of calls, maybe 50 to 100. To me that is the nature of the decision we are called to make now. With the addition of funds we could start to change that spectrum but just on the flat line of the resources we have to use now, that is the call we have to make. I don't want to make that call.”

Addington Highlands Deputy Reeve Bill Cox wondered how this entire scenario had come about. “All we needed to do was find a location to build a Northbrook base. Whose idea was it to do a new study? We just did one three years ago, and nothing has changed. Why is this happening now?” he asked.

“Because we are now facing building a new base for Northbrook, it means we will be in a fixed location for a long time, so we thought it only prudent to look down the road before making that sort of commitment,” said County Chief Administrator Larry Keech.

Keech then said that council need not rush into a decision on the Denbigh/Loyalist Township issue.

“This is a very weighty issue both for Loyalist and Denbigh. It should not be made in haste and council should feel all of their questions are answered. We look to council for the next step,” he said, “but we don’t want it to be necessarily forgotten either.”

Council asked for more detail about response times in Loyalist Township, and will look further at the matter next month.

There is no fixed time frame for a final decision.

Culvert Replacement - Erroll Ruth of Mallory Lake made a return visit to council to ask for the township’s help with roadwork and in replacing some culverts on Addington Road 5, which he said were in such bad shape that they could collapse and cause a bad accident. Mr. Ruth brought several photos with him. He had visited council last year with the same request, and was told that the township does not provide maintenance on un-maintained roads, but is working on developing a policy. Since a new council is in place, Mr. Ruth returned on Monday night to present his request again. Council voted to receive the request.

Medical Clinic - Councilor Tony Fritsch presented to council the Terms of Reference that he has developed for a new facilities committee for the Lakelands Family Health Team (LFHT) in Denbigh and Northbrook. Council voted to establish the committee.

A tentative date of October 29 was set for the official opening of the new Denbigh LFHT facility.

Community Centre - Fritsch also presented two plans for a parking lot at the new Addington Highlands Community Centre – Denbigh. It was decided that the first plan, which puts the lot on the north side of the building, would be too expensive and difficult, as the Ministry of Transportation has requested a traffic impact study and stormwater management report. The estimated cost is $20,000 to $40,000.

The second plan, which places the lot on the east side, does have the drawback of going over the tile bed and would require its relocation, but does not have any MTO issues and has easy and safe access off Central Street. Council voted for the second option, which has an estimated cost of just over $10,000.

Ambulance Service - Council discussed the wording of a resolution to be submitted to Lennox & Addington County Council on the Denbigh Ambulance Service. Council Fritsch wanted the wording that the township would “accept no less than a 24/7 ambulance base in Denbigh and a 24/7 ambulance base in Northbrook”. Councilor Bill Cox sits on county council and was concerned about the wording being too confrontational, and Councilor Yanch noted that it was pointless to say the township “would accept no less” when in fact they would have to accept whatever county council decides.

The wording was changed to “..that the 24/7 Denbigh base and the 24/7 Cloyne/Northbrook base need to remain in place” and in a recorded vote, was accepted unanimously.

Firehall - Council approved the new municipal building/firehall project in Northbrook and decided to issue the request for proposals. The request for RFPs will go out now and the decision will be announced at the December 5 council meeting.

Applefest - The Through the Roof Ministry Centre (TTRMC) in Flinton is planning Applefest, a free community event, for October 15, and asked council for permission to use the Flinton hall’s parking lot for overflow parking, and also to cordon off Edward Street between Harrison Street and Flinton Road.

A wedding is planned for the Flinton hall for the same day, so the parking lot will not be available; however, certain areas that are used during the Flinton Jamboree would be suitable for the Applefest overflow parking. Also, council will notify TTRMC that they must use approved barricades, which must be manned by leaders with traffic control certification.

On September 6, an open meeting was held at the Griffith Community Hall. Community response was very good, with 62 people in attendance. The purpose of the meeting was to assess whether there was community support in creating a citizen-based and led organization to lobby appropriate levels of government to ensure that the present level of ambulance service provided to Griffith, Matawatchan and area continues.

The impetus for this movement came from a meeting that was held last week in Griffith by the Denbigh Ambulance Network. From that meeting there was a strong sense that this area needed to show its concern for the proposed changes being considered by the County of Lennox and Addington who are once again, seriously discussing the closure of the Denbigh Ambulance Base and moving it to the Northbrook/ Cloyne area.

The Denbigh Ambulance Base provides emergency service to rural areas of the bordering Counties of Renfrew, Hastings, Frontenac as well as Lennox and Addington. The closure of the Denbigh base would greatly increase the response travel time to the Griffith and Matawatchan Area to possibly more than an hour. This is unacceptable given the essential nature of access to medical treatment in a timely and professional manner - lives are at stake!

Lennox and Addington retained the services of IBI Group to carry out an “Ambulance Service Review Update”. This, in our opinion, was a very biased report, which concluded that the Denbigh Ambulance closure would definitely help the bottom line of Lennox and Addinton’s budget, while shifting the level of service to favour a more highly populated area of the county.

The Griffith, Matawatchan and Area Ambulance Network will be working closely with the Denbigh Community Ambulance Network and the Township of Greater Madawaska in presenting a more accurate assessment of the need and usage of the Denbigh Ambulance Base to the various levels of Government and insuring they are aware of the potentially dangerous impact of this possible decision to the residents of our area.

The Griffith, Matawatchan and Area Ambulance Network will represent the concern and interests of our area and will be led by a group of six local residents. Heading the Griffith, Matawatchan and Area Ambulance Network is David Parkes; members are Richard Copeland, Bill Shipley, Sandy Downs, Inez J. Allard, Kit Pullen. 

RFP for new office/fire hall complex: While they are not exactly at the groundbreaking stage just yet, Addington Highlands Council has taken the next step in a process that may lead to the construction of a township office and fire hall on a lot that the township has purchased on Hwy. 41 south of Northbrook (next to Addison’s Restaurant). The space requirements submitted by township and fire staff and council have been included in a Request For Proposal for a site drawing of the proposed building. Once a design is accepted, the project will be costed, and Council will then be tasked with finding the money for it.

$13,000 for Denbigh Community Centre – Council approved $13,000 in spending on the new community centre in Denbigh. Councilor Tony Fritsch said that the project has been progressing well thus far. Council appointed a two-member committee to oversee the Lakelands Family Health Team locations in Northbrook and Denbigh.

Joint Fire Board meeting cancelled, Reeve Hogg perturbed: “I was rather perturbed because they didn’t choose to consult with us,” said Reeve Henry Hogg about an email he received from North Frontenac Council last month cancelling a scheduled meeting this week of the Joint Fire Board, which oversees the Kaladar/Barrie Fire Department, which serves both townships.

“I am the chair of the Joint Fire Board, so I should be the one who cancels a meeting, but I guess we’ll have to re-schedule,” he added.

Fire department busy – Fire Chief Casey Cuddy reported that so far in 2011, his department has responded to 112 fire calls, up from 97 at the same point last year. “There have been number of brush fires this summer, but fortunately they have been small ones,” Cuddy said, adding, “we are looking forward to the cooler fall weather.”

Dumping request – The new owner of a property on Hwy 41, formerly owned by the late Winnie Gutsell, has requested that the township waive the dumping fees for 50 trailer loads of material that is lying out on the property.

“If you start doing this for one person, it will spread” said Public Works Manager Royce Rosenblath.

“The only thing is we want the property cleaned up,” said Councillor Adam Snider. “What if we waive the tipping fee for up to five loads, a $150 maximum.”

(One trailer costs $30 to dump)

Council accepted Snider’s proposal.

Northpoint Square in Northbrook is for sale, and owner Murry Northey attended the meeting in Denbigh to give council information about the complex, which contains several offices, since the township is looking to establish a new office/fire hall complex in or near Northbrook.

Council considered a request from two teachers from NAEC (North Addington Education Centre) for a $2000 grant to buy equipment for an Outdoor Learning Centre, which they are hoping to establish at the school. Councilor Helen Yanch said that while she thinks the proposal is a good one, she does not think that the township should be paying for it, but that the Limestone School Board has to step up to the plate. Deputy Reeve Bill Cox brought forward a motion to deny the request for the money, which was defeated in a 2-2 vote, with Yanch and Cox voting for and Councilors Tony Fritsch and Adam Snider voting against it. Reeve Henry Hogg did not vote in that round.

Councilor Fritsch then brought forward a motion to give $1,000 as a one-time grant to the project, and in a recorded vote, with Reeve Hogg and Councilors Fritsch and Snider voting for, and Yanch and Cox against, the motion passed.

Council denied a request for $1,000 from the Land O’Lakes Tourist Association to support their upcoming Vision awards.

Council discussed a draft Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Northbrook municipal building/firehall project. Councilor Fritsch requested that plans for a covered parking area in the RFP be removed as an unjustifiable expenditure. Deputy Reeve Cox also asked if air-conditioning would be needed in the whole building, and Fire Chief Casey Cuddy, who was in attendance at the meeting, replied that it would not be needed in the truck bays. With those and some other amendments, council voted to proceed with the draft, which will come back to council for further consideration before being put out.

Two requests were received for the township to assist with maintenance on the Hunt Road and Cross Lake Road, which are unmaintained township roads. Councilor Snider suggested that if the property owners were willing to share half of the costs, “It would be hard to say no” to the requests. However, except for Councilor Yanch, the other councilors felt that the township should obtain cost estimates first. Helen Yanch said that up until the last few years the roads had been “reasonably maintained”. Roads Superintendent Royce Rosenblath confirmed that in the past work had been done on a case-by-case basis, but a few terms of council back, he had been instructed not to do any work on roads that were not in the roads system.

Council voted to obtain cost estimates for the requested roadwork.

Council acceded to a request to waive dump fees for a cleanup of Skootamatta Lake.

Royce Rosenblath said that some people are still bringing black garbage bags to the waste sites – 20 bags were brought in recently - and asked if council could write letters to the parties in question reminding them that the township only accepts clear garbage bags. Council agreed.

Council awarded a tender for a tanker replacement for the Denbigh fire station, for $183,739, to the Dependable Truck Company. The price includes ULC certification.

The contractor who is presently working on the Northbrook Fire Hall had also won the tender for repairs to the Denbigh Fire Hall; however, he has since doubled his quote for one of the items. Fire Chief Cuddy asked if the tender could be awarded to the next highest bidder; however, council decided that the only fair way to proceed would be to re-tender the project. The tender already has been put out twice, as there were no bidders the first time around.

After hearing two presentations concerning the need to keep the Denbigh ambulance service, Lennox and Addington County deferred a proposal to begin the process of finding a location for a new base in the Northbrook/Cloyne vicinity.

The Northbrook base, which is located in a rental property, must be vacated within two years, and in a report to Council, County Emergency Services staff recommended “engaging the services of an architect to assist staff and council in determining the land requirements”, and at the same time make landowners with suitable properties located between Northbrook and Cloyne aware that the County is looking to buy property.

“Isn’t this is a little premature, given that the Denbigh base is not yet decided?” asked Bill Cox, a member of L&A County Council from Addington Highlands. A motion to defer consideration of the staff report was accepted and the matter will return at the September 14 county meeting in Napanee.

Janice Powell, Executive Director of the Lakelands Family Health Team, which is based in Northbrook and operates a satellite clinic in Denbigh, made the first presentation.

She started by saying: “The Denbigh ambulance was started in 1982 by the province because it was necessary. The need has not gone away.”

She then took exception to a claim that was made in a consultant’s report, which was received by the County in June. The report, by the IBI group, recommended shutting the Denbigh base and opening a new base in Loyalist Township.

The report is an update of a report from 2008, and claims that the addition of the Family Health Team to Addington Highlands is an improvement in service that will alleviate the impact of the closing the ambulance base.

“The Lakelands Family Health Team is a family practice which focuses on chronic care. Neither the main site nor the satellite in Denbigh offer emergency clinics,” she said. “It is somewhat deceiving that the IBI group cites Lakelands in the context of an emergency services report … we request that all references to Lakelands be removed from the report.”

She added that if the Denbigh base is removed, “Ambulance response times will be greater than 30 minutes, 80 per cent of the time. The survival of patients rostered to the Family Health Team hangs in the balance.”

In her presentation, Vennachar resident Rosemary O’Connor said, “I find it strangely curious that a consultant who failed to consult the stakeholders has recommended that an ambulance base be closed. The very thought of closure leaves me filled with dread.”

She went on to describe how her husband Barney developed post-stroke seizure syndrome in 1998, and ended up requiring ambulance calls on several occasions for transport to Victoria Hospital in Renfrew.

“The first time I called he was in very bad shape. The response time from Denbigh was very good, but it was touch and go when we got to the hospital. The second time was good also, but on the third call the ambulance came from Northbrook and it took a long time. If that first ambulance had come 30 minutes later than it did, he might well have died in the ambulance. Fifteen years later Barney is still here with us, able to live at home and enjoy a reasonably good quality of life.”

Before moving forward with any planning for a new base in Northbrook, Emergency Services have been requested to prepare a response to the presentations by Janice Powell and Rosemary O’Connor.

It will be mid-August at the earliest before Frontenac County Council makes any kind of decision about the location of an ambulance base to serve the residents of North and parts of Central Frontenac.

At their July 6 meeting, Frontenac County Council received for information a report from their Chief of Land Ambulance Services, Paul Charbonneau, which recommended putting the decision off until Lennox and Addington County decides what to do with their own base in Denbigh, because this will have an impact on responses in Frontenac County.

While Lennox and Addington County Council received a report last month by the IBI consulting group, which recommends that the Denbigh base close, there is no indication that the future of the Denbigh base will be decided any time soon, although a delegation from Denbigh is scheduled to appear at L&A County meeting on July 27.

For now, according to Mike Schjerning, Chief of Emergency services for Lennox and Addington, his staff is only considering options related to finding a location for a new base in Northbrook. The county lease on the property where the Northbrook base is located ran out on June 30, 2011 and the county has exercised an option to renew that lease for two years, at which time they will have to find a new home because the landlord has indicated that the building will no longer be available to them.

“The availability of land in the Northbrook area will obviously be a factor in determining where we locate that base. We are starting to look for a location now,” said Schjerning when interviewed over the phone.

All of this puts the future of a proposed ambulance base/fire station in Ompah into further doubt.

North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton proposed a motion of his own to Frontenac County Council, which would have seen the Ompah project go ahead this year. While Frontenac County Council and North Frontenac Township still have not come to an agreement over cost sharing for the project, Clayton's motion proposes a 50/50 split in operating and construction costs, with North Frontenac covering all of the land and septic costs, as well as the cost of a well and pump.

While this motion was presented to Frontenac County Council on July 6, it was only in the form of a notice of motion, and was not slated to be considered until the next meeting of county council on August 17.

Clayton did not want to wait until then to have his motion considered by the council, and wondered why Paul Charbonneau's recommendations, on the other hand, could be considered right away.

“I find it unacceptable that a member of council must wait two months to have a motion considered, but an employee of the county can bring a motion forward and it gets voted on right away,” he said.

“The council can bring a notice of motion forward for consideration at any time with a 2/3 vote,” said County Chief Administrative Officer Liz Savill.

Mayor Clayton asked that his motion be brought to a vote right away.

“We are losing the building window for this year by delaying this,” he said.

In a recorded vote, Council members John Inglis (North Frontenac), David Jones and Dennis Doyle (Frontenac Islands), and John Purdon (Central Frontenac), as well as Clayton himself supported the motion. It was opposed by council members Janet Gutowski (Central Frontenac), John McDougall (South Frontenac) and Gary Davison, who as mayor of South Frontenac, has two votes. The final tally was 5 votes in favour to 4 against.

Although Clayton's request to bring his motion forward was supported by the majority of council, it did not receive a 2/3 majority and was declared defeated.

All of this leaves the fate of the Ompah base in a continuing state of limbo.

County council will be able to consider Bud Clayton's proposal when they meet in August, but it will come forward in the context of both Paul Charbonneau's reluctance to move forward until the Denbigh situation is clarified, and a continuing disagreement over a fair way of sharing the costs of the building.

Warden Gary Davison said, “I don't see how with a 1,500 square foot ambulance base and what looks like a 2,500 square foot fire station, the costs should be shared 50/50. That doesn't add up to me. And since it is the City of Kingston that pays 80% of the capital costs for all ambulance bases we build, I don't know how we can justify this to them.”

North Frontenac Township has taken the position that because anticipated construction costs for a fire hall are lower than they are for an ambulance base ($128 per square foot as compared to $195 for an ambulance base according to figures quoted by Paul Charbonneau in March), the 50/50 cost split is more viable.

Using those construction cost figures, the cost would be $292,500 for the ambulance base portion, and $320,000 for the fire hall.