Feature Article January 9, 2002
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Commentary made-at-home solutionsby David BrisonResidents of our northern communities are constantly looking for solutions to problems. The list of problems needing solutions at times appears to be endless: parking for the disabled in Sharbot Lake; how do you get people to recycle? what kind of economic devolvement do we need and want? how do we increase tourism in the area? how to find jobs for area residents? should we allow advertising signs on our country roads? what can we do about global warming? and how can we protect our environment?
Faced with the problems set out above, and almost all of them are now under active consideration, one of the first things that we do is to ask for advice from others. Many of these problems land on our municipal council agendas, and quite frequently the first thing they do is to look into how other municipalities have handled the same problem. Council also makes extensive use of consultants. In Central Frontenac, engineering consultants advised on what to do about Road #38; a consultant was hired to help with the official plan; and consultants were hired to advise on what to do about the Arden dump.
The thinking behind finding out what others have done and asking experts for advice is quite often summarized by the adage, Why invent the wheel all over again?
It makes sense or does it?
I made the case in our December 12 issue, Central Frontenac adopts official plan, that the consultant the municipality hired, Glen Tunnock, did good work for the municipality. He spent enough time examining documents, attending public meetings, and talking with council so that he seemed to have a good understanding of the municipality. He did not try to impose his own viewpoints, but rather to draw out the issues so that council could make informed decisions. In other words, he was responsive to the needs of those that hired him. Furthermore, council would have had great difficulties coming up with an official plan without a consultant. Planning regulations are very complex, and in-house personnel have neither the breath of knowledge nor the time to do it themselves.
Glen Tunnock seems to have been a good choice, and Im sure he was chosen carefully.
Lets take another case. The Eastern Ontario District Health Council has a project called the Sustainable Communities Focus Group. Two years ago this group held a meeting in Sharbot Lake. The North Frontenac Community Services Corporation (NFCSC) helped them to set up the meeting and it was well attended. The reason why NFCSC decided to assist was because the previous year, the Health Council had done another similar meeting, and it had not been well attended, nor from the standpoint of NFCSC was it very productive.
This past November, the Health Council scheduled another meeting in Sharbot Lake to facilitate a discussion on sustainable communities. They sent out a four-page questionnaire to every household in Sharbot Lake. Their purpose was to again facilitate a discussion on sustainable communities - a discussion they hoped would lead to identifying local issues and starting people on the process of finding solutions.
Only nine people showed up. Ive talked to some of those who did attend, and the consensus was that the organizers knew little or nothing about the community, did not allow much time for community input, did not provide feedback on the last meeting, started as if nothing had happened at the last meeting (which was evidently not the case it was by all accounts a productive meeting), and had totally unrealistic expectations about follow-up from the community.
It also turns out that many people who were at the first meeting two years ago boycotted the meeting precisely because they had not received any constructive feedback.
Consultants can help local groups develop their own homemade solutions to problems. However, they have to have expertise (and be carefully chosen for that expertise), spend enough time so that they can understand the local problems, and finally, be responsive to local needs.
The District Health Council was well meaning, but they took on an impossible task they tried to run these sustainable community seminars in communities across Eastern Ontario, but they couldnt possibly function in each community as good consultants. I think they learned from it, and their Executive Director, Michael Park, is busy looking at different ways that his organization might learn about community health needs and communicate what they as an organization might do to assist communities.
The News will keep a watching brief on the new Resource Jump Team which has been parachuted into the region to help us expand tourism (Land OLakes get jump on economic development The News, December 12, 2001). Will they turn out to be good consultants? Will they be able to help us find home-grown solutions to local problems?
