Feature Article August 7, 2002
LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb HomeContact Us
Fairmount home expansion causes political rift between Kingston and FMBby Jeff GreenAccusations are flying back and forth between the rural Frontenac Mayors and staff from the City of Kingston over control of the Fairmount Home for the Aged in Glenburnie, just north of Kingston in South Frontenac, as a contractors deadline for the planned expansion of the home nears.
The expansion plan would increase the number of beds from 96 to 128, upgrading Fairmount from a Group D to a Group B facility in the provincial rating system.
Fairmount Home is managed by the Frontenac Management Board (FMB), comprising the mayors of South, Central and North Frontenac and Wolfe Island. But the home has 76% of its operating budget paid by the City of Kingston under an amalgamation agreement between the city and the FMB in 1997. Roughly three-quarters of the residents of the home come from the city of Kingston.
The city of Kingston had agreed initially to pay 74% of the costs of a $16 million expansion. But now that costs have risen to $18 million, the city is threatening to back out of the expansion project unless the amalgamation agreement is opened up to give it more say in the management of the home. One million dollars has already been spent on the project, and the contractor chosen to do the work will honour his contract only until August 12.
According to the mayors of South, Central, and North Frontenac, and Fairmount chief administrator Elizabeth Fulton, the expansion will make Fairmount more efficient and less expensive to run. Over time, they say, it will help to erase a large debt that the home has accumulated.
However, city officials question the mayors assumptions. Bert Meunier, chief administrator of the City of Kingston, said in a published interview that, the bottom has fallen out of the business plan on which the expansion was based. Expected revenues, like those that were supposed to come from provincial grants, have not materialised. City officials are not convinced that the expansion will result in greater efficiency and lower operating costs, and are afraid that Kingston taxpayers would be on the hook for significant long-term operating increases, as well as higher than expected capital costs.
The rural mayors argue that the city is only balking at the project for political reasons. Somebody wants to reopen the amalgamations agreement, says current FMB chair, Phil Leonard. For his part, North Frontenac Mayor Stan Johnston thinks the City of Kingston wants to push the FMB out of the picture and take full control over the project, which, from North Frontenacs position, is not going to happen.
The level of respect between the FMB and the City of Kingston seems to have broken down, which wont make resolving this dispute any easier.
The debate over the future of the Fairmount Home for the Aged stems from some unresolved issues from the amalgamation process. While the municipal governments are fighting it out, the provincial government looms in the background as the driving force behind amalgamation, and as the major funding source for the Fairmount Home and seniors services generally.
(Editors note: while the particular dispute over the Fairmount expansion will be resolved one way or another in the near future, the overall prospects for the aging population in the Frontenacs is a topic that we will be exploring in the News over the next few weeks.)
