John Purdon

Oct 09, 2014

Councillor

John Purdon – retirement? Not quite yet

John Purdon has been on Central Frontenac Council for eight years, and for the last four years he has also been the township representative to Frontenac County. Both levels of government consistently print agendas of 100 plus pages in advance their meetings, and Purdon is renowned among councilors at both levels for reading and digesting every page of the agendas. It's fair to say he has found thousands of errors over the years, ranging from simple typos to seriously flawed proposals.

“I was considering retirement, but I do enjoy it and in the end I decided to run again, although I might slow down a bit this time around,” he said. “Of course there is always lots to do on council; it never really stops. It's not like a mandate that ends.”

He is considering not seeking the County representative position, which is a major time commitment.

“There may be some interested parties for that position,” he said.

John Purdon is from Quebec. He lived and worked in Chateauguay near Montreal for the Ministry of Agriculture as an agricultural engineer for 32 years, before moving to Mountain Grove into the childhood home of his wife Maxine. It was Maxine who originally talked him into running for Council in 2006. After Maxine died of cancer in August of 2010, John's family talked him into running again in order to stay busy, and the electorate was happy to vote him in again.

“The last four years have been good for me. They have kept me busy. Instead of sulking or crying I was on the road quite a bit,” he said.

The list of important issues for the new Council to deal with, according to Purdon, includes “hiring a CAO and a public works manager; developing a strategic plan, a long term financial plan; finalising our asset management plan; and doing a review of our OP [Official Plan]. And that's just for starters.”

He said that the new council might consider setting up a couple of committees to deal with complex matters and bring them back to council.

“We had a waste management committee and we were able to work through issues and bring a new waste system in place. That might work for other items of the township agenda that are not easy to discuss with nine people who have a lot of other business to deal with,” he said.

While he thinks that many county issues don't concern the township council, he sees opportunities for co-operating directly with other townships with or without county involvement, on roads and other regional infrastructure matters.

But all in all, he feels that the township has been operating pretty well over the last four years.

“I think it's in decent shape. We haven't gone bankrupt; we've made improvements in waste management; the number of complaints have gone down; we have increased the levy but limited that by reducing the tax rate and winter roads maintenance has improved,” he said.