Municipal election reckoning – mistakes were made

Jeff Green | Oct 19, 2022

At the beginning of the municipal election season, I was worried that it would be a tall order to fulfill the role that we have taken on, at the Frontenac News, to provide a forum for voters to get acquainted, in a basic way, with all of the candidates in our large, under populated region.

While we were able to prepare short candidate profiles and hold all candidates meetings in 13 communities, errors crept in.

In some cases the profiles had errors in them when printed in the paper, and were corrected at frontenacnews.ca, and one or two of the meetings went a bit off the rails. It is my hope that voters will see mistakes by the Frontenac News for what they were, and will not let them hinder the decisions they need to make when voting.

The voting system, which is live now, is seamless and very easy to navigate. I voted this morning, and the hardest part was typing centralfrontenac.isivote.com into my browser without making any errors. Actually, the toughest part was voting, because in my district there were three candidates for two positions, and I found all three candidates to be committed, intelligent, and trustworthy - but had to pick only two of them.

I think our communities will be well served by whoever wins election in the four townships that we cover at the Frontenac News.

The candidates are all in it to promote their communities and make them work better. Some veteran council members were a bit defensive because of what they know about how councils operate, and some of the decisions that have been made over the years, but their experience is valuable and necessary. And, some new candidates might be naive and over-enthusiastic about what can be accomplished by a municipal council, but they will learn quickly enough about the limitations they will face, and how decisions made in good faith sometimes lead to unintended outcomes.

Some of them would be more effective on council than others, to be sure, but that is why we hold elections.

I must say, however, that everything about municipal elections is better than federal or provincial elections. The candidates speak for themselves, the questions at all candidates meetings are direct. Candidates sometimes say surprising things, and sometimes they say they do not have an answer.

Ultimately, I wish all the candidates the best, the winners and losers alike.

Finally, one specific apology.

First, of the 55 candidates I interviewed, one profile never appeared in the newspaper. On October 6, under the picture of Susan Irwin of Oso District in Central Frontenac, the text for Dan Meeks (Olden Ward in Central Frontenac) had been pasted in over Susan's, (in addition to it appearing in his own apot.

We decided to reprint all of the Oso District profiles the next week, but because of space issues we printed them as a flyer inserted in the newspapers that went to readers living in that district, but in Susan's case that meant her profile did not appear in the paper at all, and to make matters worse the one that was printed on the flyer contained an error. (The correct version of Susan Irwin’s profile is printed on page 6 of this edition)

Election results will be posted at frontenacnews.ca and on our social media feeds soon after 8pm on October 24, and will be published in our October 27 edition.