While the Ottawa area and the Muskokas have been battling floods all spring, mainland Frontenac County has pretty much escaped the worst of things.

All three townships have posted warnings on their websites but only North Frontenac has had to do much flood fighting of any note, and that hasn’t been bad, said Director of Emergency Services/Fire Chief Eric Korhonen.

“When they opened the dam on the Mazinaw, it created some flooding on Head Road,” he said. “We’ve had water over the road in Plevna, a little bit of flooding on Kash and in the Snow Road area, there have been five or six homes flooded along the Mississippi.

“We’ve given out about 3,000 sand bags and I’d really like to commend the citizen volunteers and firefighters who have risen to the occasion,” he said. “We’ve had seven culverts go and seven road washouts but the Public Works Department has really been on the ball.

“There’s no need to call an emergency.

“If residents have problems, they can call us and we’ll have firefighters run out there with pumps.”

In Central and South Frontenac Townships, flooding has been virtually non-existent.

“We’ve fared very well compared with others,” said Central Frontenac Emergency Management Coordinator/Fire Chief Greg Robinson. “We have had some road washouts and flooding but no houses have been flooded.”

Robinson said when Central has flooding issues, it’s commonly in the Depot Lakes area but this year they’ve been more concerned about the northern areas.

“The Salmon River is high,” he said. “We’ve been preparing for flooding and we do have a sandbag program but we haven’t had to implement it.”

“(South Frontenac) is in excellent shape, comparatively speaking,” said Fire Chief Darcy Knott. “We haven’t had any significant issues.”

Knott wanted to remind people that the Township is holding a Touch-the-Truck event May 9 from 5-8 p.m. at the Keeley Road Garages in conjunction with United Way, where people can see and touch the equipment emergency personnel use including police and paramedics.

Over in neighbouring Addington Highlands Township, things haven’t been quite as quiet, said Road and Waste Management Supervisor Brett Reavie.

“We’ve had a couple of washouts (including Hughes Landing Road where crews worked through the night to correct the situation) we’ve worked on,” Reavie said. “We’re busy for sure.

“Rose Hill Road is still down because we’re waiting on getting a culvert.”

He said area waters are still high, especially in the north.

“It’s been a little extreme because of the amount of snowfall we had all winter,” he said. “And in the north, it’s tending to stick around because it didn’t get the thaws that the south end of the Township got.

“The north didn’t get the melts the south got and so it’s tending to come all at once.”

I have often wondered why the tax rates in the Frontenac townships vary so much, and why it is that residents living in my own township, Central Frontenac, pay a much higher tax rate than anyone else.

It should be easy to compare tax rates in neighbouring townships in the same county, because they all have the same mix of responsibilities. Frontenac County has no roads department, the local townships pay for all road maintenance costs (except for Hwy 7) themselves. In Lanark and Lennox and Addington Counties for example, there have county roads, making county taxes higher and municipal taxes lower than in Frontenac.

But when we look at the tax rates in Frontenac, it is rather alarming, certainly for a resident of Central Frontenac. The rates are not similar at all. The rate in South Frontenac (using 2017 figures) is $597 per $100,000 in property assessment, in North Frontenac it is $675, and in Central Frontenac it is $841.

What that means, in the most extreme cases, is much higher tax for less service in Central Frontenac as opposed to South Frontenac.

Identical houses located on either side of Boundary Road (where the Frontenac Arena is located), which divides South and Central Frontenac would pay radically different amounts of tax, and the lower taxed house on the south side of the road would have curbside garbage pickup while the higher taxed house in Central Frontenac would not. If the houses were both assessed at $200,000, the difference in taxes would be $488 per year. A pretty raw deal for the poor sod who lives on the north side of the road.

But it it not reasonable to condemn Central Frontenac Council or laud South Frontenac Council based on this one case. There are other factors involved.

The assessed value of a house and property are based on the size and features of a house, and also its location. If you took a house on from Mountain Grove and plopped it down on an identical lot on Rutlege Road it would gain value because of its location within a short drive from Kingston. And of course waterfront, anywhere in Frontenac, is assessed at a much higher value.

This raises a fundamental issue when looking at municipal finances. The number of households in a township is the major factor in determining the cost of services. It is literally the case when it comes to OPP costs, which are charged to the townships on the basis of the number of households, and it is also the case for road, fire, waste disposal and virtually all municipal costs. But numbers of households is not the basis for taxation, property assessment is. Houses are taxed based on their resale value, not on the cost to provide services to the people living in them.

There are over 10,000 homes in South Frontenac, about 4,000 in Central and about 3,500 in North Frontenac.

When you look at the total amount of taxes collected in the three townships as a factor of the number of households, they are pretty comparable. The “amount to be raised by taxation” for 2017 in South Frontenac was $18.5 million, in Central Frontenac it was $7.3 million and in North Frontenac it was $5.6 million.

In percentage terms, Central Frontenac has about 39% of the population that South Frontenac has and collects about 39% of the number of tax dollars as well. North Frontenac, with 35% of the population of South Frontenac, but collects only about 30% of the amount of tax dollars.

The reason it costs more per $100,000 in assessment for ratepayers in Central and North Frontenac, is entirely due to lower average property values.

Again, looking at Frontenac County, in 2017 the average home in South Frontenac was assessed at $307,000, the average home in North Frontenac was assessed at $250,000 and the average assessment in Central Frontenac was $217,500.

In fact, when put through a simple formula based on relative property values, the $814 that Central Frontenac ratepayers pay per $100,000 in assessment, equates to $588 in South Frontenac, $9 less than what South Frontenac ratepayers pay. The $675 per $100,000 that North Frontenac ratepayers pay equates to about $550, $47 less than South Frontenac.

Does this mean the smaller townships are actually more efficient than the larger one?

Not necessarily, as there are many other factors at play. For example, North Frontenac has more seasonal residents than the other townships, who only need service 6 or 3 months out of the year. As well, the amount of paved and/or unpaved roads in each township are a function of geography and not the number of households.

North and Central Frontenac both maintain multiple community halls, and most halls in South Frontenac are owned and maintained by community groups, but South Frontenac has a museum, and garbage pickup.

An analysis of the number of households, taxes collected, and average tax assessment, based only on rudimentary mathematics, leads me to conclude that the three townships are pretty similar in the way they finance their operations.

If there are significant differences, they relate to levels of service, not the amount of taxes collected.

When the Ontario Liberal government took power in 2003, one of the key issues for municipal governments was dealing with all of the downloaded costs that had been one of the features of municipal amalgamation under the previous Conservative administration under Mike Harris.

The municipal share of costs for social programs, ambulance service, policing, and other services had increased or been instituted for the first time. While the McGuinty, and now the Wynne Liberals have not taken uploaded entire sectors as municipalities had wished, they have uploaded some costs. They also brought in, early in their first mandate, a funding program aimed at helping more vulnerable municipalities cope with the cost of uploaded services. Over time, the program, which is now called the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) has become focussed on helping rural, remote and financially challenged municipalities cope with a variety of costs. The program includes a rural communities grant, a fiscal circumstances grant, and an assessment equalization grant.

The way the program works in 2018, larger municipalities (in relative terms) such as South Frontenac, which has over 10,000 households and an average property assessment of $307,000, will receive $1.52 million in 2018, up slightly from $1.49 in 2017.

A smaller township, such as Addington Highlands, with 2,500 households and an average property assessment of $177,000 will be receiving $2.04 million, up from $1.8 million in 2017.

To illustrate the realtive impact of the grant on the two townships budgets, the OMPF grant for South Frontenac equals less than 8% of the amount council collects from taxpayers, whereas in Addington Highlands it equals about 75%.

North Frontenac Township will receive $1.6 million in OMPF payments in 2018, up $240,000 from the $1.4 million that they received last year. There are 3,500 households listed for North Frontenac at an average value of $250,000.

Central Frontenac Township will receive $2.05 million in 2018, up $75,000 from $193 million in 2017. There are 4,100 households in Central Frontenac, at an average value of $218,000.

It started up 74 years ago, during the second world war in 1943, when the idea of forming a marketing organization for a region that was just developing road access was pretty forward thinking.

Over the years the Land O’Lakes Tourist Association (LOLTA) has seen many ups and downs, and this week in Sharbot Lake the current Board of Directors took the difficult decision to disband.

Harvey Webster, the Manager of the Loughborough Inn, was the chair of LOLTA until Monday. He has been an active member and a member of the Board of Directors over the years.

He said that while LOLTA is shutting down, the marketing work that it had been doing will carry on.

“It was a sad situation but its not that the Land o’Lakes are disappearing. The counties and local townships have stepped in over the last few years, and the provincial Regional Tourist Organisations (RTO’s) have come on stream as well. For our members, there are still opportunities for promotion as part of a region even with us closing down,” he said.

“As far as I am concerned LOLTA is not buried yet, it is more like it is more like it is on hold. If the municipalities and RTO’s step back, we will need LOLTA again.”

The storied history of LOLTA was the subject of a video that was made by Ken Hook in 2013. Hook served as LOLTA manager for one year, after the departure of Terry Shea, manager between 2003 and 2008.

The video outlines how the association got its start as a group of fishing lodges from Tweed, the region called “North Addington” at the time, which is now Stone Mills and Addington Highlands townships, and “North Frontenac”, which at the time referred to the region of Frontenac County north of Verona.

The focus of the association was for lodges and other groups to take advantage of the opportunities that were to come as the war ended and US tourists began to look northward for fishing opportunities. Membership dues went up in 1947 to $5 per season.

Over the years the association changed as new leaders came forward, two of whom, Jeanette Whitfield (1963 -1966) and Faye Henry (1979 -1996) were interviewed. They both talked about issues that were specific to their day, but also to issues that remain relevant today. For example, Henry talked about how much effort it took for the region to be noticed by various levels of government, and they both talked about the need for businesses to work together.

LOLTA was able to access grant money for its members through the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs between the late 1990’s and 2010, but those programs dried up or were diverted to municipalities.

The LOLTA region, which had expanded over the decades to include all Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Counties and the Municipality of Tweed, was essentially cut in half when the province of Ontario set up the RTO’s a few years ago. The Ontario Highlands Region includes North and Central Frontenac, Addington Highlands and Tweed, but Stone Mills, South Frontenac, Napanee, and Frontenac Islands are all part of the Great Waterway region.

Having members split into two regional organizations did not help LOLTA, which has struggled in recent years as managers have come and gone. A couple of years ago, the LOLTA office in Kaladar was shut down and long serving office administrator Joanne Cuddy was let go.

LOLTA was run out of the home office of its latest manager, Jen Fitzpatrick, until she left.

The board began to consider shutting LOLTA down when they realised that, as volunteers who were all busy working on their own businesses, they did not have the energy, or finances, to carry on.

I guess that the Land O’Lakes Tourist Association basically ran its course,” said Harvey Webster. “With the Internet and these other government options that there are for these businesses to be promoted, and the fact that we are a volunteer board, there was nothing for us to do but shut down.”

So, just months from its 75th anniversary, LOLTA is no more.

The Ducharme family is pretty busy these days. Not only are they installing thousands of lights at just the correct location in the four acre patch of property that they decorate for Christmas each year, there is also the matter of preparing the Singing Trees.

“We store about 80% of the lights each year and put them up in new locations to keep the display new,”said Greg Ducharme early this week, “and tee Singing Trees are new for us this year. The lights are hooked in to a computer so they respond to the music that is played through the system. It really looks like the trees are singing when you see it in action.”

Ducharme is waiting for the final piece of equipment to come in from Kansas City to hook up four trees, and the singing trees will be the centrepiece of the display at Riverhill farms this Christmas season. The display will be complete and ready for the opening evening, which coincides with the Ompah-Plevna Santa Clause Parade.

Riverhill farms is located on Struthadam Road, which is off River Road. Riverr Road runs between Ardoch Road (near Ardoch) and 509 (at Ompah) in North Frontenac Township.

For the past four years, Ducharme’s past time of putting up Christmas lights, which started in 2008 with the birth of his grand-daughter, has been a public event that is a highlight of the Christmas season in the region.

“We kept adding to it and adding to it as each year progressed, more and more people were coming in the driveway. We tried opening it to the public for the first time four years ago and it has been very successful,” he said.

The lights are turned on each evening between November 25 and New Years, and the Ducharmes keep then lights on until 9pm on weeknights and 10pm on weekends.

For three Saturday evenings during that time (December 2, 9, and 16) between 5pm and 8pm there will be wagon rides, hot chocolate, coffee, donuts, and pancakes and sausage or bacon and home-made maple syrup available as well.

Bus trips for 30 passengers or more can be arranged by calling Greg at 613-282-3276. Please provide one week’s notice.

The entire enterprise is about sharing the Ducharme families’ passion for Christmas lights that bring joy to the cold, dark fall evenings.

“I’ve lived a pretty blessed life,” said Ducharme, “and this is my way to give back some joy and Christmas spirit.”

The Riverhill Christmas Lights Show is free to view. The only charge is for refreshments on the three special Saturday Nights. There is a jar available for donations to help cover costs.

North Frontenac Township announced it has hired a new public works manager at its regular Council meeting last Friday in Ompah.

Darwyn Sproule becomes the new public works manager effective Nov. 20, replacing Jim Phillips who earlier this year announced his retirement date as Dec. 22, 2017.
In a press release, CAO Cheryl Robson said: “Darwyn brings a wealth of knowledge as a professional engineer and 34 years of experience with the Ministry of Transportation in a management capacity.
“We look forward to working with Darwyn.”

The press release also said: “We sincerely appreciate the level of expertise that (Phillips) brought to our Township and wish Jim all the best in his future endeavours.”
“This is a good news story and great for our Township,” said Coun. Gerry Martin, chair of the Personnel and Audit Committee.”

Council also heard presentations from Carrie Salisbury, community coordinator for the Heart of Hastings Hospice on visiting Hospice Services in rural Frontenac, Lennox & Addington and an assessment update from Beverley Disney and Kim Bennett from MPAC.

North Frontenac’s two representatives on Frontenac County Council, Mayor Ron Higgins and Coun. John Inglis, are diametrically opposed when it comes to a proposed County contribution to the Hospitals Foundation in Kingston.
The County hasn’t quite finished its budget process yet but Higgins is opposed to $54,000 this year and another proposal to continue a similar commitment for 10 years as the County had been doing.
“My problem is that the commitment ended,” said Higgins. “I don’t think taxpayers dollars should go to contributions.”
Inglis, on the other hand, is in favour of the contributions.
“I’m in favour of it but I’m the only one,” Inglis said.
Although he doesn’t get a vote, Coun. Wayne Good isn’t in favour either.
“We voted you (Inglis) in to represent this Council,” said Good. “You wont’ be voted in again if I have any say in it.”

As Mayor Ron Higgins was giving his report from County Council, North Frontenac Coun. Gerry Martin voiced his displeasure at there being no plans for the K & P Trail to be extended past Sharbot Lake.
“I hear no discussion of any section going north through our area to connect to the Lanark and Renfrew Trails,” Martin said. “I think we’re remiss in not connecting to north of 7.”

At the urging of Coun. Gerry Martin, North Frontenac will contact Metroland Media to protest its decision to limit distribution of the Perth Courier in North Frontenac to one outlet.
“Only in Plevna is unacceptable,” he said.

Newspapers don’t often do advance stories for local council meetings but in this case, North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins is scheduled to present his vision for a self-sustaining community at a special Council meeting following North Frontenac’s regular meeting at the Ompah Community Hall this Friday at 1 p.m.
The agendas for both meetings are on the Township’s website.

Higgins has been working on his presentation for months now.

“The special meeting is to introduce North Frontenac’s One Small Town project to move North Frontenac into becoming a self-sustainable municipality at some point in the future,” Higgins said. “This project is literally a world first.”
And indeed it is.

Without getting into too many spoilers, here are a few things you might want to know about the concept.
A big part of it is based on ‘contribution’ from its residents whereby community members provide three hours a week (strictly voluntary) in return for benefits like free electricity.
Some of the contributions could be:

• Apiary (bee keeping): This could include the obvious honey production as well as wax for candle making, queen husbandry and starter hives.
“We would identify how much honey our community needs for those who contribute their three hours a week,” the implementation plan says. “Once we know how much honey our community needs for those who contribute their three hours a week, we triple that amount.
“The other two-thirds would be sold within and outside the community at a slightly higher price than it cost to produce but substantially lower than market prices due to a lack of significant labour related costs.
“Once the initial investment is paid off, the full two-thirds will go into the sustainability fund, which will be used to fund new projects.”

• Forest products manufacturing: Three areas have been identified in the plan — canoe making, furniture and wood pellet manufacturing.
“Over the winter of 2018 a canoe will be built in the recently acquired Plevna facility,” the plan said. “This canoe will be made to show the community the quality of canoes that can be made (and) publicity would be enhanced by raffling off the canoe.
“Once an adequate facility is in place, canoe making will become a new project and applying the contributionism model will allow free canoes for those who contribute.”
Two other proposals include furniture making once a facility has been established and pellets for pellet stoves manufacturing.
“This item (pellet manufacturing) has been talked about before and one of the restrictions to starting up was the upfront costs,” the plan said. “By building our sustainability fund, we will eventually be in a position to establish a facility within North Frontenac.”

• Aquatic and agricultural food production: The production will be based on a food requirement assessment to be conducted in early 2018.
Other areas in the planning stages include a health and wellness centre, a First Nations centre (tanning, crafts, education) and eco-tourism.
One of the more intriguing aspects of the proposal is a partnership of sorts with Langenburg Technologies from Eugene, Oregon, who use water systems to generate electricity. Under the proposal, Langenburg would install approximately $20 million worth of equipment and recover their investment by selling power into the grid. To do this, they would require an electrical infrastructure assessment that would cost $280,000 but Higgins has said he’s had discussions with an Ontario Electricity Distributors representative who suggested this project could “probably get full funding.”
If the electrical generation aspect works, then providing free electricity to the various contribution activities should provide an aspect that has been an impediment for many would-be startups in the past.
“As an example if we were to mass produce tilapia (the common name for almost a hundred species of cichlid fish that are increasing in importance in aquaculture and aquaponics) there would be about four harvests per year with a capacity to produce about 240 tons per year with a yield of 35 per cent to produce fillets,” the plan said. “the required total installed electrical effect is about 200kW for the fish farming equipment and the average effect during normal operation will be 100-120kW.”

If Council approves the plan, the first step would be to get funding in place for the electricity infrastructure assessment, Higgins’ presentation concludes.
Council will be presented with three options ranging from accepting the report for information purposes only to authorizing the Mayor to supporting implementation of the plan.

After Fire Chief Eric Korhonen and consultant Terry Gervais completed a power point presentation of how they intended to go about drafting the 2017 Master Fire Plan, North Frontenac Council was pretty specific about what it didn’t want - an expensive and complicated document.
The presentation came at North Frontenac Council’s regular meeting last Friday morning in Harlowe.

“I guess I have one concern that this is ballooning into a huge project,” said Coun. John Inglis. “We had looked at some fairly simple document.
“What will this cost? Are we getting into too much detail?”
“I don’t see the cost becoming too exorbitant,” said Korhonen.
“There’s a huge potential pitfall there,” said Coun. Gerry Martin. “We tried this before.
“We had too much input and ended up getting nothing.”
“You’re absolutely right, it can go in too many ways,” said Gervais. “But I’ll be developing questions very tailored to your needs.”

Mayor Ron Higgins asked for quarterly reports on the project.

“We will give your reports when we hit critical points,” said Gervais. “We don’t want to come in here on June 1 and drop a huge document on you.”
Council expressed its concerns about Bill 148 – Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 and the implications it could have for rural municipalities’ fire departments, especially in the areas of vacation pay, scheduled time and the 3-hour minimum rule.
“This is big-city thinking and would totally destroy rural fire departments,” said Coun. John Inglis.

Council drafted a resolution to this effect to be shared with neighbouring municipalities and AMO.Mayor Ron Higgins said he expects to have a report on an “Ubuntu Contributionism Implementation Plan” for one of the two Council meetings in November.
Coun. Gerry Martin told Council the committee looking after Remembrance Day ceremonies is looking for family military memorabilia for a display.
“The memorabilia will be returned,” he said. “Anyone with memorabilia to share is asked to contact Brenda Martin at 613-479-2837.”

He said the members of the Tweed Legion will be coming to the cenotaph in Plevna this year, following the closure of the Northbrook Legion branch.

Nestled into Ridge Lane near Ardoch, where a group of cottages front on Malcolm Lake, you’ll find Red Dragon Studio and Gift Shop, where Cathy Owen displays her watercolours, stained glass, mixed media, sculpture soaps and beauty products.
This was Studio 10 on this year’s North Frontenac Back Roads Studio Tour and the fourth time Owen has participated in the annual event.

“It’s a little quieter this year, other years have been much busier,” she said on Saturday morning. “But there are 24 artisans this year and it’s a big area.
“The weather has certainly been a blessing.”

It was indeed a beautiful fall Saturday. And that allowed Owen to bring many pieces outside for display, a space she spared with her daughter, Wendy Clement, who was showing watercolours, acrylics and mosaic pieces made of glass and tile.
While she works in various media, Owen definitely has a preference.

“My true love is watercolours,” she said. “I teach watercolours here and in Ottawa (her winter home).
She said she and her husband, Trevor, were drawn to the area for the “peace and quiet” and because it was much more affordable that areas south of Hwy 7 they’d looked at.
She’d always wanted a studio and this place was perfect for her.

“We named it Red Dragon Studio for my husband’s Welsh background,” she said. “He’s always been my encourager from the beginning and he even bought me my first sketch pencils.
“I couldn’t have don it without him.”

She said after a short time as strictly an art studio, she added the ‘gift shop’ part and started selling soap and jewelry.
“That’s gone rather well,” she said. “I have a lot of repeat customers in the summer.

“It’s especially convenient for people who don’t want to drive all the way to the city when they need to buy a gift.”
This year’s tour featured featured 24 artists and artisans in 15 studios from Myers Cave to Snow Road Station and as far north as Buckshot Lake Road.

North Frontenac Council decided at its regular meeting Friday in Ompah that it was sometimes OK to have two cottages on a property temporarily, as long as the original one is slated for demolition. In 2011, Sarah Whittaker bought a property with and old cottage on it which she wanted to demolish once a new cottage was built. Whittaker currently teaches in Dubai and wanted to get started on the new cottage but was told recently that she couldn’t get a building permit until the old cottage came down. Charlene Cottle represented Whittaker (who is in Dubai) and told Council this presented several hardships for Whittaker. “She’s already hired a contractor and they want to lay the foundation this fall,” Cottle said. “They’d also like to house the workers in the current cottage to keep costs lower and Whittaker would like to live in it next spring while the new cottage is being built. “She has nowhere else to live in Canada.”

Cottle said it was her understanding that this isn’t the first time this sort of arrangement has been done in the Township. “The contractors said there has been no problems with doing this in the past,” she said. “I know in the past it’s been common practice,” said Coun. Vernon Hermer. “I think it’s a difference of opinion between building inspectors,” said Mayor Ron Higgins. “The current inspector was following the letter of the law.” CAO Cheryl Robson said such things are due to be covered when the Zoning Bylaw is updated but for now a temporary use agreement would be issued. “That should cover us for now,” she said. Furniture to be debated on its own A fair amount of debate at Friday’s meeting was devoted to furniture for the new Council Chambers at the renovated Township Hall. CAO Cheryl Robson said she was hopeful the Council Chambers would be ready for the first meeting in January 2018. But first they need to decide on furniture. “I’m in favour of modular,” said Mayor Ron Higgins. “It’s versatile.” “I’d like something more permanent,” said Coun. Denis Bedard. “Something we can be proud of for 20 years.” “To me, it stands with function,” said Coun. John Inglis. “I don’t even know how long the room is.”

Council decided they needed a special meeting to discuss furniture and set the date of Sept. 29 at 1 p.m. in the Plevna firehal Hedgerow and home for telescope at Vewing pad In a brief interview before the meeting, Mayor Ron Higgins acknowledged that plans for a hedgerow or similar structure to block out headlights at the Star Gazing Pad on 506 hadn’t been brought to fruition but added “nothing’s been brought to Council for approval.” However, Higgins also acknowledged the Pad is “getting more popular and people are coming in from outside the Township.” He said he hoped the issue would be addressed when they decide on a building to house the telescope that’s been donated to the site. “We have an agreement with the building inspector,” he said.