John Inglis | Feb 03, 2016


The headline in the January 21 Frontenac News (New Ompah Firehall in need of repair, Jan 21/16) grabs our attention but it gives very much the wrong impression about a successful community-based project. The report below the headline contains erroneous statements made by councillors - my special interest in telling my understanding of the story is that I was on the task force as Council representative for the project.

Some minor problems of contract completion came to the attention of Council last November when a local community group refused to pay the $50,000 it had promised toward a $300,000 renovation of the Ompah Community Centre and Firehall (one combined building). The group is the Ompah Community Volunteer Association, host of the twice-yearly ATV run in this area. They had dedicated the money to build a new community centre entrance, which is complete and is heavily used. For some reason they were protesting inaction in finishing up some items in the Firehall portion of the renovation. Probably because the history and membership of the group is actually centred around the volunteer fire department in Ompah. In any case, their protest caught the attention of Council; a meeting was held in December; and a process to fix the problems was started.

Councillor Bedard has repeatedly said that “the biggest and most major issue is that the floor was improperly installed”. A concrete surface with in-floor heating. The floor was NOT improperly installed and it is irresponsible for Bedard to say this. It insults the contractor Judy Hitchcock, the volunteer project manager Steve Sunderland and building inspector (at the time) George Gorrie. Councillor Martin said “Our building inspector pretty much refused to do interim inspections”, which is also not true. Many interim inspections of the renovation were done by George Gorrie, often at the request of contractor Hitchcock when there were questions of how to proceed. Gorrie is now retired, and township staff seem to be having trouble locating reports of all the inspections he did. In fact there were other big changes as this renovation moved toward completion. Fire Chief Steve Riddell (Council liaison with the contractor) retired, plus an election brought a new mayor and two new councillors.

We have a beautiful and functional new building in the community. It would not have happened by the safe and normal route of hiring a full-service contractor from Kingston or Belleville. We had tried that route and found the cost far too high. Instead we contracted out the job in smaller pieces, using community expertise to design and manage. At the end there were minor cleanup issues of plumbing and electrical installations. I’d like to focus on the positive aspects of what we’ve achieved.

John Inglis, North Frontenac councilor

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