It was billed as a Special Council meeting to establish North Frontenac’s ‘Goals’ for 2019-2022’s Strategic Plan, but Coun. John Inglis opened up another topic — Mayor Ron Higgins’ interview on Lake 88 (available as a podcast on the radio station’s website) in which Higgins talked about the Township, his role as Frontenac County Warden and then his plans for One Small Township, a multi-faceted plan for economic development that Council has yet to buy into. Inglis said it sounded like Higgins was talking about Township involvement in the project when he used the term ‘we’ in that part of the interview. “You should have mentioned that the Township doesn’t support it,” Inglis said. “We agreed you would no longer imply the Township was behind…

Back on Nov. 9, Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston MPP Randy Hillier send a letter to Rod Philips, Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks regarding growing concerns with the activities of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority and the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority. The letter asked that the section “an authority may enter into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a municipality situated in whole or in part within its area of jurisdiction in respect of programs and services that the authority provides on behalf of the municipality” be deleted. Hillier copied the letter to municipalities in his riding, asking for their support. North Frontenac deferred the request, directing the Mayor to contact Hillier for clarification. That clarification came Friday at a special meeting of North Frontenac Council. In the…

Despite a rather lengthy agenda that included a public meeting on a unique proposal for a family recreational complex on Kashwakamak Lake, an afternoon information session/open house on the new Zoning Bylaw and recognition of long-serving employees, there wasn’t much actual business done at North Frontenac’s last regular Council meeting before the new Council takes over in December. The proposed development on Kashwakamak prompted county Manager of Community Planning Megan Rueckwald to comment: “this is quite site specific. “The Zoning Bylaw is not going to service every single property in North Frontenac.” Rueckwald said they have received “a number” of letters and emails on the proposal. “I know the Kash Association is against four or five families there because of potential congestion,” said Coun. Gerry…

The Clar-Mill Community Archives’ latest project is cataloguing North Frontenac’s cemeteries and as such coordinator Brenda Martin was at North Frontenac’s regular Council meeting last Friday in Plevna to outline how they plan to go about it. “One of the first mysteries to unravel will be the determination of the oldest cemetery in North Frontenac,” Martin said. “Until a recent find, Playfair Cemetery was recorded as the oldest. “Perhaps it is the oldest ‘registered’ cemetery.” Watkins Cemetery (Lot 20 NER, Clarendon) on private land was recently identified and markers and historical writings would place this as the oldest cemetery in the Township with graves dating to 1862 when Bramwell Watkins had Pierpont dig a grave for his brother, Delany, who drowned in Fawn Lake on…

On Sunday evening (Sept. 30) a fire swept through a residential building that at one time was the schoolhouse for the Village of Ompah. The building had been converted into a single family dwelling in the years following the school’s close in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. It was occupied by a family of 4 until this week. The family is reportedly living in Perth and a number of local people are attempting to reach out to support them. “The good news was that no one was injured in the fire. I believe the family pets made it out unscathed as well,” said North Frontenac Fire Chief Eric Korhonen. Korhonen said that North Frontenac Firefighters and the Kaladar Barrie department responded to the fire.…