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…

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…

NAEC students turned out in force on Thursday, September 28, to raise money in the annual Terry Fox Run. Student’s Council set a goal of $2,500 in sponsorships. The money has all been collected, and the final tally comes to $3,019.25 – over $500 higher than the goal.As well as obtaining sponsorships, 48 students and staff bought Terry Fox T-shirts, which also contributed to the fundraising. Ms. Shepherd’s class won free breakfasts for raising the most Secondary money, while Ms. Dunham’s class won free sundaes for being the top Elementary earners.Greg Garey, Alexus Wagner, Henry Hasler, Raistlin Lloyd, Avery Gaylord, and Maggie Hasler raised $100 or more each. “We are very proud that our little school was able to meet and exceed an ambitious target,”…

If the firefighting thing doesn’t work out, Stan Seitz may have a future in speech writing as his reception of a 35-year service pin produced one of the better acceptance speeches in municipal awards history. “It started out in this very room (in the Ompah fire hall/community hall) in 1980,” he said. “That door there led to the outhouse. “There was an old woodstove and firefighters were expected to bring a log or two for meetings. “We had no truck, no equipment, no uniforms . . . but we had spirit. “We saw it as our job to make somebody who was having a very bad day feel a little bit better. “I feel I should warn the Mayor and Council — it’s going to…

Generally speaking, in the 10 years the volunteers have been holding ATV run fundraisers in Ompah, the beginning of summer event is usually busier than the end of summer one. But this year the trend was reversed with about 545 riders registered, said one of the organizers, Lindy Hay.Perhaps it was because of the nice weather. “It’s ridiculously hot and there are blackflies and mosquitos,” Hay said. “But then, I’m a winter girl. “The riders seem to be happy.” “A little light rain last night would’ve made a world of difference, but it’s still wonderful,” said rider Brent Lightbody, who came from Smiths Falls.But it seems that for most people these days, just getting out on the trails with their ATVs is a fun thing…