Loughborough residents have their say at Town Hall meeting

Craig Bakay | Feb 12, 2020

About 30 residents attending the Town Hall meeting in Perth Road Village last Saturday. The event was organized by the two South Frontenac Council members representing Loughborough District — Coun. Randy Ruttan and Dep. Mayor Ross Sutherland.

“This is an opportunity to hear your concerns,” Sutherland said. “Everything is on the table.”

“I don’t pretend to know what your concerns are but I know what mine are,” Ruttan said. “I ran for Council because some things bother me.”

First up was the concept of having a property standards bylaw instead of a safe properties bylaw.

“Who’s going to decide what is junk?” was one comment.

“There have been property standards bylaws that prevented people from having gardens in their front yards that were struck down in courts,” Sutherland said.

Other comments included that such bylaws tend to pit neighbour against neighbour, tend to be expensive to enforce, “you can’t apply city standards to rural settings,” to one resident offering to take neighbours’ junk to the dump in his pickup.

That conversation morphed into a septic inspection program.

Ruttan suggested residents be required to prove they’ve had their septics pumped out every five years or so.

Another resident was annoyed that “people are dumping garbage on my farm . . . and growing marijuana on it.”

It wasn’t all complaints and/or new rules suggestions however. One resident was “very proud to see the involvement in conservancy in our area.”

Access to high speed internet and cell phone coverage was a huge issue for residents in the Buck Lake area.

Some Perth Road residents were interested to know what were the next steps with the firehall, along with concerns about increased commerial traffic on Perth Road.

Others were annoyed that there was no available access to the Point Park docks on Canada Day.