Members of the Frontenac Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) are investigating thefts from vehicles and a home in the Battersea area of South Frontenac Township. 

The investigation started on January 4, 2020 when a resident of Battersea Road reported that their home had been entered and their mini-van taken from the driveway. The vehicle was found a short time later on Sunbury Road. A purse, clothing, gift cards, cash and other items taken from the home were not recovered. The investigation led to numerous other incidents in the area where locked and unlocked vehicles were entered. In many cases nothing was taken, while in other cases loose change and other items were removed.

The incidents are believed to be connected. The OPP advises everyone to ensure homes and vehicles are locked at all times and people should not leave any valuables in parked cars, even in your driveway.

This investigation is continuing. If you have any information, please call the Frontenac OPP at 1-888-310-1122.

Christine Fader spent 20 years at Queen’s University as a career counsellor, with a focus on helping students with disabilities. She now runs Career Cupid, which helps people define and achieve their goals, and is the writer of career related books. Her most recent book is ‘Just What The Doctor Ordered’, a detailed primer for students who are seeking to get into medical school.

Before she embarked on her career, Christine took disability studies at Loyalist College, graduating in 1994.

The Premier’s awards honour Ontario college graduates who have made significant contributions in Ontario and around the world. There are seven categories in the award competition and Christine is nominated in the community services category.

“I think I was nominated by Loyalist because my career has demonstrated how the disability studies program can lead to a lot of career opportunities, even if I don’t work directly in developmental services,” she said on Sunday as she was preparing to travel to Toronto for the awards dinner.

She said that these awards are important because they bring to light the accomplishments of people who opt for a college education instead of seeking a university education.

“I worked in a university setting for 20 years, and while Queen’s is a good place to learn, I came across many students, over the years, who would have been better served by a college education,” she said. “A lot of my colleagues thought I came through university because they had bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but the training I had in disability studies at Loyalist served me well.”

Among her accomplishments, she is proud of the work she did over two years, as a community member on the employment standards development committee with the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services. The committee developed accessibility legislation that was enacted last year and will roll out over the next few years.

In her current career path, running a home-based business in South Frontenac, she helps people to enter into their chosen career, as a writer as well as a consultant.

While she was flattered by the nomination, Christine did her research and concluded that she was not going to win the award.

“I don’t expect to win but it will be a fun evening. Winners of these awards have some very high-profile achievements. They have started not-for-profit corporations and overcome great obstacles.”

Her prediction did indeed come true. The winner in the community category this year was Kevin Collins. Collins was a poster child for Easter Seals as a young person with Cerebral Palsy, and is now the President and CEO of the Easter Seals Foundation, a post he was appointed to in 2017 after a career in the hospitality industry.

Christine Fader is back in Battersea, living out her dream by helping others accomplish theirs.

Nona Mariotti started up the South Frontenac Garden Tour last year as a kind of experiment.

Would gardeners be willing to open up their gardens for people to come and see? Would people want to come out to see the beautiful gardens.

The answer to all those questions was a resounding yes, and so the second annual garden tour is now in the planning stages. 7 gardens are already lined up for this year, including some new ones, and Nona is looking for four or five more to make the tour bigger than the one last year.

“People aren’t going to visit 12 gardens in one day, but they do like variety and they also like to explore different geography,” Nona said.

She is particularly interested in attracting some gardens in the Perth Road and Buck Lake regions to add a different dimension to the tour.

“We have some wonderful places in the North Kingston – Inverary areas, one in Battersea, and over in Sydenham and up towards Frontenac Park, and we are still looking for more in those regions, but we would like to go further north on Perth Road as well,” she said.

The tour is scheduled for July 7 from 9m to 3pm and it is only the grounds of properties that are part of the tour, not the houses themselves.

“Last year it was a great experience for the visitors and hosts alike, a chance to share information and the joy of gardens. We keep the price to the public low, only $10, and all of the proceeds go to Southern Frontenac Community Services,” she said.

If you have a garden to share, contact Nona at 613- 893-2015

Vandeross consulting (Ella Vanderburg and Katie Ross) is a new consulting company with a focus on helping small businesses in Kingston and Frontenac County.

They were approached recently by an organisation called Rural by Purpose to see if they wanted to participate in a pilot project that is focused on something that is normally associated with urban environments, freelance workers needing office space.

“We thought this idea was interesting, and approached Richard Allen to see if Frontenac County would like to participate in this, and when he said yes, we decided to give it a go,” said Katie Ross in a phone interview this week.

The local version of the project is called Coworking in Frontenac, and the week of May 6-10 is the target week for the project. During that week, participating Frontenac County businesses will be opening their doors and providing space for freelancers to work out of some unused space within their offices.

Vanderburg and Ross brought the coworking challenge concept to the April meeting of Frontenac County Council and have been helping find suitable locations over the last couple of weeks.

“So far we have found there are more people looking for places to set up than there are locations, and it looks like the main thing that freelancers in Frontenac County are looking for is reliable Internet service which many don’t have at home.”

An important aspect of coworking week, and one of the major goals of Rural on Purpose, which was co-founded by Belleville based Mary Doyle, is to retain and attract younger workers to rural communities. In blogs posted on the Rural on Purpose site, Doyle makes it clear that she believes it is only through retention and in-migration of youth that rural communities will survive. In one case, at the end of an entry, she talks directly to millennials, saying, “Do you want to create new ways of doing business? What support do you need from us?”

According to a media release from Frontenac County, the majority of the workforce is predicted to be freelance within a decade, and seventy-four percent of millennials are currently freelancing. Global coworking spaces are projected to grow from 14,411 in 2017 to just over 30,000 in 2022.

"More and more we find that people are working from their homes, so it has become important to let remote workers and entrepreneurs know they have places to connect in our communities. The Coworking Takeover Challenge is a great way to start thinking about how we can be freelance friendly," said Richard Allen, Manager of Economic Development at the County of Frontenac.

So far, a number of locations have committed to having space available for the coworking week, including the township office in Frontenac Islands, the Frontenac County office, Rural Frontenac Community Services offices in Sydenham and both of their Sharbot Lake locations, and Holiday Country Manor in Battersea.

Information about locations is available at coworkfrontenac.com by clicking on participating vendors. Further down the page, there is an option for both freelancers and potential hosts to register. The site also includes a voluntary survey.

“A major goal of the pilot is to identify the need for coworking within the four municipalities. Our goal is to bring together existing business with those working in isolation and providing access to resources such as reliable internet services, networking opportunities and business support,” said Ella Vanderburg.

“As we have gotten into it, we are seeing that we might need to extend the week to a couple of weeks to get the word out and get a true sense of the potential in Frontenac County. That will also give us time to locate more vendors throughout the county,” said Katie Ross. “We think the demand is there.”

Ross and Vanderburg will be monitoring the pilot to see how it is progressing, just as they are establishing their own permanent headquarters on Sydenham Road.

For further information, go to coworkfrontenac.com, or call /email Vandeross at 613-777-2200, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

When the owners of the Holiday County Manor, Jeff Day and Cor Lee, were living in Toronto, they enjoyed many of the cultural events, and one of their favourites was Cinco de Mayo.

They loved the food, the music, the cocktails, and the Pinatas. So, when they realised that the 5th of May is going to be on a Sunday this year, they thought that holding an afternoon party on the front porch and the lawn of the Manor would be a great way to kick off the summer season.

They are inviting their neighbours, and friends from around Frontenac County and the City of Kingston to enjoy some tacos, nachos, empanada’s, take a salsa lesson, dance a merengue, or drink a margarita. It runs from 2pm -6pm. Admission is free and everyone is welcome. Those who register in advance, which can be done at the Holiday Country Manor Facebook page, will automatically be eligible for door prizes.

“We want people to come out and enjoy themselves and have a party on a Sunday afternoon,” said Jeff Day. “It’s been a long winter.”

“We are also kicking off our season. We have a murder mystery night the following Saturday as part of our Mother’s Day Weekend, and then the Sunday brunch on Mother’s Day, which is always busy and this year will be extended to 3 o’clock, so we are excited about that as well,” said Cor Lee.

For those who have never been to the Holiday Country Manor, these events are a great way to be introduced to the historic building in the centre of Battersea that is enjoying a renaissance as a destination spot to eat and spend the night.

For further information, go to Holiday country Manor on Facebook or call 613-353-2211

Dianne Dowling has spent the past 9 years as the President of Local 316 of the National Farmers Union, but her involvement in organic growing and local food promotion goes back further than that. She has been farming with her husband at Double J Farms on Howe Island, a 200 acre organic beef and dairy farm, for many years (the farm is named for her husbands parents John and Joyce)

The farm was transitioned to organic in the late 1990’s, and in addition to working with the NFU, Dowling has been involved with the Food Policy Council for Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington, the Kingston Area Seed System Initiative (KASSI), Save our Prison Farms and a number of other groups as well. In fact, leaving the NFU Presidency will free up more time for some of the other projects she is committed to pursuing.

As she looks back, and forward, at this time of transition, Dowling sees that progress has been made in Kingston and Frontenac County in terms of awareness of the value of local, organic food over the past 20 years, but at the same time she recognises that for many, preparing food, any food, is a lost art.

“Food is very complicated,” she said. “The major food system is still dominated by large chains and grocery stores. Food is treated a commodity for profit, not a necessity that people should have a right to. There are transportation issues, nutrition issues, it goes on and on,” she said, in a telephone interview last week.

At the same time, through the efforts of organisations like the NFU and others, food awareness and the local farm and food industry have developed and grown.

“It is a worldwide phenomenon, the growth of local awareness and support. We’ve been doing things here at the same time as people have elsewhere.”

The NFU organised the Feast of Fields events, Food Down the Road - a local farm directory, a four year new farm project, and more, over the last dozen years or so. There has been a resurgence of interest in farming locally and the NFU has been a major part of that change.

“A couple of years ago Frontenac County had a student doing research into employment. The largest increase in employment in the county was in farming, so we know something has been happening.”

One of the ongoing projects in Kingston and Frontenac has been the CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmers Training) project, which is a North America wide concept devoted to increasing the skill level among farmers.

“It started here as a program based on farmers and interns at a bunch of farms. Once a month there would be a field day and work bee at someone’s farm. It was about community building and peer support. Eventually a lot of the vegetable farmers were transitioning more to employees than interns, but it has continued even as people have had fewer interns.”

The new President of the NFU Local 316 is Ian Stutt, a co-owner of Patchwork Gardens in Battersea, who has worked with the NFU for years, and was a staff member for the CRAFT project. Dianne Dowling is remaining as a Director, so there will be continuity in the local.

As Dowling pointed out, the NFU is anything but a lone wolf promoting sustainable agriculture and local food these days.

South Frontenac Council approved and adopted its 2018 budget at its regular meeting Tuesday night in Sydenham.

The Township will be collecting from $19,129,719, 2.92% more than the $18,586,507 it collected in 2017.

However, the Treasury department met the target set for them by Council. That target is based on a hypothetical average property value in the township, which would be worth $256,000 in 2017. That average property, which would have gone in assessed value up by $4,000 in 2017, would see an increase of 2% in township taxes, a little over $30.

This is just for the township. portion of the tax bill, which also includes Frontenac County taxes and School Board taxes. The final budget will not be approved until April, but with the township budget approcval this week, staff has a budget to work under from the start of the year on January 1st.

The biggest item in the budget is roadway maintenance at over $13 million followed by fire protection at over $3 million, policing at over $3 million and solid waste management at $2,7 million.

The lone dissenting vote against the budget came from Coun. Ross Sutherland.

“The proposed budget should not be supported because it is a budget of missed opportunities,” Sutherland said. “It fails to move forward on community development and engagement, it is not expanding resources to combat invasive species and climate change and it has fallen back on making important policy through back room compromises rather than publicly accountable debate.”

However, Mayor Ron Vandewal seemed quite pleased with the budget and praised staff.

“I’ve been through lots of budgets and they’re never fun,” Vandewal said. “Like that recent one at County.

“But staff bent over backwards and brought us a budget at 2 per cent like we asked for.”

Fermoy Hall, a “charming little building” - Barbeau
Coun. Brad Barbeau had served notice of motion that Council not proceed with any work on Fermoy Hall regardless of the funding source until the Heritage Committee met and made recommendations to Council.

But after touring the hall, Barbeau said he had a change of heart and withdrew his motion.

“I went to see Fermoy Hall and it’s a charming little building,” Barbeau said. “The Heritage Committee will be meeting in January and we’ll be discussing it.”

There is an allocation for work at the Hall in the 2018 budget and a note that a Trillium Grant has been applied for. There is a hold on the project pending the funding and direction from Council.

Inverary Lake zoning approved
Council passed a bylaw changing the zoning of a non-waterfront lot to be severed off a waterfront lot on Inverary Lake to Rural.

There had been opposition from the Inverary Lake Residents Association to the severance with concerns that this was only the first step towards a subdivision or plan of condominium development in the area and third reading of the bylaw was held up to address public concerns but Planner Lindsay Mills said this was the third and final lot to be severed from the original property.

“Do we know that this will come back as a condominium?” said Mayor Ron Vandewal. “No we don’t.

“But if it does, there will be conditions.”

Johnston Point species at risk issues left to County
Council decided not to petition the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to deny a proposed benefit permit to a development on Johnston Lake as requested by the Battersea Loughborough Lake Association.

The Association contends that only two of six species at risk (Blanding’s turtle and grey rat snake) have been addressed and there are four more (including the eastern whip-poor-will and three species of bats) species that should be examined before allowing the development to proceed.

Several councilors felt that the matter was now before Frontenac County and the County should be the ones to make such comments to the Environmental Registry 013-1130.

Coun. Alan Revill said he believed the Township “should not be commenting” but did file notice of motion to contact the MNRF to come to Council to explain its procedures.

Coun. John McDougall said that since the matter was before the County “it would be inappropriate for us (as a Township) to comment.”

“But any councilor may comment as an individual just as any resident can,” said Mayor Ron Vandewal.

Only Coun. Ross Sutherland voted in favour of the Township commenting.

Battersea resident, Tania Edgar, is inviting families to take a stroll through a candle-lit field and forest on her property in Battersea on the evenings of December 8, 9 and 10. She will be holding a Woodland Luminaries Walk as a way to share the peace of the holiday season and raise funds for Southern Frontenac Community Services Corp (SFCSC), which provides health and community services for seniors and low-income families.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a few years now,” says Tania, “and I just needed a reason to do it.” Tania has been working as a Personal Support Worker in the Adult Day Program at SFCSC. “I can see how much these seniors and their families value the support they get at SFCSC, and I’m happy to be a part of it.”

The Woodland Luminaries Walk will run from 6:30pm to 9:00pm on December 8th, 9th and 10th. The walk is located at 2248 Battersea Water Street in Battersea. Admittance is by donation of any amount, which will be donated to SFCSC to support the Adult Day and other programs. Guests will stroll through a pleasant field and forest setting lit by candles. Hot chocolate and candy treats will be on hand. “If we’re lucky, there will be a nice skiff of snow on the ground to add to the setting.”

For information, please call Tania Edgar at 613-888-3225

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For more information, contact:

Tania Edgar, 613-888-3225, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Andy Mills, Fund Development and Administration Manager, SFCSC, 613-376-6477, ext 205, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Battersea held what was perhaps its most successful ever Pumpkinfest last Saturday.The whole village was decorated with pumpkins and cornstalks; there was a parade, food, music, petting zoo, rides through the forest on a miniature steam train, rides through the village on a wagon, a haunted barn, a pie sale, pumpkin carving, both participatory and performance-based, and a creative array of pumpkin-related children's games.

A wind-up catapult flung pumpkins in more or less one direction, three strange winged figures on stilts stalked through the crowd along with a top-hatted unicycle rider, and it appeared Queen Victoria herself moved in a stately manner across the field.
If you'd substituted livestock for all the dogs, it could have been a mediaeval fair.

Volunteers, many with pointed hats and straggling orange hair, saw that cars pedestrians and trains interacted safely.

Some lovely new children's play structures were officially opened, the weather was warm, and it didn't rain. Congratulations to the army of volunteers who made the day such fun.

It was a test of endurance.
Sitting in her home in Battersea one-week after completing a 200-mile relay race from Sarotoga Springs to Lake Placid, Melonee Dowdall smiles at her accomplishment.
"The hardest part was the heat and elevation," said the 46-year-old brunette about the Ragnar Relay Race in New York State last month that left her sore, hungry and tired. "I'm not good in the heat. It really affects me."
A member of a 12-person team of Canadians called the Crazy Canuckleheads, Dowdall trained for 14 weeks down the quiet backroads of South Frontenac Township.

Runners were expected to run three times (legs) over the duration of the race which lasted two full days and nights. Many ran on little to no sleep over steep terrain and in unseasonably warm temperatures; often wearing fluorescent vests and headlamps to mark their way.
"It was definitely a life changing experience," notes Team Captain Lisa Johnson. "The elevation was the biggest challenge."
Wrapped in warm pajamas on a cool fall evening more than a week after crossing the finish line, Dowdall describes her first leg with her trademark humour. She sums it up as 40 degree heat and mostly uphill.

"I considered taking a cab for part of it, but I didn't," she says with a smile.
The last part was up a 1.6 km hill, affectionately nicknamed What the Hill.
"It was brutal," she says in hindsight. "I didn't enjoy the experience. I think I didn't really appreciate the accomplishment (finishing the race) and I still don't."
Dowdall describes the race as one of the most difficult experiences of her life.

"It's the lack of sleep," she says with an incredulous laugh. "One night I laid down alone and I woke-up a short while later with two strange men sleeping beside me."
Taking time to reflect on what she did with a group of fellow Canadians, Dowdall admits, "It was exceptional. Everyone was supporting each other. They shared food, helpful tips and encouragement. They just wanted everyone to succeed."
"The entire team was amazing. We all gave it 100 per cent," says Johnson proudly about the Canadian team that placed 188 out of 218.
Looking past the mental and physical challenges, Dowdall found inspiration all around her.
"There were some hills I would look at and say 'How am I going to do this'?" says Dowdall.

She adds that she runs “because I can, because I'm healthy and strong. Because I was with my mom in the hospital before her radiation treatment on her brain, when she could still walk. I was with her the last time she walked. When she came back, she never took another step and never stood up again. I vowed then and there, I would live as healthfully as I could as long as I could so I decided to start running in her honour. I do it because I can, even though I had always believed I was not a runner and still don't consider myself a real one.”
Runner or not, the mother of two teenage boys found a sense of peace running through the Adirondacks after dark.

"It was peaceful and almost spiritual to run at night," she confirms.
"I went there a stranger and left with some new friends. The people I ran with were amazing. I could never have done this by myself. Overall, it was a great time and I don't regret it at all."