At a Special Inaugural Meeting on May 11, 2016, Lennox and Addington County Council acclaimed Henry Hogg, reeve of the Township of Addington Highlands as county warden for the remainder of 2016. The warden’s office became vacant with the passing of Warden Clarence Kennedy on March 13, 2016 after a brief battle with cancer. The Warden’s Declaration of Office was administered by her Worship Justice of the Peace Donna I. Doelman. Warden Hogg has previously served as county warden for the years 2003, 2010 and 2011. AH Deputy Reeve Helen Yanch congratulated Reeve Hogg over his appointment at a council meeting in Denbigh on May 16.

“We always said that county staff wanted to close the Denbigh base, and now we have proof,” said Addington Highlands Reeve Henry Hogg at a meeting of AH council on Monday night, January 11.

His comments referred to a report that he received last Thursday from Lennox and Addington County staff in preparation for a working meeting of Lennox and Addington Council this week.

Hogg, along with Deputy Reeve Helen Yanch, sit on L&A Council along with two members each from Loyalist and Stone Mills townships and the City of Napanee.

The proposal in the report to L&A Council from Chief of Emergency Services Mark Schjerning calls for the transfer of the remaining 12-hour day shift at the Denbigh base to a new 12-hour night shift at a base in Loyalist Township. It also calls for the establishment of a new service based in Centreville, in Stone Mills Township, noting that average response times in Stone Mills are higher than anywhere else in the township. The report also notes that average response times were up by 12 seconds county-wide in 2014 as compared to 2013.

One of the arguments against the continuing existence of the Denbigh base is the calculation of the price per service call. Since staffing costs per shift are the same no matter how many times the ambulance is called out, the busiest station, in Napanee, has a cost of $743 per call, while the Denbigh base, with only 190 calls per year, has a cost of almost $4,200 per call.

To make the finances even worse, a high percentage of Denbigh calls, 44% (84) are cross-border calls, mostly to Renfrew and Frontenac County, and the compensation paid by neighbouring municipalities for cross-border calls is low, only $350 per call. Ultimately the result is that 44% of the calls to the Denbigh Ambulance generate only 3.5% of the $800,000 cost of operating the base, of which the provincial government provides just under half of the money. L&A ratepayers pay the rest.

“The problem with the way ambulance service is delivered is that dispatch is done on a seamless basis, but there are boundaries where funding is concerned,” said Councilor Tony Fritsch, who added that he has contacted local community activists in Denbigh to let them know that the closing of the Denbigh base is back in front of L&A Council.

When the fate of the Denbigh base hung in the balance in 2012, politicians from Addington Highland were joined by their compatriots from Renfrew County in an attempt to find a regional solution, because the removal of the Denbigh service would create a geographical gap. It presently fills the gap between the Renfrew base to the north-east, the Bancroft base to the west, and the Northbrook base to the south. Nothing came of those efforts, and the base was downgraded from a 24-hour a day operation to a 12-hour a day operation at that time.

“County staff wanted to close the Denbigh base in 2012, and it was all we could do to convince them to keep the base open at all. So it does not surprise me that they are trying again, not at all. They pointed to a study by the IBI group back in 2012,and said they were only following the study's recommendations. There has been no new study so we know that this is something that the staff want,” said Reeve Henry Hogg.

In the report, staff list four options for enhancement to ambulance service in the county. The options are listed in order of priority. Number 1 is to increase the Loyalist coverage to a 24/7 service; number 2 is to establish a 12/7 daytime service in Stone Mills; number 3 is to increase coverage in Napanee by adding a second night shift; and the 4th option is to increase Stone Mills' coverage to 24 hours a day.

The report says, “Staff believes that these enhancements are a higher priority than maintaining coverage at the Denbigh base.”

It also says that staff are not seeking “a final determination of a plan for the ambulance service” but rather a “direction regarding the allocation of funding” for the 2016 budget.

(adendum - The staff report was tabled at a meeting of Lennox and Addington County Council on Wednesday, January 13. After a lengthy discussion, the Warden and Chief Administrative Officer were tasked with contacting their counterparts in Frontenac, Renfrew and Hastings Counties to seek regional funding support to keep the Denbugh base up and running.

"The politicains on County Council do not want to close the Denbigh base, at least as far as I can tell, but the other counties's did not come through the last time they were asked, so I don't hold out that much hope they will now," said Addington Highlands Reeve Henry Hogg in a telephone interview with The Frontenac News on January 14th.)

In 2008, politicians in Lennox and Addington (L&A) County were faced with the option of closing the Denbigh Ambulance Service and re-allocating resources to the south end of the county to satisfy an ever-increasing demand. At that time they resisted.

In 2012 the same issue was before Council and that time they cut the Denbigh service in half, opening a new base in Loyalist Township and allocating one of the Denbigh shifts to the new base.

Now, County staff recommend making Loyalist a 24-hour operation, and closing Denbigh. They also propose to start up a service in Stone Mills within a year or two. The arguments are the same now as they were in 2012.

The Denbigh ambulance was called out 190 times last year. Meanwhile there were 542 calls for service from Loyalist Township during the 12 hours a day when the Loyalist base was closed. On one level moving the shift looks like a better allocation of limited resources.

There are other factors, however. Those night calls in Loyalist were handled mostly by nearby Kingston-based paramedics from the Frontenac County service (80%) or from L&A paramedics in Napanee. The service would be quicker if they came from Loyalist, by a matter of minutes.

If there were no Denbigh service, most of those 190 Denbigh calls would be answered by paramedics stationed in Northbrook (20 minutes from Denbigh), unless they are out on standby somewhere or on a call of their own. In those cases the ambulance will need to come from Renfrew or Bancroft (40 minutes away) or the Frontenac base in Robertsville (60 minutes away).

The time factor is dramatically different

Moving the shift would save five minutes or so in the response time for 542 calls to Loyalist, but could increase the response time by 30 to 75 minutes for calls in the large Denbigh catchment area.

Which is more important?

Once again, as happened in 2008 and 2011, municipal politicians are faced with these kinds of life and death decisions that should never be forced on politicians at this level.

Another factor is at play in the staff report.

Closing the Denbigh base is being proposed as the first link in a chain of changes that would result in improved service in Loyalist Township, Stone Mills, and the City of Napanee. Politicians from all three of those jurisdictions would be working against the individual interests of their own constituents if they support the Denbigh service over these enhancements.

Asking a politician to work against the interests of their constituents, particularly where emergency services are concerned, is an easy sell. Yet that is what Addington Highlands Reeve Hogg and Deputy Reeve Yanch are faced with doing this week. The first step will be to play for time by seeking a deferral, and even if that works it is hard to see what the next step will be.

In order to make an impression, there needs to be community support from Denbigh for Hogg and Yanch when they make their pitch for the Denbigh service to L&A County Council.

The activists from Denbigh who led the public fight the last time around will likely be the same people who will have to come out this time.

Interestingly enough, these are the same people who have been leading a bitter and sometimes personal fight against Addington Highlands Council when it comes to wind turbine proposals from NextEra and RES Canada.

That fight has been focussed on Hogg and Yanch in particular and is by no means over.

Different issues result in different sets of allies and enemies.

Stay off of thin ice for any purpose, OPP warns

Pass holders for the trail system run by the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC) sat on their hands throughout the green Christmas season, but were buoyed by a heavy snowfall on December 28 and subsequent cold weather.

The trails are still not open, however, and the word from local snowmobile clubs, who each have responsibility for a different section of trail, is that it will not be until next week, at the earliest, before any of the trails in Frontenac and Lennox and Addington are officially open.

Dieter Eberhardt, the trails co-ordinator for the L&A Ridgerunners Snowmobile Club, which handles grooming on the Cataraqui and K&P Trails as well as a smaller trail that runs through Puzzle Lake Provincial Park to Arden on the north end and Yarker to the south, said that when the snow first came to the Ridgerunners trails it fell on ground that had no frost in it at all, and going over the trail with any machine only revealed mud beneath.

“Now that any water in the snow or ground has turned to ice, that is no longer a problem, but what we are still dealing with is a lack of snow,” he said.

He added that the groomers are out on the trails this week and with a bit more snow cover the K&P and Cat trail portions will be open in a week or so. What he calls the backwoods trail runs over lakes and will not be open until the lakes have a solid base of at least 15 cm of ice on them, which will take longer.

“Since the Cataraqui and K&P Trails are open for other uses, snowmobilers are using them now, but we are not going to sanction their use until we have groomed them and are sure they are in good condition for snow machines,” he said.

Meanwhile further north, the Mazinaw Powerline Club has not had as much of a problem with lack of snow on their trails because the storm on December 28 delivered up to 30 cm of dense, packed snow to the north-south trail they manage between Kaladar and the top of the county.

“We need to go over the trail twice. The first time is what we call packing, and it includes removing limbs and other debris on the trail along with packing the snow. The second pass is the grooming pass. We are working on it now,” said club president Pat Reid, who was working on the trail when contacted via cellphone on a chilly Tuesday morning.

Beaver flooding on the K&P Trail north of Snow Road has been the pre-occupation of groomers working with the Snow Road Snowmobile Club. They manage the K&P Trail from St. Georges Lake in the south all the way to the border of North Frontenac and Lanark in the north, as well as some east-west trails.

“There is quite a swath that is covered in water because of beavers,” said club president Alice Gilchrist.

The club is also, like the Mazinaw Powerline, going over parts of the trail that are located on private land that they could not get to until the snow was on the ground.

“We have to wait until hunting season is over, and this year some farmers kept their cattle out late because they still had grass, so we are working hard to get everything ready,” she said.

Because of the beaver issue the Snow Road club does not know when the portion north of Road 509 will be open.

All the clubs are keeping any of their trails that cross over lakes closed until there is enough ice on the lakes to put in a safe trail.

As far as lake ice is concerned, the OPP SAVE (Snowmobile, ATV and Vessel Enforcement) unit are warning people to be stay off the ice throughout Eastern Ontario.

“It's not safe to be out on the lakes at this time,” Sgt. Byron Newell of the SAVE unit told CBC Ottawa last weekend.

"You want nice, clear, blue or black ice. If it's opaque at all, that means there's a snow freeze on the ice, which makes the ice more weak and dangerous," he added.

According to Newell, and this view was echoed by the snowmobile clubs consulted for this story, 15 cm of ice, at a minimum, is required for the ice to be deemed safe for use.

However, ice needs to be monitored for safety at all times, which snowmobile clubs do on all ice trails that are part of their networks.

"Ice is never 100 per cent safe," cautioned Newell.

On October 7 in Arden, the Friends of the Salmon River host a special presentation on Puzzle Lake Provincial Park, a completely unique place, resplendent with rare plant and animal life.

Puzzle Lake Provincial Park is located in the Salmon River watershed between Tamworth and Arden. This area is an ANSI (Area of Natural & Scientific Interest) due to its diversity of upland and wetland habitats, and its abundance of provincially rare species and plant communities. This park is simply a fascinating place.

The Puzzle Lake area supports 16 provincially rare species: the highest known number of rarities found in an ANSI in eastern and central Ontario.

On a park outing, keep your eyes open for a five-lined skink, a Blanding’s turtle or a bald eagle.

The rugged, diverse terrain has created many unusual habitats that support this abundance of rare communities and species, including some found nowhere else in Canada.

The presentation by Corina Brdar, park ecologist, and Clark Richards, park superintendent, will highlight why it became a park, special features (such as scenic cliffs, bear oak communities and wetlands), species at risk (skinks, turtles, birds and more), and recreational activities, all accompanied by slides of the park.

Corina Brdar is the Southeast Zone Ecologist for Ontario Parks, including Puzzle Lake Park. She participated in the initial park planning work, the life science inventory, species at risk data for the park, and she continues the quest for new data. For personal recreation, she heads out on camping and canoe trips to – you guessed it - Puzzle Lake Park.

On October 7, the doors open at 6:30pm for coffee/refreshments, the show begins at 7pm, and it’s followed by the Friends of the Salmon River AGM & elections to the board. The location is the Arden Community Centre at 5998 Arden Road (County Rd. 15). All are welcome at no charge; donations are encouraged.

For more information, contact Gray Merriam at 613-335-3589 or Susan Moore at 613-379-5958, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Also visit: friendsofsalmonriver.ca.

The first thing that stands out about Lucas Wales is his youth. At 24 he might be the youngest general manager in the 70-year history of the Land O'Lakes Tourist Association (LOLTA), which works on behalf of tourist operators in Frontenac and L&A counties and the Municipality of Tweed.

On his second day on the job last week he was being briefed by long-time administrator, Joanne Cuddy, who has provided continuity in recent months and over the years. The association has now seen five managers in the last dozen or so years.

Wales will have to learn quickly because the LOLTA Annual General Meeting is slated for May 7 this week. The LOLTA membership includes a wide variety of businesses from a large geographic area, and they are anxious to find out the direction Lucas Wales plans to take the association in.

He brings a background in municipal government and economic development and tourism. He has worked for the Municipality of Tweed on their asset management plan; in the economic development department of the Town of Marmora, and most recently, for the Eastern Ontario Trails Association on their strategic plan. Before that he attended Loyalist College in Belleville, where he studied Public Relations.

All of this background, as compact as it has been in his relatively short working life, will come in handy as Wales will have to deal with the LOLTA membership, the municipal governments who have provided financial support to the association over the years, and provincial bureaucracy and granting programs.

“One of the major focuses this summer will be to complete our contract with Fish TV, which is a two-year contract that we are in the middle of. Afterwards we will take some time to assess the contract to see how we are going to continue to serve the fishing industry locally. There are lots of other opportunities in the Land O'Lakes as well. We have trails, canoeing and kayaking, golfing, cycling, dark skies and many other opportunities to focus on,” he said.

Another focus he noted was to foster partnerships with other players such as the FAB region (Food and Beverage) Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance, the K&P Trail development and others to make sure that LOLTA members are linked in to other efforts to promote the region.

“One of the things I will be doing is meeting with some of the community development managers in the various townships and counties. I will also be looking to meet with members and other business owners to make as many connections as possible for the association,” he said.

As someone who is born and raised in the Tweed area, where he still lives, Lucas Wales is pretty familiar with the Tweed and Lennox and Addington parts of the LOLTA region. He said he is very much looking forward to getting familiar with the eastern end, to seeing the lakes, and to meeting the people who make the region a unique opportunity for visitors.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) Local 316 (Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Counties) has actively promoted the strengthening of the local food system in the Kingston area for several years. Its current project, The New Farm Project, assists farmers to increase their abilities to produce for the local markets in the Kingston area.

Most of the poultry producers in Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Counties are small scale and operate outside of the quota system. Farmers without chicken quotas are now allowed to sell up to 300 birds annually direct to the public. The market for local poultry seems also to be expanding but the distance from producers to poultry abattoirs is an impediment to expanding production in the region around Frontenac County.

The NFU has received a grant from Frontenac County to develop a feasibility study/ business plan for a new abattoir dedicated to fill that gap, and has retained the consulting firm, Expansion Strategies of Montreal, to do this study. The first step in this feasibility study is to assess the likely demand from local farmers for the services of such a poultry abattoir.

“We are asking local farmers who raise or are interested in raising poultry for slaughter and sale to contribute to this project by answering a short questionnaire,” said David Hahn, a director with local 316.

Hahn raises chickens himself on a small scale, as a complement to his garlic and vegetable gardens. The chickens provide manure for the gardens and some are available for farm gate sales along with maple syrup and garlic.

“At one time we did the slaughtering ourselves, but in recent years we have been travelling all the way to Foxboro to an abattoir, which is a long drive,” Hahn said, making him one of the local farmers who would welcome another option.

Local 316 has contacted suppliers of day-old chicks for local families and farms and have found that about 30,000 are sold each year in the local area. The local has also been visiting abattoirs in the region to see if anyone might be interested in chickens.

One potential operator is Mike McKenzie, the new owner of the Sharbot Lake Meat Market, which is south of Sharbot Lake on Road 38. McKenzie is from Kingston and intends to produce pork sausages out of the location, but is open to using the facilities as a poultry abattoir, according to Hahn.

In order to complete a business plan for this new operation, the NFU is asking anyone who is currently farming chickens on a small scale to fill out a simple questionnaire that can be found on the NFU website at http://nfuontario.ca/316 By answering this questionnaire you may help establish the size of the market for such an abattoir. Your personal information will be kept private. If you have any questions about this survey, contact David Hahn at 613-273-5545 or the consultant, Jacques Grysole at 514-274-2641

Lanark Frontenac Lennox and Addington MPP Randy Hillier has taken on one particularly unpopular opponent this summer, Hydro One.

On August 1, Hillier wrote a letter to the Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin, in which he asked Marin to investigate Hydro One billing practices.

Among the issues he raised were billing accuracy on the new time of use meters that Hydro has installed over the last few years. The meters are set up to charge users different rates at different times, but the bill that hydro users receive includes only the total owing.

In his letter, Hillier compares this to receiving phone bills that don’t include a list of long distance calls, or bank statements that don’t include transaction details.

Secondly, Hillier notes that many time of use meters are unable to communicate with the Hydro One Network, so they have not resulted in the end of estimated billings, which are only reconciled with actual use when a meter reader is dispatched. “And, when the actual bills do arrive,customers are stuck with catch-up bills theycan't afford” Hillier wrote.

Hillier pointed to two other issues related to failures of time of use meters and Hydro’s inability to rectify mistakes in a timely manner, often resulting in unexpected high bills that customers struggle to pay.

“These issues are a majorconcern for the people inmy riding ... Given that everyHydro One customer is affected by the lack of transparency in Hydro One'sbilling/metering process, it ismy recommendation that your office investigate these practices of Hydro One.” Hillier concluded.

Two weeks later Andre Marin wrote back saying that a representative from his office would be contacting Mr. Hillier's office for more details and a preliminary assessment of the complaint will be completed in the coming months.

“I thought it was hopeful,” said Hillier, when contacted this week by phone from his office at Queen’s Park. “At least he found my argument had merit and was worthy enough to investigate.”

On the very same day that Randy Hillier sent his letter to Andre Marin, there were five by-elections in Ontario in seats that were vacated by retiring Liberal Party MPPs. The Conservative Party gained one of those seats; the NDP gained two and the Liberals held on to two. These results, after a year of scandal for the Liberals, did not reflect well for Conservative Party Leader Tim Hudak.

As a result, 10 PC party members put forward an amendment to the party’s constitution to the upcoming policy convention of the party. If passed by 2/3 of the members, the amendment would trigger a review of party leader Tim Hudak.

In a letter to the party president and executive, Hillier urged that the motion be allowed to come to the floor at the upcoming convention.

“Despite making tremendous gains in the last general election and winning a seat in Toronto for the first time in nearly two decades, there are party members and media pundits who have come out against Tim’s leadership, in particular since these last by-elections. This proposed amendment is evidence of that. Historically, publicly-expressed doubts, when they are left unattended, have proved most damaging to our leader's image and our party's morale …. The continued, un-addressed criticism of Tim will subject him to a death by a thousand cuts. To me our party and leader deserve more than that. This is why I am encouraging you to allow the proposed constitutional amendment to be debated at the September convention.”

After the letter was sent, reports in the Toronto newspapers, and last week in the Perth Courier have identified Hillier along with MPP Frank Klees as advocates for a review of Hudak’s leadership.

“Sometimes the media torque and distort things,” Hillier said this week. “I feel very comfortable supporting due process. I think it is our obligation to make sure the people who volunteer and raise money for the party have a right to express themselves.”

Hillier then said he has not had any interest in the leadership of the party since the leadership convention in 2009, which was won by Tim Hudak.

Both Randy Hillier and Frank Klees sought the leadership of the Ontario Conservative Party at that time. Hiller finished in fourth place on the first ballot.

The election used a multiple choice voting system. People voted for the candidates in order of preference. Before the vote took place Randy Hillier sent a letter to his projected voters, urging them to put Tim Hudak’s name in as their second choice. This helped Hudak increase his share of the vote from 33% to 39% after the Hillier votes were jettisoned after he finished in fourth and last place on the first ballot. Hillier received 10% of the vote on the first ballot.

“If most of my voters had not gone to Tim Hudak, he wouldn’t be party leader today,” said Hillier.

Although the majority of the party caucus and a number of others have said that the debate over whether a leadership review should take place will be divisive and unproductive, the party executive have allowed the proposed constitutional amendment to go to the floor of the policy convention.

If nothing else, it will give the convention more media attention than it would otherwise garner.