There seems to be plenty of interest in the Sharbot Lake Downtown Reconstruction project, judging by the number of people who showed up at an Open House to ask questions and get a look at the plans last Wednesday evening at Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake.

The $3.2 million project is almost entirely funded by federal and provincial grants earmarked for the project with the federal government paying 60 per cent and the provincial government adding 33.3 per cent.

“The only part the municipality is paying for is the underground infrastructure, which absolutely needs to be replaced,” said Central Frontenac Public Works Manager Tyson Myers.

“It’s a big project,” said Project Engineer Dan Fencott of Jewell Engineering. “Especially from the Township’s perspective.

“And it’s long overdue.”

Fencott said this is a reconstruction project, not a beautification project, which could come later as part of a county-funded initiative.

“We’re looking at doing the full depth of roads, sidewalks and sewers,” he said. “This has been 10 years in the works.”

In addition to Elizabeth Street, Robert and Garrett Streets will also receive extensive work.

Much of the work won’t commence until after Labour Day, Fencott said.

“We’re trying to avoid working on the main core in summer,” he said. “So our tentative start date is after Labour Day 2020.

“We hope to finish up in the fall of 2021.”

As of Tuesday, Myers said they’re still ramped up for the project to go ahead as scheduled, and all the current cancellations and social distancing measures shouldn’t affect the project.

“We’re looking at getting the contract out the door in April,” he said. “Unless things change, it’s not affecting us at all.”

Another popular event in the area has been cancelled.

The Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association has decided not to hold Maple Weekend this year, in response to provincial recommendations regarding public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 10 syrup producers in Lanark, Frontenac and Leeds and a Thousand Islands who were planning to participate. George and Darlene Conboy and family of Bell Line Road near Sharbot Lake was one of them.

“(Cancelling the event) is going to impact our business for sure,” George Conboy said Tuesday. “It’s been a good event for us (but) just how much of an impact remains to be seen.

“We’re still open as far as that goes and people can still come to the farm (5959 Bell Line Road) to buy syrup but we’d prefer they don’t come if they’re sick.”

He said their products are still available at a variety of locations including Mike Dean’s Grocery, Gray’s Grocery, Pharmasave, Seed to Sausage and Local Family Farms in Verona.

He said syrup-wise, it’s been a pretty good year so far.

“But we’re only about half-way through so far,” he said. “This (covid-19 pandemic) is quite the thing, isn’t it?

“It certainly makes people realize we’re not in charge of things.”

Ever since Frank and Sandra White started booking shows after they purchased and renovated the Crossing Pub at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn, it has been known as the home away from home for Newfoundland musicians. This first performer in the new space, and this will make for a good trivia question some day, was the legendary songwriter, the late Ron Hynes.

Since then the range of musicians has expanded as the Pub has become established as an acoustic music venue on a regional, even provincial, scale. One of the lost boys from Newfoundland who were given a gig, and refuge, by the Whites, is Tom Powers and his band, the Dardanelles.

Powers is with the CBC in Toronto now, and has been playing duo gigs with virtuoso fiddler John Showman (Lonesome Ace Stringband, New Country Rehab, Foggy Hogtown Boys and many others) at the Cameron House in that city. The two have performed together at the Crossings Pub in the past. Powers is working on a bluegrass podcast, and in doing so, he came across Tatiana Hargreaves and Winnipeg-born Allison de Groot.

Hargreaves (fiddle) and de Groot (clawhammer banjo) are young stars in the bluegrass/old-time music tradition, and have performed with some of the major stars of the genre. They are both immersed in the Appalachian musical tradition, which is one of the prime sources for bluegrass, country and blues music. They put out an eponymous recording this year, and played Sharbot Lake last Friday night, in a double bill with Showman and Powers, as part of a short tour of Ontario and Quebec.

The Showman/Powers set was enjoyable, as Powers provided support on guitar for Showman’s inventive and technically masterful take on tunes from Newfoundland, Appalachia and beyond.

Hargreaves and de Groot played a somewhat more understated set, taken mostly from their album, as the audience leaned in to hear the intricate interplay between de Groot’s skillful and creative banjo and Hargreaves inventive fiddle and vocals. Their music, deeply rooted in history, but with the perspective of a contemporary political, social, and musical sensibility, was remarkable.

For too short a time, the four musicians performed together, and hearing Showman and Hargreaves together, two masters at work while listening and playing off each other, was another treat.

The quality of the sound in the Crossing Pub, even the vibrations from the audiences’ and musicians’ toes tapping on the floors, has made the venue itself part of the magic that happens during many of the shows. It is becoming a storied venue.

Upcoming shows at the Crossings Pub include: Turpin’s Trail on March 14th, a St. Patrick’s Day show that is sold out. On March 21st, Durham County Poets are performing (tickets are $25 – dinner reservations suggested) If you haven’t seen this band, get ready for fine music, and some wicked jokes.

In a report to the Frontenac County Planning Advisory Committee, the county planning department outlined some of the positive changes in the updated PPS, a document that provides the context for what kinds of property development gets the go-ahead from municipal planning departments.

“It is the opinion of staff that the changes to the PPS, 2020 are positive for rural Eastern Ontario and provide better opportunities for rural economic development, “ wrote Jenni Kapusta, community planner with the county, in the report.

The Frontenac County department has been advocating for more positive language in the updated document towards privately owned communal water and sewer services. Sydenham is the only community in Frontenac County with public water, and there are no public sewage systems in the County. Further, there are little or no prospects that any Frontenac Community will be able to put in those systems.

The new wording in the document provides leeway for privately owned alternatives to be explored.

“Where municipal sewage services and municipal water services are not available, planned or feasible, private communal sewage services and private communal water services are the preferred form of servicing for multi-unit/lot development to support protection of the environment and minimize potential risks to human health and safety,” says the new PPs, which will be active in Ontario as of May 1.

Frontenac County Manager of Development Services, Joe Gallivan, has been advocating for this new language in the PPS.

The key piece that remains for private communal servicing to be viable, according to Gallivan, is the financial one, because municipalities face the financial liability if the private developers go out of business.

“There needs to be some mechanism to shield municipalities from liability without making it too expensive for developers to bring these projects to market,” Gallivan said.

Frontenac County is about to submit an application to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for a grant to support a case study for such a mechanism, using the former Sharbot Lake Public School site as a case study.

Another positive change in the PPS, in the view of the planning department, is a simplified process for changing the boundaries of settlement areas.

Gallivan also said that, from his reading of the new document, environmental protections are just as strong in this version as they were in the 2014 PPS, which will stale-dated on April 30.

“It does not look like they have weakened the language at all,” he said,

The Oso waste site will continue on as a transfer station when it reaches capacity as a landfill sometime in the next five or so years, Central Frontenac Council decided at its regular meeting Tuesday afternoon at Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake.

Public Works Manager Tyson Myers had recommended against the conversion to a transfer station but told Council his plan was based purely on operations and cost. He freely admitted he was leaving any and all political considerations to Council and invited Cambium project manager Stephanie Reeder to answer any questions Council might have.

Coun. Victor Heese began the discussion pointing out the cost to set up a transfer station had been listed at $100,000 initially and $40,000 per year after that. Heese calculated that for the vast majority of Central Frontenac residents, a transfer station at Oso would save them five minutes a trip, at best. He did concede that it would somewhat alleviate the obvious inconvenience for Crow Lake area residents but asked “do we want to spend $100,000 plus $40,000 per year to save people five minutes?”

Coun. Bill MacDonald said that he didn’t remember setting up the Hinchinbrooke transfer site being near that expensive.

Reeder responded that the big costs are in site preparation and bins.

“There’s going to be some tree falling necessary and a lot of flattening to make the site sufficient for the transportation involved,” she said.

MacDonald asked if there were some way they could mitigate costs — even now — such as reducing hours.

“Instead of 30 hours a week, could we reduce it to 15 — and I want you to know right now I won’t be running in the next election,” MacDonald said.

“If you live in the very south end of the Township, you’re looking at a very long drive ahead of you regardless,” said Coun. Brent Cameron. “But I think Bill’s idea would be something people in the south would be very interested in.”

Reeder said that regardless of what the Township does, with the Olden site, it still has about 40 years of capacity left.

“The Province considers that a lot,” she said. “But that $40,000 per year budget could be changed depending on what you accept at the site. Hinchinbrooke hours could be changed too.”

“We could look at fewer hours for Olden as well,” said Dep. Mayor Tom Dewey.

“There’s efficiencies to be had in hours,” said Myers.

“So, when it closes, it will be a transfer station, whether that happens before that will be to be determined,” said Cameron.

• • •

Coun. Bill MacDonald asked Public Works Manager Tyson Myers if there could possibly be some room for members of the public in the safety classes he’s scheduling for his public works crews.

“I know there are some small businesses out there that would like to get the training for their people but can’t afford it on their own,” he said.

Myers said that he’d put together a list of the courses offered and “look into it.”

• • •

Mayor Frances Smith said they decided to keep a $1,000 grant to SA.L.T. in the budget even though the Seniors and Law Enforcement Together has received a provincial grant.

“It’ll be there in case they need it,” Smith said. “It doesn’t really change anything in the budget and we want them to know how much we value them in the community and that they can come to us each year if they need to.”

Frontenac County is hoping to take over the K&P trail between Sharbot Lake and the North Frontenac border. The trail section is owned by Central Frontenac Township.

The county has plans to upgrade the trail to make it as accessible as the 55km K&P trail section that was completed last fall between the county border with the City of Kingston and Sharbot Lake.

The K&P line north of Sharbot Lake was purchased by Oso Township sometime in the 1980’s. Central Frontenac Mayor (and Frontenac County Warden for 2020) Frances Smith remembers the purchase because she was the clerk for Oso Township at the time.

“As I recall, it was Marathon Realty, the real estate arm of Bell Canada, who owned it. I think they told us to name our price, since they didn’t want it anymore. We offered something like $5,000, and it was a done deal. But I’m not exactly sure about the date or the cost. It was a long time ago,” she said.

The trail has been used by snowmobiles, ATV’s, walkers, runners, cross country skiers, and cyclists, ever since, and a number of people access their seasonal and permanent dwellings from it.

The trail has many interesting features. It straddles four waterways (Sharbot Lake, Black Lake, Little Round Lake and Bolton Creek) runs through a culvert under Hwy. 7, passes major rock cuts, some swampland and thick woods, before reaching Clarendon Road and the only station on the old K&P line that is still standing.

It is maintained in a limited fashion by the township under a contract with the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance (EOTA), and is groomed by the Snow Road Snowmobile Club in the winter time.

“We haven’t really invested much in it. When issues are brought to us, about trees over the trail or other maintenance matters, we call EOTA and they make arrangements to deal with the problem,” said Smith. “Other than that, we have basically left it alone since we bought it.”

The trail floods sometimes in the spring, and where it passes over open, swampy land, it is pretty rough, but passable.

All of these trail maintenance issues are familiar to the Economic Development department at Frontenac County, which has worked for years to forge a continuous trail to Sharbot Lake from the border with the City of Kingston.

With that project complete, the county plans to upgrade the existing trail between Sharbot Lake and the old station at Clarendon Road this summer, but they need ownership of that section of trail in order to work on it.

Central Frontenac Township inherited the trail when it absorbed Oso township in 1998.

At their meeting last Wednesday (February 20), Frontenac County approved a motion, put forward by staff requesting that the trail north of Sharbot Lake be conveyed to them in order to enable them to work on it.

“With construction planned for later this year on the Frontenac K&P Trail from the Village of Sharbot Lake to Clarendon Station in 2020, it is staff recommendation that ownership of these lands be transferred from the Township of Central Frontenac to the County of Frontenac. As the primary investor in the infrastructure, it is in the County’s best interest to own, maintain and manage the improved asset to ensure long-term sustainability of the infrastructure,” said the staff report accompanying the motion.

It will be up to Central Frontenac Council to decide if they want to convey the trail to the county.

“Should the Township of Central Frontenac respond affirmative to this request, a detailed review of the properties will be undertaken prior to a legal agreement and conveyance.”

In a phone interview Frances Smith said that the matter has not yet been raised at the Central Frontenac Council table and she cannot speak for Council, but she did not see, on the face of it, any reason for her council to raise any major objections.

“The county wants to Improve it and make it more accessible to our residents and visitors alike, and take over responsibility for maintenance.”

Frontenac County has budgeted money to upgrade for the 14km. section between the trailhead in Sharbot Lake and Clarendon Station, this year, so the conveyance needs to be completed shortly.

The Sharbot Lake & District Lions Club is offering to spruce up the gazebo across from the Township office in Sharbot Lake.

In a letter that was accepted for information at Tuesday’s regular Central Frontenac Council meeting, Lions secretary Bill Pyle said: “re: the gazebo across from the Township office seems to be in need of some TLC.

“With Council’s permission, the Lions are willing to take a close look in the spring and see what is needed to spruce it up . . . the Lions would do any needed minor repairs and paint or stain the gazebo. We understand that there is a neglected flower bed beside it and we would see what we could do to restore it as well.”

Pyle went on to say that if there appears to be any major structural difficulties, they would consult with Council before proceeding and invited members of Council to join them in inspecting the gazebo and flower bed.

Dep. Mayor Tom Dewey volunteered to go and Mayor Frances Smith pointed out that since she is a Lion, she’d probably be there too.

Council passed a resolution to express thanks and appreciation to the Lions but didn’t give its permission. Part of the resolution was for staff to contact the Lions to coordinate and confirm the scope of the repairs and bring a report back to Council.

Coun. Bill MacDonald observed that “there were no fire calls anywhere in Central Frontenac in January and asked Fire Chief Jamie Riddell if he could offer an explanation.

“I like to give credit where it’s due,” Riddell said. “It’s a credit to our volunteers who go out and do fire prevention and door-to-door smoke alarms.”

There were however, eight medical calls, four vehicle accidents and one carbon monoxide call in January.

Council passed a resolution to finalize an agreement with Rideau Valley Conservation Authority on behalf of Mississippi Rideau Septic System Office to complete the septic re-inspections contemplated under Bylaw 2020-04 for the 2020 Year.

Council also received for information the annual report on Council remuneration in 2019 for information.

Mayor Frances Smith received $24,450.15 plus $900 in per diem and $894.85 in mileage. Deputy mayor Victor Heese received $17,269 plus $375 in per diem, $443.30 in mileage, $359 in professional development & conferences. Coun. Tom Dewey received $15,137.20 plus $1,425 in per diem and $2,097 in mileage. Coun. Cindy Kelsey received $15,137.20 plus $600 in per diem, $368 in mileage and $194.30 in professional development. Coun. Sherry Whan received $15,1137.20 and $167.20 in mileage.

Coun. Bill MacDonald, Brent Cameron, Elwin Burke and Nicki Gowdy each received $15,137.20.

Each member of Council also received an expense allowance of $800.

Charlottetown’s Rachel Beck is a former teacher who is obviously an attentive student herself.

Area music fans might remember her playing Blue Skies a couple of years ago as The Beck Sisters with her sister Amie but last Saturday night with her band Alicia Toner (fiddle/vocals), Kerine Bouchard (cello/vocals), Robin Ettles (bass) and Nick Coltas-Clarke (drums), she was a more pop-rock person than the folksy Beck Sisters.

Beck played an assortment of her own songs, including most of her latest CD Stronger Than You Know as well as some of her older work like Warrior (the video of which features one of her daughters). And listening to her music, you can’t help feeling there’s a little bit of Carole King and/or Joni Mitchell in there.

And there is.

“There’s a bit of throwback in there,” she said. “The songs have a poppy beat and they’re short (2-3-minute average) — more radio-friendly than a lot of music these days.”

Beck acknowledged the King and Mitchell influences, along with Annie Lennox, Fleetwood Mac and Sarah McLachlan but there’s also another one.

“My dad used to play in bands around military bases,” she said. “He was big into rock’n’roll, Clapton and Rolling Stones.

“So I used to listen to what he listened to.”

Just a bit of trivia for the fans — the people she jumps off a bridge with in the video Hearts On Fire aren’t musicians.

“They teacher friends of mine,” she said. “And we’re all wearing wet suits under our clothes.

“That water was like 4 degrees.”

Toner opened the show with her guitar-player fiancee Greg Gale and showed she can not only belt out a song with the best of them, she’s one kick-ass fiddle player as well.

Beck and her band made the Sharbot Lake stop in between performances at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and Hamilton. She’s currently on tour all over Ontario before heading out west and then back home to the Maritimes.

There's still time for hesitant but budding actors to strut their stuff in North Frontenac Little Theatre's spring production.

Although several roles have been allocated, acting opportunities are still available for male and female actors aged between 20 to 35 in the Irish-set, one act play, Ciara's Coming Home, to be staged in late April and early May.

 "Some of the remaining roles are relatively undemanding with few lines to learn and would present a really nice opportunity for young men and women who've prevaricated about acting, to get their feet wet in drama," said director, Adrian O'Connnell.

Production crews are already working on lights and sets for the comedy to be staged at Sharbot Lake's Oso Hall and rehearsals are set to get underway starting Tuesday, March 3rd.

The play will be preceded by a dramatic prelude exploring the Irish emigrant experience in narrative, song and story.

The” Powerful Tools for Caregivers” workshop maybe for you.

This is a FREE, 2 hour per week, for 6 weeks educational workshop. The program is designed to help caregivers care for themselves , while caring for someone else.

Caring for a family member or friend with a health condition, can be physically, emotionally and financially challenging.

This workshop will provide you with some practical tools that will help you with stress reduction, with tough decision making, help you communicate your feelings better, ask for what you need and gain confidence in your role.  We will provide you with local resources, and contact information to help you along the way. You will receive a FREE copy of the Caregiver Handbook.

This workshop will be held at the Sharbot Lake Retreat and Retirement building, 14244 Road 38, Sharbot Lake,

Tuesday afternoon, 1-3 pm , beginning March 3rd and running until April 7.  

Registration is required and space is limited, so register early. Please contact:

Pam Lemke

Client Services Coordinator, Alzheimer Society

613 827 6700

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.