Business as usual after election for acclaimed Mayor Smith

Craig Bakay | Aug 29, 2018

Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith admits to taking a bit of a holiday this summer when it comes to planning for the next Council in November. After all, she won’t be facing an election herself, having been acclaimed as Mayor and as such hasn’t had to prepare a platform. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been thinking about things to come.

“For us, there will be a lot of things in the fire,” she said. “First, there’s working on a seniors housing complex.

“The septic reinspection program is ongoing as is updating the Official Plan.”

But first, there is that little matter of an election to attend to.

“We’re going to have at least one new councilor (from Olden),” she said. “And we could have as many as four new councilors (two from Olden, one from Kennebec and one from Hinchinbrooke).

“If that happens, we’ll have to have some orientation and training sessions.”

One other thing she’s been thinking a lot about is economic development.

“I think we have to work more with the business community,” Smith said. “I think a lot of good things came out of the gathering at (W.A.) Robinson’s earlier this summer.

“We may look at revamping our Economic Development Committee but I don’t think the business community wants much from the municipality.

“They just want us to look seriously at development that will help and advance the community.”

And, she said, she’d also like to work more closely with the Frontenac Community Development Futures Corporation.

“Ann Prichard does a good job and I think there’s potential there,” Smith said.

Other than that Smith’s looking ahead to the day-to-day operations of running a township.

“We’ll be buzzing along as we have been,” she said. “We’ll be doing the best we can to keep taxes down and roads fixed up.

“We got the Tryon Road done but we know we have work to do on the Crow Lake Road and the Henderson Road and the Zealand Road needs some work too.”

So, for Smith, it will be business as usual once the election is done.

“We’ve had a good Council for four years and I look forward to having a good Council for the next four years,” she said. “I hope we’ll have a lot of good thinkers.”