Election over – now what?

Jeff Green | Oct 28, 2010

Editorial by Jeff Green

In considering the results of the municipal election in the four townships that we cover regularly (three in Frontenac County and Addington Highlands), the initial impact in all the townships should be minimal. There were a number of staff members, particularly in South Frontenac, who may have been dusting off their resumes in the run-up to the election, but with three incumbent mayors returning and a number of returning councilors who are not opposed to the general direction each of the townships is moving in, those resumes could be gathering dust again for four years.

And while Bud Clayton is a new mayor-elect in North Frontenac, he did not make any promises to challenge the status quo in North Frontenac; in fact he shared the credit for the initiatives that were taken during the six years he sat on council.

In Addington Highlands, there will be three new councilors, but Reeve Hogg is still in place, and one of the new councilors, Bill Cox, was on council recently. While the new councilors from Ward 1, Adam Snider and Tony Fritsch, presented some new ideas, neither of them ran as anti-council candidates. Addington Highlands remains stable.

Frontenac County Council may be another case altogether. Because of re-structuring, and the fact that the longest-serving member of the council, Frontenac Islands Mayor Jim Vanden Hoek, went down to defeat to Dennis Doyle, county council will become an eight-member body with six new members. The two returning members, Janet Gutowski and Gary Davison, were the rookies last time around. Not a single member of the 2011 county council was sitting at the county table in 2006.

County council has long been the whipping boy for township councils in Frontenac County. The expression “empire builders” was the most common description of the county during the all-candidates meetings, and it was used by a number of people who will likely end up sitting on county council when the townships choose their second representatives in early December.

The paradox is that at the same time as local politicians slam the county, they recognise that the Frontenac townships are too small to deal with all the infrastructure and service responsibilities they are facing on their own.

Figuring out how to make Frontenac County work with the local townships is an absolute necessity for all involved, and the key to making that happen is for the county council to develop its own priorities for the future. Up to this point the county’s priorities, as far as I can tell from observing the meetings for eight years or so, are brought to the table by county staff based upon the staff’s understanding of the provincial regulatory framework.

County council has been a reactive body, which to a certain extent all councils are, and it has also been a forum for divisions between its member townships at times.

The Green Energy initiative, and the K&P trail committees have been exceptions to this trend, and they bode well for the future of the county.

But there are large hurdles to be overcome before Frontenac County is seen in Plevna, Sharbot Lake, and Sydenham as a part of the solution to the problems faced by township councils instead of one of those problems.

Sorting out the Ompah ambulance base/fire hall issue will be a severe test of the new county council, and it will not be easy because it involves money, territory, and history, as well as the safety of residents for the next 40 years or so.

The Ompah ambulance base / fire hall issue will take a lot of political skill, patience and good will to solve, and if the art of compromise is going to be a feature of Frontenac County politics over the next four years, it will start with this issue.