Remembering old times on a winter's day

Jeff Green | Feb 05, 2015

As I sat last week in the well-appointed new council chambers for Frontenac County Council (aka the Rotary Auditorium of Fairmount Home), waiting for Warden Dennis Doyle to be ushered in by the county clerk to preside over a civilised, if pretty boring meeting, I remembered a very different January meeting from long ago; well, two years ago to be exact.

That meeting took place in another beautiful room, a much smaller one, at the other end of the horseshoe-shaped building that houses the Fairmount Home and Frontenac County offices.

The council was meeting for the first time after the warden of the day, Janet Gutowski, had informed her colleagues that she was not going to follow the long-established tradition whereby the warden resigns after a year in office. She had decided to stay on as warden.

There was a palpable sense of frustration in the air as members realised they had no way to force Gutowski out of the position, and tempers flared. The targets were Gutowski and then CAO Elizabeth Savill, and the issue underlying everything was the sense that Gutowski was staying in place to block attempts by the rest of council to rein in the county and keep it from taking on a greater role in service delivery at a township level.

The bad feelings in the room at that meeting in 2013 have had many consequences. Among them was motion of censure against Gutowski a few months later, which led to a lawsuit being launched by Gutowski against four members of Council.

Flash forward to today. That lawsuit has not gone away. Last month an appeal court upheld a decision from May 2014. At that time Justice Beaudoin had ruled that statements made in the context of a municipal council are not protected from libel and slander laws in the way that statements made in provincial or federal legislatures are, and rejected a motion by county lawyers to reject the suit out of hand. No court date has been set for the case, but the unofficial word is that the county's insurer would like to settle the matter out of court.

Gutowski did not want to talk in any detail about the case when asked this week, but said she has not heard anything from her lawyer about an offer, or a court date either. She did indicate that there is still time for the defendants, only three of whom are still alive, to “do the right” thing before the matter goes to court. Presumably a settlement at this point would include a financial component as well as some form of retraction.

Meanwhile, back in the orderly confines of the new council chamber, Dennis Doyle, who happens to be one of two current members of the council who were named in the lawsuit, presides over council now, and in an interesting twist of fate, Doyle sees the role of the county in much the same way that Gutowski did.

Instead of seeing a limited role for the county, Doyle sees an expanded role in township matters, from planning to financial services and it may go on and on. As the three smaller townships face difficulties covering their costs, the county's status could be on an upswing.

South Frontenac will not be happy about this. Its council and county representatives are wary that all of this will lead to increased costs for South Frontenac ratepayers with no benefit.

A debate over planning costs for contract services provided by the County department is set for next month's county meeting.

That debate might mark the beginning of another chapter in the debate of the role of Frontenac County in the lives of residents.