Last September, Central Frontenac Council became aware that there was no provision for approving Chip Truck’s (aka refreshment vehicles) in the township bylaws. The matter came up because a chip truck had opened on Hwy. 7 near Road 509, and the township had not been informed and had no way of determining if it had health unit approval or if the business was licensed in any way.

Although that business was quickly closed down, an issue had surfaced. With long established Chip Trucks being in place at the Godfrey General Store, Jossy’s at Hwy. 7 and 38 and Tim’s Mobile Catering doing business at various locations for special events, Council recognised that they needed to come up with something.

A “refreshment vehicle” bylaw was prepared and came before Council on April 11 for preliminary consideration. A public meeting was to follow and then the bylaw would be back before Council for adoption, as early as this month.

Jossy Harpell was in the audience at that April 11 meeting, as was Rachel Scott, who was in negotiations to purchase Jossy’s business but the deal had not been finalised because she was unsure what the new bylaw would do to her prospects for opening in the spring.

At the meeting, the bylaw was deferred, but Scott felt that two of her questions had been addressed, one being that she would be able to remain in business, and the second that another Chip Truck would not be able to open up within a short distance of hers.

“During the meeting [Councilor] Jamie Riddell made an excellent point, he had mentioned that the township should not discourage the three current businesses that are pre-existing and suggested they be grandfathered in. When I left the meeting I felt confident, as it was also my understanding from the meeting that there were no new chip trucks allowed to open until they sorted out the bylaw and that pre-existing trucks could open without issue. Jocelyn and Bill who also attended with myself were under the same understanding,” Scott said in an email to the Frontenac News this week.

The draft bylaw was to be the subject of a public meeting in May, but that meeting has been deferred. The Chief Building Official (CBO) Jeremy Neven, who prepared the bylaw, has departed for New Zealand and the new CBO, Shawn Merriman has inherited the file.

Late last last week Scott noticed that a trailer from the Spud Box was parked in a lot at the southeast corner of the junction between Hwy. 7 and Road 38, next to the building where Steve Duggan’s law office and the Sharbot  Lake Veterinary clinic are located.

Until recently, the Spud Box had been located at Hwy. 41 and Hwy. 7 in Kaladar, but the building on that lot is being torn down this summer and the Spud Box has pulled out.

Scott then emailed Central Frontenac’s new Chief Building Official Shawn Merriman asking him what was going on.

“At this point the other truck [Spud Box] is preparing for the eventuality that he will be allowed to open. I am bringing a report to Council to see if there is any wish to allow a permission to operate prior to the passing of the bylaw by using such options as security deposits, amenity agreements etc,” Merriman said in an email response to Scott.

She was surprised by this response, because she understood that new trucks were not to be approved until the new bylaw was in place.

When contacted, Councillor Riddell said that Council had decided that since the new bylaw is not ready, they should not be discouraging new businesses and would not be putting up restrictions.

“If they can get approval from all the other authorities involved, the Health Unit, the Ministry of  Transportation, etc. then we will just charge a fee and let them open,” he said in a phone interview.

Based on what Shawn Merriman said in his email, it appears that approving the new Spud Box is not quite a done deal until his report is brought before Council, likely at the June 13 meeting.

If is approved at that time, then the Spud Box owners will be the beneficiaries of fortuitous timing, because the new bylaw would likely have stopped them in their tracks. It says that “no portion of the designated area [for a refreshment vehicle] shall be located on a highway or part thereof” and it also says that “the designated area shall not be located within 500 meters of a business establishment(s) or another designated area in which similar products are sold; unless there is written consent from the permanent business establishment(s)”.

The proposed Spud Box is located on Hwy.7 and there are 2 permanent food businesses located within 500 metres, Gray’s Grocery and Subway.

However, if the Spud Box is permitted and then “grandfathered” in when the new bylaw comes into place, it might be able to stay without asking permission of the neighbours and the proximity to Hwy. 7.

Of the neighbouring businesses who could be impacted by the new Chip Truck, Ram of Ram’s Esso, who would share an entrance-way off Hwy. 7 said he is concerned about the traffic coming off the highway at an awkward angle, as well as the potential overflow of litter onto his property. He also said that since he sells desserts and sandwiches the Chip Truck represents new competition for consumer dollars, “but that is more of a minor issue, the congestion and questions about litter and washrooms are more of a concern for me,” he said.

When contacted, Gray’s Grocery, which is located on Road 38, kitty corner to where the Spud Box is planning to open, said it is not a concern to them.

The owner of the Subway Restaurant could not be reached for comment before press time.

The agenda for the Central Frontenac Council meeting on June 12 has not been published as of this writing, but based on Shawn Merriman’s email it appears this matter will be before Council at that time.

South Frontenac Council voted to name a new road after former Councillor Bill Robinson at its regular meeting Tuesday night in Sydenham.

The road, which is part of the project to re-configure the intersection of Road 38, Colebrooke Road, Wilton Road and Ottawa Street in the hamlet of Harrowsmith, where Robinson was a long-time resident, is bounded by the K & P Trail and will connect Colebrooke and Wilton Roads west of Road 38.

There had been one letter suggesting the new road be named 150th Way but Councillor Brad Barbeau, who replaced Robinson suggested that a little park that will also be created as part of the intersection re-configuration, might be named 150th Park instead.

“That way we’d have Centennial Park at one end of Harrowsmith and 150th Park at the other,” Barbeau said.

“The park likely won’t be done on Canada’s birthday but OK,” said Mayor Ron Vandewal.

Coun. John McDougall, Robinson’s fellow Portland representative, said the road naming was appropriate.

“Not only did he get a lot of community support but he was a Korean War veteran,” McDougall said. “This is recognition for all he contributed.”

Robinson was South Frontenac’s longest serving municipal politician when he died in office late last year.

SF has lowest rate of taxes among his clients, auditor says

“I think it’s fair to say when looking at the numbers, that 2016 was a good year for South Frontenac,” auditor Howard Allan, of Allan and Partners LLP told Council. “We had a couple of meetings with (CAO/Clerk) Wayne Orr and (Treasurer) Louise Fragnito but they were on minor housekeeping matters.

“I think you’re in good hands.”

Allan noted that “a budgeted $700,000 surplus turned out to be around $1 million more than that” as revenues were more than budgeted for and expenses were less.

“We look after many municipalities in Ontario and this one has the lowest rate of taxation,” he said.

“We’ve had prudent financial management but we’ve been completely unsuccessful at securing grants,” said Coun. Ron Sleeth.

Wild parsnip spaying – township to switch to Clearview
Council approved Public Works Manager Mark Segsworth’s plan to spray for wild parsnip.

Segsworth said the areas to be sprayed are the same as last year but “if anybody comes out and tells us to ‘stop spraying that stuff around here’ we’ll stop.”

He said they’ll be trying a new herbicide this year.

“Based on our recent investigations, Clearview appears to be a more effective way to manage invasive species within the roadside,” Segsworth said. “As stated in a Public Health Ontario brief, the effects of Clearview are specific to plants resulting in low toxicity to non-target species.

“This does not appear to pose a significant risk to human, animal or pollinator health.”

Coun. Ross Sutherland said he’d like to see the parsnip plants cut down and over-planted with something the parsnip can’t grow back through.

Coun. Alan Revill said: “we have to do something because this is a nasty weed and there are some liability issues.

“Also, this stuff is growing in some areas where we don’t have the equipment with enough reach to mow it.”

Sutherland said he’d like to see a long-term plan for dealing with noxious weeds.

“Our long-term plan will change soon enough,” said Mayor Ron Vandewal. “I’m already getting emails on pragmites.”

Planning to plan
Council approved Coun. Ross Sutherland’s motion to have the manager of development services provide a report on the process for monitoring and final approval of conditions on subdivision developments.

“My only concern is that I don’t want to be micro managed with this,” said Mayor Ron Vandewal. “I don’t want this to come up every time a councilor gets a call on a project and I’m afraid that’s where we’re headed.”

Perhaps North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins said it best himself: “It doesn’t look like this will be going through.”

It wasn’t exactly an admission of defeat, more an acceptance of reality, but being that Higgins was the driving force behind changing the wards and subsequent representation on Council, it would certainly seem that the status quo will be what the Township carries into the 2018 elections.

Higgins was speaking at a special meeting of Council last Saturday at Clar-Mill Hall in Plevna, to consider revamping the make-up of Council as well as waste disposal/recycling options.

At the Nov. 4, 2016 Council meeting, Higgins presented proposed changes which would feature elimination of the ward system as well as the reduction of bodies on Council to five from the current seven. The new Council would feature a Mayor, Deputy Mayor and three Councilors, all elected at large.

That didn’t fly but Council did agree to look at combining Wards 2 and 3, as well as reducing the number of councilors.

This time, they invited the public to comment.

And comment they did:
• “Who’s complaining? I don’t know of any problems the proposal is solving.”
• “I like the wisdom of seven people as opposed to five.”
• “I like the diversity of opinion.”

But perhaps it was Leonard Emery’s observation that changing the wards could easily create an east-west split in votes, leaving the Mayor to cast the deciding vote and thus increase the power of the Mayor’s office that had the most impact.
“I hadn’t thought of that before,” said Higgins.

But it wasn’t only the public who opposed the proposed plan. Coun. Wayne Good was absent from the meeting but the rest of Council was pretty unanimous in being against the changes.

“What I see, when there are fewer people doing the work, that’s an increased workload and sooner or later they’re going to vote themselves a raise,” said Coun. Denis Bedard.

“Proportional representation could split the Township in half,” said Coun. Vern Hermer.

“I voted (to bring the proposal to the table) not because I agree with it, but because I believe it should be discussed,” said Coun. John Inglis.

Coun. Gerry Martin said the Council meetings are only a part of the workload. There are a lot of committee meetings and lake association meetings to be prepared for and attended.

Dep. Mayor Fred Perry concurred.

“Summer is ugly,” Perry said. “You get up and you read emails.

“You have to like abuse.”

There is a draft bylaw in the works but whether or not it actually comes to Council is probably a moot point.

“This proposal is my doing,” said Higgins. “I knew coming in today, through social media, etc., it wasn’t going to fly.”

Martin said that it may only be a matter of time until change is forced on the municipality anyways.

“I really think that the days of small municipalities are numbered,” Martin said. “We’ll probably see another round of amalgamation coming.

How North Frontenac disposes of waste and recycling is about to go through some major changes.

At a special meeting of Council last Saturday at Clar-Mill Hall in Plevna, Public Works Manager Jim Phillips went through the proposed changes, not all of which were met with public, or Council, approval.

Phillips said he expects to have a new bylaw ready for the June 30 Council meeting.

He said that much of the impetus for changes stem from the cost to dispose of bulky waste, construction materials and white goods.

“We budgeted $12,000 last year for this and our costs were double that,” Phillips said. “We’re not collecting enough to reflect the cost of disposal for these items.”

Essentially, the proposals are two-fold. First, tipping fees will increase on things like fridges/freezers (to $30 from the current $20), mattresses/box springs/sofas (to $20 from the current $15), sofa beds (to $30 from the current $20) and recliners (to $10 from the current $5).

Second, bag tags will still be used but only for the disposal of household waste and bag tags will not be issued for additional bags of recycling (Phillips is recommending a 30-days grace period after passage of the bylaw to use accumulated bag tags for bulky waste and items other than household waste.)

Currently, residents have been able to use recycling tags to dispose of bulky items instead of cash at an exchange of one tag per every $2 of tipping fee.

“In order to keep our waste sites for as long as we can, these changes need to happen,” Phillips said. “If we didn’t divert these items, our waste sites would fill up quickly.”

He said current estimated remaining lifespans for the sites are: 506 – 30 years; Mississippi – 34 years; Plevna – 49 years.

“Recycling comes at a cost,” he said. “Recycling goes to a Materials Recovery Facility in Belleville and changing markets determine if we get a rebate, have to pay or it’s free.”

“My concern is that it might encourage people to find a quiet back road (to dispose of bulky items),” said resident Fred Fowler.

“I’m hearing that people want to use their extra tags for building waste,” said Coun. Denis Bedard.

Mayor Ron Higgins expressed concern that a lot of the bulk waste coming in was from outside the municipality.

“Just the other day we had an incident where someone brought in nine mattresses from a two-bedroom cottage,” Higgins said.

Hunting for camps
With improvements to mapping technology, rural municipalities are finding out all sorts of things.

In North Frontenac, it turns out that several hunting camps, once thought to be on Crown Land, are actually on Township land, often on road allowances.

“It was a misunderstanding with the Crown in the ’50s,” said Coun. Gerry Martin. “Now there are liabilities and actual paperwork that has to be taken care of.

“It’s another user pay thing.”

To that end, Tara Mieske, clerk/planning manager, presented a proposal to Council for a $130 application fee and an annual fee of $75 to cover costs for these properties. With the fees, Council enters into licence agreements which allows the use of road allowances for access or for use of buildings on Township land.

“In most cases, building permits were issued and a fee was paid to the Crown, who then paid the Township,” Mieske said.

Addington Highlands Council is considering a “partnership” with the Highland Waters Metis Community Council for things such as grant applications, following a presentation by Highland Waters representative Candace Lloyd at the regular Addington Highlands Council meeting Monday in Flinton.

Lloyd gave an overview of her Council and the Highland Waters in general, which represents about 500 registered members and about another 200 Metis under the age of 14 in a geographical area beginning at Paudash in the northwest, Smith Falls in the northeast, the intersection of Highways 15 and 401 in the southeast and Wellers Bay in the southwest.

“We partnered with the school board and you’re our closest municipal government,” said Lloyd (the Highland Waters Council offices are in North Point Square in Northbrook). “We are proposing a partnership with Addington Highlands for grants requiring an aboriginal component.

“We’d like a letter of intent or memorandum of understanding to share information.”

“We haven’t had much luck applying for grants either,” said Coun. Kirby Thompson.

Coun. Bill Cox pointed out that Highland Waters does provide several services in the community such as paying for a support worker at Pine Meadows Nursing Home.

Council agreed to look into the proposal and did agree to waive the $250 hall rental fee for Highland Waters’ annual general meeting June 17 at Flinton Township Hall (1-4 p.m.). The public is invited to the meeting.

Staying put on insepctions
Responding to a letter requesting the Township to conduct septic inspections, Council accepted deputy clerk/planning secretary Patricia Gray’s report recommending continuation of the 2010 agreement with the KFLA Health Unit to conduct septic inspections.

“I spoke with the chief building official from the Health Unit (and) he said that if Council is considering withdrawing from the program, the Health Unit would like the opportunity to discuss it with Council,” Gray said in her report. “If the service that is being provided needs improvement, they would like the opportunity to work on this.”

She said the Health Unit is willing to arrange inspections (when possible) at the same time as building inspections so that contractors do not have to make multiple trips to the site.

“I don’t see them getting out of septic inspections in the short term,” said Coun. Bill Cox.

Mayor Henry Hogg noted that there could be policy changes at the Health Unit when Medical Officer of Health, Ian Gemmill retires at the end of June. Gemmill will be replaced by current associate medical officer of health, Kieran Moore.

Fee waived
Responding to a request to waive zoning bylaw amendment fees, Council approved a waiver of the application fee, but not the costs involved in a zoning bylaw amendment.

“Costs are costs but we can waive the application fee,” said Mayor Henry Hogg.

Freeburn returning to lead hand role
Council has accepted the resignation of Road and Waste Management Supervisor Mark Freeburn.

Freeburn, who replaced long-time supervisor Royce Rosenblath when he retired in February, will be returning to his former position as Lead Hand.

The Township is accepting applications for the Supervisor position until June 16 at 4 p.m.

Last week, I spent one and a half days attending an OMB hearing in Sydenham which came down, in the end, to the question of whether or not South Frontenac Township Council has the authority to pass a by-law that could extinguish certain rights of “grandfathered” waterfront properties located within the currently required 30 metre setback from the high water mark.

The event involved a judge, two lawyers, two land use planners, two expert witnesses (re environmental issues), a legal assistant and a modest number of onlookers. There were two enormous tabbed binders full of plans, by-laws, notes and studies for each of the participants, and a variety of large-scale maps and charts. The sessions began at 9:30 and ran until shortly after 6:00 each day.

I took 25 pages of notes. From all this, what can one say?

The experience was, in many ways, fascinating. The speakers were all thoroughly prepared, well spoken and courteous, though sometimes a sharply ironic edge can be conveyed by the two simple words ‘my friend’. I enjoyed watching this real-life process of exploring all the nuances of wording and interpretation that can be read into the laws that both govern and protect citizens in a democracy.

To repeat what I think was said, or to try to explain the proceedings would only be an attempt to guess at the final decision and the rationale behind it. The judge’s closing comment was that “This has turned out to be a more complicated issue than I had anticipated.”

Earlier this month, a much longer, three-way OMB hearing took place in the Township over the issue of a proposed subdivision in Hartington; the developer appealed to the OMB about the County’s slowness in coming to a decision about his proposal, and the Hartington citizens group appealed the subdivision proposal as a third party. Uncertainty about maintaining the hamlet’s quantity and quality of drinking water is one of the residents’ primary issues.

Decisions on both these appeals will take time: the findings are not expected until some time in the fall.

Shawn Merriman, the new Chief Building Official (CBO), offered his opinion on how Council should proceed with penalizing North Frontenac residents who constructed a yurt in the Township without the proper permits in place.

“This case should still proceed,” Merriman said. “Yurts depend on the usage as much as the actual thing.”

“The previous CBO has agreed that it's a building, I have, from my previous experience at other townships, agreed too,” Merriman said. “If they can be used as a residence, and in this case it appears that it is being used as a residence, even if it's seasonal, it's a slippery slope to get into it.”

Mayor Higgins was adamant about deferring the decision until they could sit down with the planning department, the building department, and Council to better define how they classify yurts in the Township.

“I don't agree,” Deputy Mayor Fred Perry said. “We have a set of policies and we have a building inspector that adheres to those policies. .. we have to accept those decisions,”

“We don't go around questioning when the Inspector says yes or no,” Perry continued. “That's his job.”

“In most situations I would agree but this is a unique situation...” Mayor Higgins said.

“No sir,” Merriman interrupted. “In all situations you hired your Building Inspector to do the job.”

“I'm not trying to circumvent what the building department is doing ...” Higgins said. “We haven't defined yurts in our building code.”

“The building official defines it for you once you hire them,” Merriman said.

“I'm not necessarily looking to punish anyone who truly thought they were doing something that was reasonable,” Merriman said.

“When something goes through that's not safe it's usually not those people that have a problem but the person 4-5 owners down that has the problem,” Merriman said. “… and then they ask the Township 'how could you have done this?' and you find yourself in court.”

In a recorded vote, Council chose to defer the decision. Councillors Good and Deputy Mayor Perry voted against the motion, and Councillor Inglis recused himself from the vote because the resident who put up the yurt is his daughter.

Mayor Higgins said he will sit down with the planning and building departments and try to come to a workign definition of a yurt and will report back to council

Council Approves Official Plan
Megan Rueckwald, the Community Planner for Frontenac County, came to Council on Friday in Ompah to present, and eventually get approved, the final version of the Official Plan (OP) for North Frontenac.

The updated version of the plan featured some policy revisions as a result of the last public meeting and updates to map layers.

The planning staff had recommended that Council consider changing the status of Harlowe and Snow Road Station from their current designation of “settlement” but Council voted against the idea and the two hamlets will retain their original classifications.

During the public meeting in April of this year, local residents had concerns about Snow Road not being considered a hamlet with fears of missing out on future development planning from the Township.

On Friday, Council made one final change to the OP, having Rueckwald adapt the map of Harlowe to show it as a settlement area, and then approved the plan.

If this version gets a nod from the County it will be the first Official Plan approved for North Frontenac since 2003.

Clar-Mill Archives Receives $10K Grant
Brenda Martin, from the Clar-Mill Archives, received a grant from the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area for $10,672 to help offset expenses and to allow them to hire two summer students.

North Frontenac Stands Behind Decision on Cambium
“South Frontenac is ticked off at North Frontenac in the Frontenac News so I felt I had to address that,” Mayor Higgins said.

Higgins read aloud a letter he presented during County council in defence of North Frontenac's decision to vote against applying for funding from the Continuous Improvement Fund that would allow them to hire Cambium to study waste diversion in the County.

Mayor Higgins had hoped that the funding would be used to study more progressive solutions for waste diversion and instead the Cambium study, which would cost $106,000, was highly focused on blue box programs.

“I can think of a few different options such as working with other municipalities, working with the Eastern Ontario Wardens Caucus, an incinerator, reuse facilities,” Higgins said. “That's what we were expecting was going to come back to the County.”

“It just ticked me off that we're spending that money frivolously,” Higgins said. “There's lessons to be learned from each Township before we proceed.”

“A lot of Townships aren't up to where we're at,” Higgins told Council.

“We shouldn't proceed with any studies until all options are identified...” Higgins said

“One of the realities at play is that South Frontenac is not nearly as advanced as we are at blue box recycling and they hold more votes and more power and more people and they're getting a blue box enhancement program that's good for them,” Councillor John Inglis said. “We don't need it.”

“Why are we paying their consultant $100,000 to come in and interview our public works manager to get information that our public works managers already have?” Higgins asked. “It's a total waste of money!”

“The County is good at that,” Councillor Wayne Good added.

On the recommendation of its new Chief Building Official, Shawn Merriman, Central Frontenac Council decided at its regular meeting Tuesday night in Mountain Grove not to endorse South Frontenac’s proposal to expand the public notification period for subdivisions and condominiums.

Currently, municipalities are required to give 20 days notice before a public meeting is held in regards to a planned subdivision or condominium complex of more than three units. Under South Frontenac’s proposal, that notification process would expand to six weeks.

The proposal has gone to Frontenac County (who is the approval authority on such projects) and is scheduled to be discussed at an upcoming meeting of the County’s Planning Advisory Committee. Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith is on that committee.

“I fail to see any benefits for or even need for it in Central Frontenac,” said Merriman in his presentation to Council. “And I’ve heard complaints about it that it will add an unnecessary time delay, give more opportunity for mis-steps by staff and create additional costs that will be passed on to the developer.

“Any of these may very well be the final straw that prevents many developments.”

Merriman did say however that the Township should be open to discussion on the topic.

Coun Tom Dewey agreed.

“I agree with Shawn’s recommendation but I also believe that the 20 days time limit was designed with urban municipalities in mind,” Dewey said. “We have a lot of seasonal residents and I think a time of 30-45 days might give them more time to be contacted and make plans to attend a public meeting.”

Dewey and other councillors suggested making such a reduced time suggestion part of the resolution but Smith said no.

“We have to deal with what’s before us today,” the Mayor said. “If there’s room for negotiations, then we’ll deal with that then.”

Clerk Administrator Cathy MacMunn said that the County was only looking for feedback and this response would suffice.

“The Planning Advisory Committee will make the decision,” MacMunn said. “I was speaking with (County Planner) Joe Gallivan and he doesn’t agree with it either.”

Young name Deputy Chief
Council passed a bylaw naming former Fire Chief Bill Young as the new Deputy Fire Chief.

Two Cruisers for the price of one
Coun. Victor Heese asked Fire Chief Greg Robinson if it was standard procedure to have two OPP cruisers respond to a house fire and Robinson replied that it was, in case traffic needed to be stopped at each end of the road. Robinson said there was no extra charge regardless of how many officers responded.

That prompted Coun. Tom Dewey to recall another incident where a large moose was struck and killed in the middle of the road.

“There were five cruisers, two fire trucks and an ambulance responding to that one,” Dewey said.

“And they all had carving knives,” quipped Coun. Bill MacDonald.

Solar profits under the weather, but the sun will shine someday
Dewey also wondered why revenues from Township solar installations were “only” $203.

“Did you put a blanket over it or something?” Dewey asked.

Treasurer Michael McGovern responded that there was a “little problem that needed to be fixed but it hasn’t been the gold mine we thought it would be.”

However, McGovern said that after the 10-year loan was paid off, the Township should start to see revenues increase.

“It’s always that way with these kinds of things,” said MacDonald. “It’s always the back end where you make money.”

“And in the last 10 years, there will be lots more sunshine,” said Smith.

At the monthly meeting of Frontenac County Council on May 17th, the longest and most vigorous debate was over waste management, a service that is delivered by the individual townships with no input from county staff.

The context for the debate was a proposal, which was developed with input from the township public works managers (pwm), to apply for a provincial grant which would cover half the cost of a comprehensive study of the blue box programs in each township with a view towards making them more successful in terms of cost and the amount of waste that is diverted.  The potential for collaborative delivery of service is part of the proposal.

Last year the county facilitated a joint tendering for engineering services at waste sites across the county, which resulted in North, Central, and South Frontenac all contracting with Cambium Engineering for those services, at a cost savings. The proposed study would also be completed by Cambium.

Before coming to the county for consideration, the proposal went to North, Central, and South Frontenac Councils. It was accepted by South and Central Frontenac, and rejected by North Frontenac.

The reason North Frontenac said no, according to John Inglis, one of two North Frontenac Council representatives to Frontenac County Council, was that when waste was initially brought forward to be considered by Frontenac County it was for an entirely different purpose.

“Bud Clayton [former Mayor of North Frontenac] was the one who brought the idea of preparing for a post landfill future forward as one of the goals of the county strategic plan. He wanted us to be bold, to look at regional incineration, take some risks and try to promote this to our neighbours. To take the money that was set aside for that and use it for another study into blue box programs is not using the money for what it was intended for,” said Inglis.

Frontenac Islands Mayor Dennis Doyle agreed, but added that “the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus, who would have to get on board with this, have it as their 10th priority, and it never seems to move up from there.”

This point was picked up by South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal, who said “post landfill is something that is way out there in the future. In Europe they have been working on that for years and years but Canada is nowhere close to thinking about post-landfill. Meanwhile our diversion rate in South Frontenac is 25%, which is way way below the target, so anything to help us improve that is something we should consider.”

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins, who was chairing the meeting in his role of Deputy Warden, waded into the debate as well, expressing a concern about the process.

“I don’t see what we are debating here. The application for the grant has already been submitted before this is even being debated. That’s what concerns me. How can we debate something after the fact.”

County CAO Kelly Pender said that the deadline for submitting an expression of interest for a grant to cover up to half of the cost was May 6th, so the county went ahead.

“But there is a second phase, and if Council says no today the whole thing ends,” he said. “We went to the townships first because it was an initiative of the public works managers and it is a township service. It is the public works managers who are driving this, not the county.”

Indeed the report which recommends that Cambium can go ahead and develop the proposal was prepared by Jim Phillips, the pwm from North Frontenac. Mark Segsworth, the manager from South Frontenac has also been involved. He sits on a provincial committee looking at the future of the Blue Box program in Ontario, which is slated to be funded by manufacturers.

“We see our future working with the City of Kingston to try and make sure the new system that is developed isn’t entirely designed only for the GTA,” said Vandewal.

In the end, Council decided it would be okay to let Cambium continue to develop a proposal and prepare a grant application, even if it might lead to spending some or all of the $100,000 that was originally intended for promoting a post landfill future. There were no dissenting votes. Since he was chairing the meeting Ron Higgins did not vote, only announcing that the motion was passed.

Unlike Lanark and Lennox and Addington, there is not countywide spraying plan to deal with Wild Parsnip along public roadways in Frontenac County. Since there is not county roads department in Frontenac, it is left entirely to the townships to determine what action they would like to take. In South Frontenac, some of the more highly infested areas have been dealt with through targeted use of Roundup, applied directly on the plant. Local beekeepers have been notified before the applications have occurred to enable them to keep their swarms out of harms way.

This year, however, the public works department is going to tender for some more extensive herbicide use, which will cover larger sections or even entire roads if necessary.
“I do think the problem is real and needs to be addressed,” said Public Works Manager Mark Segsworth. “We decided to go to tender and then bring a concrete proposal to council for debate. That way council will know exactly what they are being asked to approve and the public will as well.”

Segwsorth said he has heard the arguments about the dangers of herbicides as they are being applied in neighboring municipalities and about wild parsnip being less of a threat to human health as some people claim, but feels it is a real danger to public health.

“I’m concerned about what would happen if a dog or a young child ran through a thick patch of it,” he said.

Segsworth said he approached the public works departments in North and Central Frontenac about a joint tender to deal with the problem but they both declined.

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins submitted an article on Clearview, the herbicide of choice in Lanark and L&A, by ecologist, activist and sometime Frontenac News environmental correspondent Gray Merriam to Frontenac County last week. A different, similar article by Merriam can be read by clicking here.

Higgins cited Merriam’s work in a tweet on May 3rd in which he said he “opposes the use of herbicides to combat invasive plants.”