Letters: June 27/13

Jun 27, 2013

Re: NF residents reject Council:

No – I did not misread the title in the Frontenac News report (NF residents reject Council proposals at public meeting). The fact is that at that meeting NF residents just rejected the Council. Imagine a township that invites us all to a public meeting to discuss three critical township issues and only sixty people bother to show up. Better still, imagine the mayor being unable to whip up enough interest in his own council to get all of them to bother to waste their time and show up. The mayor proved he could not sell free ice cream cones to a kindergarten class when he stood before us and extolled the virtues of his three losing propositions. Why? It is a simple case of lost creditability. It is painfully obvious he, his council and some of his senior township managers have burned any sense of creditability or public trust and now govern the township like a drifting ship of five fools and two rogue dissenters. When did this happen? Most of this smelly stuff is not secret and has been openly recorded in the Frontenac News. That’s why the folks down south call us Bud’s Northern Wonderland.

Let’s start with the Ompah Ambulance Base/Firehall project fiasco. Or better still maybe the downward trend began when the Barrie Twin Councilors publicly stated they just wanted the Ompah Fire Station closed. Or even later, say last summer, when the mayor and a majority of council told 160 people at a public meeting they would support a new Ompah Firehall. They were lying probably just to get out alive. But it continued at the same meeting when the mayor told a “story” about how much he had in his budget? (But sir! It’s seven million. That’s three more than four, sir!) And did the downward spiral just continue at the same meeting when he commended the Barrie Twins as being “not so bad” folks and claimed they actually had voted in support of the Ompah Firehall? Maybe the best indication of the mayor’s level of integrity and council’s sinking creditability was displayed when he convened a building task force to determine if a new hall was needed. When his own hand-picked members fooled him and said yes – he simply threw out the results. He said he just didn’t believe it. But then again he and his colleagues have never been too tethered to the truth and reality just isn’t an issue with them. Why would the people of North Frontenac not bother going to the mayor’s tea party on June 8? Who goes to a so-called public meeting under the mayor’s restricted council rules and protocols? Debate is forbidden. Management predetermines what council’s decisions will be. The mayor reads the motions. No discussion or comments are allowed. Keep the peace in the mayor’s sandbox at all times. Everyone will vote “yes” and the meeting is adjourned. Very democratic, don’t you think? Thanks North Frontenac for your open and creditable governance. This is not all folks! Next week if the editor gives me the room I’ll finish this. You already know it seems lost or rudderless. After Part II you’ll wonder how the ship of fools even stays afloat.

Leo Ladouceur