Sleepy election no more – Lichty to challenge Higgins for Mayor of North Frontenac (updated)

Jeff Green | Aug 10, 2022

(Editors note - after our print deadline on Tuesday, some more candidates have surfaced. In Central Frontenac, Kennebec (Ward 1) which had only one registered candidate for two positions, will now have an election. Incumbent Cindy Kelsey and Isaac Hale, who ran in 2018, have both stepped forward.

In Addington Highlands, there is now one candidate for the two ward 1 (Denbigh) council spots. Royce Rosenblath, the long serving Public Works Manager who retired a few years ago, is running. 

In the race for school board trustee, Wendy Procter, long serving trustee for the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board, is seeking re-election. She represents voters throughout the entire region.

Look here for updates as the August 19 nomination deadline approaches.)

After considering the matter for several weeks, Gerry Lichty submitted his nomination papers for mayor of North Frontenac last week.

That will result in the first mayoralty election in North Frontenac since 2014. At that time, two candidates who had never served in municipal council, Ron Higgins and Claudio Valentini, jumped into the political vacuum that resulted from the sudden death of the sitting mayor, Bud Clayton, earlier in the summer of 2014.

Higgins won that election and then ran unopposed in 2018.

Gerry Lichty has lived in North Frontenac on a full-time basis, in the Snow Road area, since 2014, and has been involved in public life as President of the Snow Road Community Centre Association, and as a member of the Committee of Adjustment for the township.

He said that one of the reasons that he decided to run is Ron Higgins.

“I voted for him in 2014. I think his performance has gradually declined. I watch him in action to see how he handles other councillors and I’m not sure about the way he does things,” Lichty said, of Higgins.

He said that the final straw, for him, was Mayor Higgin’s response to a report from the Frontenac County Integrity Commissioner which sanctioned him for an email he wrote to the County Director of Planning, Joe Gallivan.

“Instead of apologising, he explained why he wrote the email in the first place once again. It was unprofessional and if I am elected, repairing North Frontenac’s relationship with Frontenac County will be one of my goals.”

Lichty said that his own background makes him qualified for the role of mayor. He graduated with a degree in civil engineering in 1972, and worked building bridges for over a decade before changing his career path by taking a job as the Chief Designer with Toronto Community Housing. He spent the rest of his career working on public housing projects in Toronto, and later for the Ontario Ministry of Housing.

One of his career highlights was supervising a $100 million project to repair social housing facilities across the province. After the changes that came when Mike Harris was elected Ontario premier, he went to work for the Region of Waterloo as facilities manager. Later in his career he worked on energy management projects, and opened a consulting business, Northwind Management Consultants, in 2009.

“I do my best to be an objective thinker,” he said. “If you listen to someone from the other side of an issue, you may learn something that you don’t know.”

Central Frontenac Ward 3 (Oso)

Duncan McGregor is running for election in Oso. With his candidacy there will be a contest for the two seats in the ward. Incumbent Bill MacDonald is seeking re-election, and McGregor and Susan Irwin are running as well.

“I would like to bring a younger perspective to council,” McGregor said. He was born and raised in Sharbot Lake and lives near the village on Road 38, with his wife Erin and young son Quinn.

It is a different situation in Kennebec (Ward 1) where there is only one candidate registered for the two council positions

South Frontenac – 4th candidate in Storrington

Mark Erdman is joining Phil Archambault and incumbents Ron Sleeth and Norm Roberts in the election for the two council positions in Storrington Ward of South Frontenac.

Miles seeking re-election in Addington Highlands.

David Miles is running again in ward 2 of Addington Highlands. As yet, there are no candidates for the two ward 2 positions.

Wanted – candidates for school board trustee.

With a week to go before the cut off, a number of positions are still vacant. In South Frontenac, all 8 Council and the Mayor’s position have candidates, but there are no candidates for school board trustee for either the Limestone District School Board or the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board. There are 4 Limestone Board Schools in the township; Perth Road, Loughborough, Harrowsmith and Sydenham High School, and one Catholic School, St. Patrick’s in Harrowsmith.

In order to encourage community members and parents to consider taking on the role of school board trustee, a website that talks about the role of school board trustee has been set up by the Public School Board Association of Ontario. It is called aboveandbeyondontario.ca/trustee and includes basic information about the role trustees play in the education system and access to further information.

As the site says: School Board Trustees “represent the parents and children of their communities - advocating for public education.”

The deadline for nominations for all positions is August 19.