Alto Meeting Comes To South Frontenac

It has been a busy month for the Save South Frontenac Committee. The group formed within a few days of the announcement of a potential southern corridor for the Alto high speed rail project, on Thursday, January 13.

Sometime over the subsequent weekend, a series of social media posts from people who saw the implications that the southern corridor could have for people living in or near Battersea, Perth Road, Sydenham and Verona/Harrowsmith, led to some private messages, emails and phone calls.

Within a week, a group was established and for two of the founding members, Gord Boulton and Kay Koopman, it has been go-go-go ever since.

The first in-person get-together for the Save South Frontenac Committee took place at Bobs Breakfast in Inverary, in February.

“That is where people get together, of course, and eight of us were able to get there on that day, to meet in person for the first time. It was great to put faces to names and voices,” said Katie Koopman, when contacted this week.

The short time they have been together and the virtual nature of their organising process, has not slowed the group down.

They have been able to develop an effective social media and a flyer campaign to let everyone in South Frontenac know what the corridor and the public process is about. They have garnered local, regional, and even some provincial and national attention. They were also instrumental in convincing Alto to hold an extra public meeting, which took place on Wednesday, February 18, at the Storrington Centre. They agreed to have members of their group assist Alto officials at the meeting, as “kind of a bridge to the local community, to make the meeting as effective as possible for Alto to learn about the local issues and to inform local residents about the process they are following to find a route.

Save South Frontenac is also holding their own meetings this Saturday, February 21 (see page 6) in Sydenham and Inverary.

The meeting will be an opportunity for the local community to meet the groups' members, to learn how to effectively engage in the Alto process and other political actions that have developed, to talk about the connections the South Frontenac group has established with activists in other municipalities along the 'southern' corridor, and to let people know why, in their view, South Frontenac is not a viable location for the rail line.

Andrew Wyett, a Glenburnie resident who runs a company called YieldPoint, a geo-technical company that develops monitoring systems for mining and civil applications, will make a presentation at both meetings, about the implications of a rail line on the local geology.

Other local experts may be on hand as well. And for people who have had difficulty accessing and pinning comments on the Alto map, there will be an opportunity to go over that process, including the option of entering comments on the spot.

“We have been pretty careful to keep our focus on a set of issues we can all agree on, without getting into ideology or party politics,” Koopman said in a telephone interview early this week.

Save South Frontenac has monitored some of the activities in Kingston around an alternative corridor for Alto, as well as a new initiative aimed at developing an alternative route for high-speed rail along the 401 corridor.

“Our main focus, however, is to work with South Frontenac residents and allies on how to make sure a route through our communities is not chosen,” she said.

Among the outreach that Save South Frontenac has done is a presentation by Gord Boulton to a packed meeting in Chaffey's Locks, a community adjacent to South Frontenac that is within the corridor as well.

The Save South Frontenac Committee received a boost when South Frontenac Council passed a motion saying they did not support the rail coming through the township, and said they support it going through Kingston instead.

At this time, both Central and North Frontenac Council's have passed motions rejecting the corridor coming through their townships.

Neither of those townships said anything about a route through Kingston however, since it is not within the Alto mandate to add any new stops.

The Save South Frontenac Open House meetings are set for this Saturday (Feb. 21) 10-2pm at the Sydenham Library Community Room, and at the United Church Hall in Inverary.