Editorials

It is disconcerting that Central Frontenac Council purchased Sharbot Lake Public School on November 24 for $110,000, and five weeks later had to hold an emergency meeting just four days before Christmas to decide to tear down the building. The...

This year in the paper, we looked backwards many times, running a year-long series of articles to mark the 150th anniversary of Frontenac County. Many of the articles, which will continue into 2016, were based on interviews with people from our...

This week South Frontenac passed their 2016 budget with a 2.00% increase in taxes. That sounds pretty reasonable. But when you look at the budget summary you see some other numbers. The first number that I look at with these budgets is the “levy...

Two weeks ago, after years of fruitless requests, there was a chance that Frontenac County would approve a $105,750 grant, over 10 years, to support a capital project at Pine Meadow Nursing Home. The home is not located in Frontenac County. It is...

It has been a strange week here at the News. A Tuesday power failure certainly put a kink in the works. Seven hours sitting around waiting for the power to come back so we could put the paper together was not exactly part of our plan. We attempted...

It is not exactly news now that the biggest winner in the 2015 election was the Liberal Party and Justin Trudeau, who have been given the right to push through their agendas without consulting any other party, even though they received less than 40%...

It would be a mistake to take the pulse of an election campaign, particularly one in a geographically diverse riding such as the new Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding, based on the tenor of a single meeting held in one of its corners. The riding is...

It's a stretch to say that election fever is about to grip the new Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding, but after going door to door for two months and appearing at dozens of events, the candidates are certainly campaign hardened. The rest of us have...

With three parties locked in the national polls, the outcome of next month’s election is clearly in doubt. Will the Conservatives pull out of their August slump and foment enough doubt in voters’ minds about the alternatives to return them to...

Thinking about an October 19 vote in early August is like worrying about your wood supply on the hottest day of the summer. You know winter will come and you know you didn't get enough wood cut last spring, but it would be crazy to fire up the chain...

A lot has been written and said about the proposals for wind turbines in Addington Highlands and North Frontenac. Most of the strongest, and certainly the loudest, points have been made by those who oppose the very idea of wind turbines in the...

The Flinton Community Jamboree, originally The Flinton Country Bluegrass Jamboree, is all set for another successful weekend with three days of non-stop entertainment from Friday, July 31 to Sunday, August 2 at the Township Rec Centre. This year...

Everywhere in the Sydenham High School catchment area, the communities are still reeling from the car crash that happened on Rutledge Road at 10:45 at night on June 16. The crash took two lives and left Verona teen Tyler Parr in a fight for his life...

In recent weeks, we've had some interesting debates around our office about wind turbines in North Frontenac and Addington Highlands. To settle matters, we settled on a duel. Jonas Bonnetta has written a column opposing wind turbines, and I wrote...

The No Vote by Jonas Bonetta Definition of BRIBE : money or favour given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust. It's difficult to describe Nextera's “community vibrancy fund” as anything...

The Yes Vote by Jeff Green In the matter of RES-Canada and NextEra's proposals for wind projects in Addington Highlands Council. Council alone has the legitimate authority to decide the township's official response. As well meaning and informed as...

Municipalities in Ontario will soon have the option to switch voting systems and adopt ranked voting. The impact of this on local municipal elections would likely be negligible, but if the system is applied to provincial or federal elections it...

When the Sydenham high school addition was completed last year, part of the structure included an imposing stepped concrete retaining wall on the west side, looming over Mill Street. The three-foot deep terraces were filled with earth and planted....

That would be costly. I interviewed Randy Hillier on Monday about the new Ontario Conservative Party leader, Patrick Brown. He said Brown had stolen the show from Kathleen Wynne after Quebec Premier Couillard addressed the legislature early that...

It never fails. Whenever I see one the Scott Reid’s postcards in the mail, I think there will be a couple of extra letters to the editor to pick from next week, and I am rarely disappointed. After running the response letters there is the...

It's warm outside, not cold There is mud everywhere My road is flooded Where there is no flood, there are potholes All the messes outside from the fall are back, in spades Oh yeah, the geese are honking, the birds are chirping, the starlings are...

Coincidentally, two power projects are being discussed this month at local councils. One is at the bottom edge of Frontenac County, near the border with the City of Kingston. Since it is a solar power field, little controversy is expected. The 106...

For about a year, and certainly since the most recent municipal election, Frontenac County has been a relaxed, even docile place. That might change. In a decision last week, six council members, who represent 42% of the population, out-voted two...

One thing that North, South and Central Frontenac all have in common is lakes. There are large and small lakes everywhere and in between there are more creeks and swamps than patches of land. Now those waterways are binding the townships in...

I understand that the tourism department of the Village of Wiarton counts on Groundhog Day as the prime branding event of the year, but when you compare that lost opportunity to the cost of Goundhog Day on our health care system, the calculation is...

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...

This is our final issue of the year, and we hope you enjoy the seasonal content, colourful drawings and Christmas greetings in it. Even though we are taking our annual two-week break from publishing, we have lots in the works for 2015 and would like...

A few weeks ago there was a municipal election, as some of us vaguely remember. However, because of the way things are set up by the province, the election is followed by a bit of a dead zone, a month or so when the soon-to-be-former councils...

An article we ran last week about families facing financial issues as winter approaches has engendered vigorous and varied responses from readers. Because the article focussed in part on two cases of people who are struggling, the responses have...

It has occurred to me over the years that there is an office in Sharbot Lake occupied by about 18 people who do the administrative work for Central Frontenac, a jurisdiction that has 4,000 houses and somewhere around 4,500 full-time residents, and...

The most interesting aspect of the 2014 municipal election in Frontenac County and Addington Highlands thus far has been the races for Limestone School Board Trustee. In the Township of South Frontenac, the election has become bitter and personal...

One of the sad parts of Bud Clayton's passing this week won't hit for another year or so. When the Pine Meadow Nursing Home redevelopment project is complete and the ribbon is cut, he won't be there to share in the accomplishment along with a...

Over the weekend, Marilyn Crawford died after a battle with cancer. From what I've been told, she had been dealing with cancer for several years, but apparently was able to do some travelling with her husband and co-conspirator, Buddy. For those who...

In North and Central Frontenac there are two police officers scheduled to cover policing needs at all times. In the daytime they sometimes patrol in two cars and at night they double up in one vehicle. The same level of service is provided in Tay...

The published photo of Kathleen Wynne greeting Dalton McGuinty at the Ontario legislature with open arms on the day of the swearing in of her new government, coupled with McGuinty being quoted as saying the recent election was a vindication of his...

Far be it from me to praise the City of Toronto, under any circumstances. But I have to make an exception. Last week the City hosted the World Pride conference, which culminated in a parade that was attended by 2 million people. Compared with all of...

... if something has a lot of resiliency it is more likely to be sustainable, but even things that are very resilient are not always sustainable over time. Then again, how sustainable can something be if it is not resilient? When push comes to shove...

While local election campaigns have been slow to ramp up, Kathleen Wynne and Tim Hudak have already set up a polarizing debate that each hopes will lead to their own success. Wynne went first. She put out a left-leaning budget, fully expecting to...

The short answer is yes. Randy Hillier is a Conservative MPP, a former leadership candidate for the party and until the dissolution of the legislature last week he was member of the Conservative Party Caucus. But at the very least, Hillier is about...

Editorial by Jeff Green

Granite Ridge Education Centre is a few days away from its formal ribbon cutting/grand opening ceremony. A lot has been said in the community about the decision to build a comprehensive school for the region (which drew a mixed response); its...

Two machines have been slowly, steadily, inexorably dismantling the former Sharbot Lake High School over the past few weeks. The school, which was built in three stages over decades, is being taken apart one attached building at a time. Its...

Editorial by Jeff Green

Among other things, the Quebec election demonstrated that a poor campaign by one party can shorten the attention span of the electorate. The massive corruption scandal that forced the retirement of Jean Charest and sent the Quebec Liberals into the...

The draft Frontenac County Strategic Plan, which is being promoted to local councils this month, focuses on three unfortunately named Wildly Important Goals (WIG). As someone who has attended too many municipal meetings in Frontenac County,...

One of the great things about politics in Canada over the last 30 years, in my view, is the gradual move away from a religious based laws and the ascendancy of the charter of rights and freedoms. A good example of this is the way the same-sex...

A lot of things went right last Monday in Verona. When an electrical fire started at McMullen Manor, 28 people had to evacuate the building on a bitterly cold and blustery day. They did not know where to go at first and were sitting in their cars,...

Although I do not share the view that the Senate expense affair will have a long-term impact on anyone but those who actually touched the money, it is still all bad for the Conservative government and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Whether you agree...

The fallout from the ruling by former Justice Chadwick for the Algonquins of Ontario to the effect that the names of 500 members of the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation are to be removed from the Algonquin electors' list is just starting to become...

The main benefits of being a journalist are two-fold. First, journalists can dress poorly. Second, journalists get to sit in judgement of public figures. This judgement lies at the root of all reportage - editorials and news reports alike (that’s...

“It would be nice, at some point, to do an in-time survey of homeless people in Frontenac County,” said John Whitesell of OrgCode consulting, which has just completed a homelessness reduction plan for Kingston and Frontenac County, “but for...

After being rebuffed at Frontenac County Council, the Kingston-based OPSEU local that represents the paramedics in Kingston and Frontenac County are now trying a kind of end-run. They are trying to influence Kingston politicians concerning the...

Even though a climate of acrimony and mistrust has become entrenched at Frontenac County Council in recent months, the decision that council made last week to defer their budget deliberations until May 2 is hard to understand. The budget was on the...

As those who live in communities that have lost their store know only too well, it is very difficult to keep a community together once it has lost its basic retail infrastructure – its grocery store, gas stations, restaurants and the like. It's...