Kingston Mayor responds to Frontenac County letter re FPS, Fairmount funding

Jeff Green | May 13, 2020

In a letter to Frontenac County Warden Frances Smith, that was released late last week, Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson expressed how surprised he, and his council were, when what they saw intended as a gesture of reconciliation had been rebuffed by Frontenac County.

“To say that I, along with members of Kingston City Council, were surprised by 

both the tone and approach of your letter would be an understatement, he wrote in acknowledging receipt of Smith's letter on April 21st.

Paterson and Smith spoke on April 5 and again on April 16th. Paterson says in his letter that it was his “impression that [those] conversations were productive and a step forward for the communities we represent.”

The discussions were about a funding dispute between the City of Kingston and the County of Frontenac, over the city share of costs for the operation of both Fairmount Home and Frontenac Paramedic services, which both serve the Kingston and Frontenac communities.

There is a $209,000 discrepancy between what the county calls its “requisition” for those services and the city calls a “funding request”, a matter that is set for mediation starting in June (a process that may be delayed due to the COVID-29 shutdown).

 “We had mutually agreed to work toward a phased in solution that was fair for all those involved and to avoid airing our grievance on social media - a forum that cannot do justice to the situation at hand and only serves to inflame our differences,” Paterson wrote last week, adding, “to that end, I brought forward a motion to have the city provide the county an initial $240,000 with the understanding that our respective administrations would continue to resolve outstanding concerns. This motion was intended as a step toward respectful resolution, a step you and I discussed in advance and was something you indicated support for.”

But instead of fostering good will, the $240,000 gesture resulted in accusations that the city was not ‘acting in good faith’ which were delivered both in Smith's letter to Kingston City Council and in social media posts.

When contacted on Monday (May 11), Warden Smith said that while she recalls the conversations with Paterson on April 5 and 16, and his talk of making a payment to the county to use for Frontenac Paramedic services, she was unclear what the money was intended for.

“We did agree not to use social media as a tool or to negotiate through the media at all, but the next day he posted a video on Twitter where he talked about giving us $240,000 to cover costs for Frontenac Paramedic Services (FPS) related to COVID-19. I thought, why don’t they just pay their bill instead and be done with it.”

Smith added that she sent the letter to Kingston City Council on April 21, which outlined the rationale for the Fairmount Home and FPS, because City Council had not been presented with that information before and she hoped it would help them understand their obligation to pay for the services.

It is clear, from everything that Smith and Paterson have written and said over the past month, that the city and county leadership see the situation very differently, the city wants a lower requisition, and the county wants City Council to understand why the existing requisition is fair and final. 

As Paterson said in his letter on May 8, when the two parties met last year to talk about budgets, the city was asking “only for some measure of compromise and consideration of the fact that the larger budget requests from the county leaves fewer dollars available

for other external agencies and other city services.” 

For her part, Warden Smith said that, particularly in terms of FPS, the cost increases relate to growth in the west end of the City of Kingston leading to a new ambulance shift.

“If we let them off the hook, Frontenac County ratepayers will have to cover the cost of an ambulance in the west end of Kingston. We can’t accept that.”

In his letter, Mayor Paterson acknowledges that the city is required to fund Fairmount Home and FPS according to a prescribed formula. 

“However,” he wrote, “that same legal agreement provides the city with the right to seek arbitration in the event we have concerns with how this agreement is implemented. While we too would prefer to avoid arbitration, we now see it as the only remaining avenue for consultation and meaningful input from the city.”

It seems more likely than ever that mediation and arbitration will decide the issue, a process that will take months, or perhaps a year or more, to complete and will result in heavy legal costs for both sides. 

(Both the April 20 letter from Warden Smith to Kingston City Council, and the May 8 letter from Mayor Paterson to Warden Smith from May 8 will be posted on Frontenacnews.ca, as will a link to the video posted on April 17 on Mayor Paterson’s twitter feed)