Frontenac County Council

Jeff Green | Oct 23, 2024

In the lead-up to the 2025 budget, Dr. Piotr Oglaza from Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington Public Health (KFLAPH), and Laura Carter, Executive Director of the Kingston Frontenac Public Library (KFPL), appeared before council with an update on their organisations' activities over the last year. They also brought their budget requisition numbers for 2025.

Both organisations have Frontenac County representation on their management boards and the budget numbers are vetted at the board level before coming to Council.

In the case of KFPAH, the Province of Ontario will pay about 65% of the 2025 budget of $19.75 million. 22% is covered by the City of Kingston, 7.5% by Lennox and Addington, and 4.5% by the County of Frontenac. For Frontenac, that will amount to $884,000 in 2025, an increase of 3.4% over the $855,000 that was paid in 2024.

KFPL is looking at a slightly larger perentage increase fom Frontenac County, which pays 14% of th the operating cost for the integrated libary system serving Kingston and Frontenac County. They requisition in 2025 from Frontenac County will top $1 million for the first time ($1.016 million) an increase of $38,500 from 2024, which is a 3.93% increase.

Trail talk

The representatives to Frontenac County Council from North Frontenac, Mayor Gerry Lichty and Councillor Fred Fowler, did not cheer too loudly over the fact that, after over ten years of construction, the K&P trail has finally been upgraded in their township. Phase 6 of the trail project, from Clarendon Road in Central Frontenac, through Robertsville and up to Road 509 at the Mississippi Bridge, got underway early this month

Frontenac County received word of a Rural Economic Development grant from the Province of Ontario just in time to get the new, 8km stretch of trail completed in 2024.

An announcement about the project was one of the items in the monthly report to Council from Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Farrell.

“the K&P trail Phase 6 development, nobody up around Snow Road knew that was happening, myself included. I was just wondering where the communications fouled up,” he said.

Kevin Farrell said that communications could be improved, and added that the county has been working closely with North Frontenac Township staff on the project, and they should have been aware of the start of construction.

Later in the meeting, a motion to finalise the expropriation of the fourth piece of land in the Snow Road area that was the subject of expropriation. One of the pieces was sold outside of the expropriation, and in two other cases the expropriation has already been finalised.

In this case, the property owner had requested a 'hearing of necessity' in the matter but has withdrawn that request.

When the matter came, Councillor Fowler asked if the possibility of an easement or right of way for the trail had been discussed with the landowner instead of a forced land purchase.

CAO Farrell said that their is always an option for negotiation, right up until the expropriation is completely finalised, but pointed out that the process has been underway for over a year, and the landowner was approached well before that about the trail through their land.

North Frontenac Mayor Gerry Lichty said that he “is in favour of this particular trail. I think it is a great asset, maybe not so much for north Frontenac in next couple of years, but 20 or 30 years down the road ... but I'm not in favour of this particular motion at this time. This based on the amount of information we are getting, and the people are getting in North Frontenac, doesn't seem to meet the standard that we would expect from this particular organisation.”

Lichty added that “this particular landowner, and even their lawyer, say there has been a lack of communication from the county. I think we should put this off, for three or four months, and see if we can't come up with a better outcome.”

Kevin Farrell said that in this case the landowner “lawyered up immediately after being approached by the county, and it has been dealt with by lawyers on both sides from that point forward.

The vote on the motion to approve the expropriation of Part of lots 13 and 14, Concession 10, Palmerston, was approved by a show of hands.

No joy from Paramedic Services on Wolfe Island

Council was presented with the legislate response time report from Frontenac Paramedic Services, a set of targets for paramedic responce based upon the previous years results as well as the capacity of the services.

Before approving the report and setting out the targets for 2025, Frontenac Islands Mayor Judith Greenwood-Speers took the opportunity to point out that because there are no paramedics stationed on Wolfe Island, which she described as a community with a large population of seniors, the response times to the island are dependent on the ferry schedule.

As soon as there is a call, the ferry turns around and heads away from the patient on Wolfe Island to return to Kingston and ferry an ambulance back to the island. This has to have an impact on response times. In my opinion this is a gap that we must address as a council,” she said.

Nonetheless, the response times were approved by council.