Pass the Bucks

When Doug Ford announced that all citizens of Ontario would receive $200 dollars to help them in these trying times, there was a mixed reaction.

Those struggling to make ends meet no doubt welcomed the gesture. But many folks who are managing without too much hardship wondered why they should be the recipients of this largesse. Couldn’t a large portion of this hand-out be better directed towards crucial needs, such as health, education, affordable housing or food insecurity?

If you are in the latter group, I urge you to Pass the Bucks: to your local Food Bank. The numbers of clients being served is double what it was not long ago, and budgets are strained to the breaking point.

Picton United Church Food Bank and Wellington’s Storehouse Food Bank will without doubt welcome your Ford bucks, coming your way in the very near future. To donate your Ford bucks, please contact either Picton Food Bank Thursday or Friday mornings, and Wellington Storehouse Food Bank on Wednesday mornings.

Larry Richardson, Picton

Positive Impact?

A lot of residents read the Toronto Star piece last week on the merits of pursuing a case against Picton Terminals.

Mayor Steve Ferguson noted the “positive impact that the operation has on the community.”

Mr. Mayor, can you please explain the “positive impact”? Who has benefitted from Picton Terminals’ operations in this County? “The community” has been waiting years to understand a single benefit — with the striking exception of PT itself making money from selling and/or hauling aggregate from its unmonitored, unregulated quarry.

How many local jobs have been created?

How much revenue to the municipality has accrued from the millions of dollars of aggregate sold to the GTA?

How will the next accident affecting drinking water be explained?

How will you and the municipality respond if there’s a major fire on site? Our volunteer firefighters are magnificent, but not equipped to battle a fire or spill on an enlarging, still unmonitored site where literally no one outside knows what is in the containers the Terminals wants to ship with its MZO.

How will the County deal with decreased tax revenue as MPAC downgrades values of houses near the Terminals?

How will the Municipality respond when the next accident (potentially catastrophic) means PEC will not be on anyone’s list of places to visit — much less move to?

The concerns continue, and you are too intelligent not to be aware of them by this point. They’ve been reiterated ad nauseum by the public directly to you, to Council, and to the relevant Ministers. On previous Council votes on this issue, you were consistently against the expansion.

Why haven’t any of the relevant provincial ministries supported you and the community? It feels like the best interests of the County have been trampled, so I’ll also be writing to our current MPP, Tyler Allsopp; to the Minister of Environment, Conservation, and Parks, Andrea Khanjin, and the Minister of Natural Resources, Graydon Smith. And, of course, to Minister Paul Calandra, who will decide whether or not to issue an MZO and allow Picton Terminals to operate as it sees fit — without factoring in the good of the community.

At the least, tell me whether you really think there’s been any benefit or whether other political or financial pressures have been exerted, to hamstring the municipality at the cost of the entire community.

Deborah Schuller, MD, Picton

The Devil is in the Details

Re: Shake it Up, Editorial, January 15. The size of Council is a straightforward spreadsheet exercise. How do you get to 10 Councillors + 1 Mayor with existing wards? Here is how: 1) Ameliasburgh, which has three Councillors, loses one; 2) merge North and South Marysburgh to lose one; 3) merge Bloomfield and Wellington; and 4) reduce Hallowell to one Councillor to lose one. The resulting variation —voters per Councillor — is a little worse 17% vs today’s 11% but is still within reasonable norms.

But is the size of council really the issue? If it is all about decision making, is it to make bad decisions faster or good decisions slower?

And what recent decisions are of concern? Is it Picton Terminals, where the legal advice appears to have been poor? Or Waring’s Creek where, according to a recent WCIA meeting, Staff “forgot” an agreement with the Association to protect the watershed? Or is it the Campfire Circle development on Wesley Acres Road, where staff have allowed a development application in the middle of a Natural Core Area?

The decision to make NCAs a foundation of our Official Plan happened because of exemplary collaboration between environmentalists, community groups and Council. A courageous decision that will be eviscerated by allowing development in an ecologically sensitive area right in the middle of one.

Maybe there are other factors, too: provincial meddling (e.g., Ministerial Zoning Orders); the “Strong Mayor,” (in Belleville but not yet in the County); and replacing ward elections by elections “at-large” — with Councillors elected, like the Mayor, on a County-wide basis. I know a lot of people favour this, but what about being able to call your elected local official?

But at the end of the day, is our real problem simply that we have allowed an unaccountable bureaucracy to reduce Council to little more than a rubber stamp?

It is a complicated issue and the Devil is in the details. Be careful what we wish for.

Don Wilford, Prince Edward County

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