GRAVENHURST AND ELECTION YEAR
Judged with other municipalities in North America, well, Gravenhurst’s governance is adequate in my opinion, and not one molecule beyond. What makes them "just adequate," is the disconnect they show as a group to the real community that they are supposed to represent. What they see and interpret of their home region welfare, isn’t an accurate assessment. Askew by the fact they sit in the golden imagination of self imposed pomposity, on stacked ceiling-high bylaws as if their collective throne, and rely on what is written far more than what is actual, and occurring every day just beyond their short sightedness. The fact many in our community must make use of the Salvation Army Food Bank to survive is, to me, one of the most obvious trigger points for reaction from the municipal leadership. If councillors were really on the ball, they’d be pouncing on this increasing need for assistance, to create a new and enlightened focus on the truthful conditions in our town.....not the convenient truths they like to knit about them for comfort. As they use the word "progress" like it means "for one and all," they see economic development as the holy grail. The more development means prosperity all round. Alas, they delude themselves by choice, and mutual admiration from the rest of their ilk.
With this election year for municipalities, in Ontario, we will once again see, hear and read some pretty impressive projections for our community, and grandiose promises to secure votes from a fed-up electorate.......a majority of citizenry who believe it doesn’t matter anyway because they all act the same once in office. They’re not wrong to think this, and if you measure our own town council with the most recent liberties being taken by the provincial and federal governments, bending the rules to accommodate their agendas, what on earth would make us then believe a newly elected municipal council is going to worry about protocol and fairness.....and govern as they themselves would like to be governed responsibly. Once sworn in, the distance increases and the pomposity of elected office swells to fill every open space in the town hall.
This doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to challenge their authority and I certainly plan to watch carefully as new candidates begin the dream-building exercise, of trying to convince us that they’re more deserving of our vote. There are more than a few present councillors I would not like to see re-elected or achieve mayoral status. While the present council might believe they have done a superior job running this municipality over the past three years, they have at best participated in the process......but I don’t see a better or more progressive town. It will take more than a new town hall and new strip mall developments to impress this civic watcher. My idea of prosperity is to no longer need a food bank. My idea of a worthy member of council, is an elected member who openly and actively speaks out in support of helping the less fortunate in our community, and assisting those tireless groups of volunteers who work non-stop to fundraise in order to help all those in need. It’s one thing to show up to all-candidate meetings with the usual tomes about how you’ve helped the community in the past,...... and how well you handled yourself as an elected official this term...... but quite another to recognize that polished sentences and vein-bulging hubris won’t provide the groceries to the food bank, or hot meals to those who can’t adequately provide for themselves. So what candidates see as an opportunity to win a popularity contest, shortchanges us all.....because this is not what we need. There are a million glad-handers out there smiling for the camera but no so many bringing groceries into the food bank.
There are people I know who will be running for local council, who possess good intention to represent their constituents. And even those who try hard can fail because their initiatives are voted down by the majority. Yet my criticism is this. As I have never once spared a criticism or an ovation when earned, throughout my lengthy writing career, the most unholy of situations I can find myself, is being afraid of speaking or writing my opinion because of anticipated fall-out. I’ve long been the bane of publishers because of my insatiable appetite for muck-raking. Instead of capitulating because they threaten my job, I take the time to sell them on the virtues of honesty despite the cost. For my outspoken assaults, it’s true I’ve been blacklisted about a thousand times....to the point where I’ve come to expect being shunned as a matter of daily functioning. It’s hard to find a publication willing to ruffle feathers especially if they belong to advertisers. I don’t go to bed at night however, feeling bad about this consequence of honesty but I surely wouldn’t sleep a wink if I bottled up my opposition. Thus, if I was elected a councillor, I’d surely be as forthright and unwilling to be muzzled. And seeing as I’m not running for council, I would love to find a council hopeful who shares the same disdain for "going with the flow," and who would far sooner leave work a little bloodied from the full rounds of an electric democracy, than retire frustrated and unresolved. Call me if you can handle blunt truth and want a better future in Gravenhurst.
My advice to constituents leading up to this November’s election, is to truly investigate the shortcomings of the present council, and what you wish could be corrected by a new council. Stay the course and attend all-candidates meetings. Not to kick ass.....well maybe just a bit....but rather to point out that the prosperity of a town isn’t always about money, expansive developments on every square inch of earth, or a show-piece town hall....... but rather on the show of good-will throughout. The kindness of a home town. The coming-together of citizens to help one another in feast or famine, natural disaster or catastrophe of fire. A town councillor must be a citizen first, and appreciate fully what ground zero feels like. Give me an enlightened elected official......even one, who senses and appreciates what the majority of us do everyday of our lives in order to survive........and I’ll show you potential and genuine progress. What a thrill it would be to find someone interested in elected office who shares the opinion that there is indeed a precarious balance between a hometown and just "a place to live and work." A balance that needs to be nurtured and maintained. The self-supporting diatribes of councillors, to reflect on themselves as caring and involved in their community, doesn’t hold up to a general audience that knows all about avoidance and the art of deferring responsibility by council.....because they’ve been paying attention to four years of hide and seek.
Take it from an historian. This is a critical election to the future well-being of your home region. Don’t sit on the sidelines because you believe your comments and your vote won’t count. Another four years of weak leadership will ruin the hometown we have come to know and love.
My idea of a perfect council representative is one who speaks up for the less fortunate, and one who doesn’t hide behind "council’s wishes," as reason to fob-off about "democracy has spoken." That’s an okay headline as long as the secondary heading reads, "Councillor vehemently argues for constituent rights."
I’ve been a news hound in Muskoka, as well as an active historian since the late 1970's. I read every council story and as a former long-serving editor, who prided himself on exposing under-handedness within the municipalities of our district, I can tell you honestly this is not the time to get involved in local politics as a hobby. Coming next year is one of the toughest council terms in modern history because of excesses of the past. So many pressing issues that should have been addressed, have been side-stepped by council, preferring instead to concentrate on their misguided concept of what true progress and a good and prosperous hometown is all about. It is exactly why our downtown in Gravenhurst straddles the precarious canyon between success and failure, as a direct result of urban sprawl, at a time when councillors are preoccupied with anything and everything else.
I would love the opportunity to sit down with council hopefuls and help them find their way to the truly important issues of hometown life and times, so that this blindness to reality might be reduced. You’ve got my email. Love to hear from you.