WHEN BIG IDEAS FALL, DO THEY MAKE A SOUND? NOT REALLY! JUST RED FACES

There isn’t anything wrong with council hopefuls coming up with new business plans to improve the economic diversity of our town. As long as each proponent appreciates that many, many grand schemes have crashed and burned before, when presented by candidates who have been doing nothing more than “idea snatching” from other municipalities, and attempting to bedazzle us here in the Ontario hinterland. We’ve heard them all. And when councillors showcase them at the all candidates meeting, the chortling shouldn’t be taken personally.....but honestly, some are pretty funny not to mention impractical even in a robust economy.

First of all, it takes a lot to impress us, because we’ve heard so many grandiose, “out of the old ball-park” plans for turning us into a four seasons economic dynamo......and very few have come to fruition over many decades of election promising. What these candidates forget is the actual council process, and that it is less than likely the new council will make fulfilling your promises a first or fourth-term priority. For those who want to restore our economic vibrancy, it will begin with a new and sensible spending policy. Frankly this is the only place to start. Finding out just how deep we’re in, when all the bills are tallied, and how we’re going to get many left-over projects covered on limited funds.

I like “idea” people but I prefer “hard working” and “patient, detail-oriented” municipal representatives, who realize what post recession recovery means for investment activity, and why frugality is the operative measure for the town over the next term of office. The “big plan” proponents are just trying to win votes and I can’t be bothered with their nonsense. I’m impressed by the first-time candidate who admits being hungry for experience and eager to learn more about the inner workings of the town. The inner reality of municipal governance, is in fact, the required ground level course, before any idea to transform our community can be sensibly proportioned to the prevailing limitations of support, authority and market potential. So we can talk about a main street mall and all kinds of commercial installations that might benefit our community, but considering the poorer than poor relationship between the town and the BIA, there are quite a few healing steps to take before introducing another intrusion upon an open wound. My advice to all candidates for election, is that they recognize the critical importance of immediately rebuilding the relationship with the main street business community.....because it is a core issue and a goodwill deficit. While the town must not be subservient, it must provide leadership and order, and if unattainable, seek approval on all sides to abandon the association in favor of something that may be more workable. But the relationship can not continue to falter, as it has been.

The collateral damage is very much an unsettling reality to the whole town, because you don’t have to be a main street merchant to know all about the ongoing feuding, within and externally. Eager councillors, who want to make this a term of change, can start with the BIA, facing one of the toughest challenges in their own history.....a high vacancy rate, lack lustre enthusiasm to open new shops on the main street, and the earth movers, as construction adds another challenge to the already stressed corridor. The leader of this initiative must be the newly elected mayor, and it would be advisable in advance to procure a really nice olive branch, to initiate a peace, first, and a plan for restoration of relations, second. Just don’t expect the town hall / fire hall debate to quell for a wee bit. As Ricky Ricardo frequently blurted, “You’ve got a lot of splaining to do Lucy!”

Town hall needs to bring about a greater level of co-operation between the business nodes and the main street, and this is one of those grand ideas I would heartily support.......and if it was to fail initially, it is definitely one that should be tried over and over until a new relationship is forged.

There is a confidence problem in this town that may be at historic levels, and the animosity will show itself in this election in a variety of forms. This isn’t the best incentive to vote, this get even attitude, but it’s one we’ll have to live with for now. It’s up to the residents of this town to start the process of rebuilding relations with town hall, by informing councillors that old values of neighborliness and helpfulness, mutual respect and hometown pride, trump all other big ideas, because if we continue to let things fester, as they have, that divide in confidence between town hall and us, will cause a catastrophic dysfunction that will derail the really good initiatives that will help our community.

Truth is, I have never lived in a more neighborly community than Gravenhurst, and it’s the reason we remain here, work here, and operate three businesses all with this town as the home address. It is a precious resource, this neighborliness thing, and it’s time to nurture it back to good health for all to benefit. Once again, it involves enlightenment. That is the asset of a truly dynamic council representative.

I’M NERVOUS WHEN COUNCILLORS VOTE UNANIMOUSLY FOR DEVELOPMENT

There is no way to deny progress its credits. I don’t despise urbanizing progress and its resulting development, if it’s handled properly, and is proportional to what we need for the accommodation of near future demand. A lot of progressive developments have occurred in our region, of which I have heartily endorsed. Sometimes, our elected officials however, are spellbound by opportunity, especially ones that promise the moon, only to deliver disappointment. Developers rather like the idea of councillors donning blinkers, to guarantee their focus is on the project they’re selling, and not on the ruffling feathers of constituents.

I spent my early years in Burlington, Ontario, a modestly sized community in the early 1960's. There was no way it was going to remain a small community for long, as everything around it was bursting at the seams. Even when I was going back in the 1970's, it was staggering how fast it all had arrived. I’m pretty sure I’d be lost their today. Yet I have many fond memories of parks, open spaces, ravines where I played hour upon hour, and the smaller town neighborliness a kid recognizes out on the hustings.

It was the same situation in Bracebridge. I loved that wonderful small town, and I realize today, it was due to, well, what it didn’t have. We moved our family from Bracebridge to Gravenhurst in 1989 because we didn’t appreciate the newfound realities of urban sprawl, and the interests of council and the town’s movers and shakers, to make a small, pleasant, convenient community, a city wannabe. The mood of the upper echelon still exists that bigger is always better, and I could not agree with the reckless abandon to which town officials were willing to go, in order to make their dreams come true. Frankly, when the Jubilee Park debacle occurred, and a wonderful heirloom open-space, in The Hollow, on Bracebridge’s Wellington Street, was sold off for a university campus instead, it validated why years earlier, I packed up my family and moved south. I’m by no means the only one to do this. Even though our family was comfortably positioned in Gravenhurst, this was a fight (for Jubilee Park) that went beyond the municipal boundary in principle. As it turns out, it was a pre-amble for a fight right in my own ballywick, that I simply couldn’t believe. Jubilee Park was kind of a warm-up for things to come.

You don’t sacrifice a park, especially an open space in a neighborhood that will increase in residential, commercial density in the next 20 years. People need open spaces, and in a reasonable proximity to their homes. How amazing it was then, several years later, to find that so many folks, who had been silent for the park debate, all of a sudden reared up when it came to selling-off the former high school soccer fields for a commercial interest. The irony was over whelming. The playing field, which was not sold off by the Board of Education, is less than a block from Jubilee Park, which was already more than a century old, yet it was dismissed largely as a waste of good, marketable, commercial space. Many contradictions arose during this period of urban conflict over values and good urban planning. At a public meeting, when I suggested councillors read Jane Jacobs opinions on open space in urban areas, the impression greeted me back...... “Jane who?” One of the best known urban planning gurus didn’t apparently ring a bell.....so it was a mountain of a task to sell that open space concept as “necessary” to a density-increasing community, flying on a wing and prayer that they were doing the right thing by selling off a town asset.

Several years ago, when Gravenhurst Council got the idea to sell off The Bog, our neighborhood wetland here, in the Calydor subdivision, which by the way was one of the reasons we purchased our house in this particular location, it was a sickening feeling, especially after we had just lost the fight (of which I was a part) to save Jubilee Park. What it meant was, there was a new reign of boldness and “yes” councillors who decided to test their mettle, and flog some surplus property.......as a means of cashing in on the pre-recession property bonanza.

What was most shocking to me, and I had seen it as a reporter many years earlier, was the “yes” momentum of council to accomplish particular ends. While I’m a big fan of positivism in all its upbeat glory, Bracebridge Council had employed this, one for all- all for one attitude, to sell Jubilee Park. It was as if the town was being governed by party politics.....only one party, and there were no dissenters on such a huge and controversial matter. I couldn’t believe that no one on that council would budge, or admit to a wee nervousness of selling off such a town asset. I’m pretty sure there was concern but all this was discussed and resolved before it came to public presentation, where citizens witnessed a wall of approval.......which should never have happened to this degree, on one of the most contentious issues of the town’s history. But it did! And I knew it could happen again if we couldn’t stop the negotiation for solidarity that could be mustering in the wings. We couldn’t take the chance this would happen.

I kept this in mind as we worked through The Bog situation, and as a committee we went to work finding dissent before it could be either muzzled or strengthened as a force of unity. We acted speedily and soon discovered some out of touch councillors, who had not yet studied the matter closely, and who might be willing to support a plan to kill the sell-off, if we presented a compelling enough argument. In the case of Jubilee Park there were many compelling arguments but there was not way of penetrating the wall of “yes” votes to “proceed at all cost.”

In the case of “yes” voting as a means of showing solidarity on an issue, or project, there is always an inherent danger of reckless endangerment, especially when it involves adopting something for the community that is controversial. While it isn’t illegal to vote as a unit to accept or deny an application etc., and it is a reality of democracy that pulling support from within is an operational necessity, as with the recent vote on the Long Gun Registry, the problem in a municipality, is the fewer number of votes needed to get a motion etc. passed or declined, and a lot less scrutiny, seeing as the national media doesn’t often show up at regular council meetings to investigate democracy in action. In the case of Jubilee Park, I would have been so pleased to have heard from one, just one council member, that they had been opposed to the sell-off for even one minute of the debate. In our town, I was pleased early on, that there was no clear and unyielding will to sell off the property, and it gave me considerable faith that there was indeed some room to wiggle a counter-point.......and a more willing audience in which to pitch the critical approach concept, to this ill-conceived plan to sell-off property.

It does take considerable courage to be a dissenting vote......a lone voice against an important motion, but it can lead to further debate, and can infuse a wee bit of critical thought into what may have been a done deal. When a mega development shows up on our doorstep, and it seems like a great idea, at least to some, by golly, we absolutely require councillors with courage to question and debate those who are pushing the plan from within........because everyone, especially the proponent or developer, thought it was great project. We’ve bought a fair share of magic beans over the decades and had to deal with plain old beanstalks instead.

Every time I pass Jubilee Park, I feel bad there was nothing I could do to stop its sale. As an historian and environmental shit-disturber, it was a personal defeat as well. When I get home and see this beautiful forest-land and thriving wetland next to my house, I feel so good about the councillors who gave it a second chance, just one more review, listened to all sides of the proposal, and gave us a reprieve.....not because they were scared of our persistence. Rather, it was due to the fact more than a few councillors came, at our invitation, to witness up close, a beautiful, cleansing lowland, filtering the urban neighborhood’s run-off water, before it enters Muskoka Bay, of the larger Lake Muskoka. On paper they couldn’t see the wildlife, sense the trickling of crystalline cataracts, along the myriad creeks running through the canopy of cattails and ferns, or smell the sweet aroma of open spaces of evergreen and leaning old birches (that Robert Frost would have found poetic), and see the trodden down path where neighbors walk their children to see Muskoka at its finest. When they stood on a tiny knob of embankment, and saw the amazing wildflowers, heard the birds and squirrels chattering in the tree tops, and then saw the urban configuration of houses surrounding it, they came away enlightened about what urban planning can do, to conserve the environment and urbanize without great consequence to either partner, still in the name of progressive governance of all resources.....and being contemporary to the key environmental issues of the day. The Town of Bracebridge had other options than to sell off Jubilee Park but they were unanimous......nothing was going to change their opinion regardless the weight of an impressive array of sound arguments from many experts.

We need individual councillors, unafraid of stating their convictions, even if it means rocking the boat of solidarity. I don’t suggest it is a bad thing, all of the time, to vote unanimously, because there are circumstances that warrant this high level of approval. There is however, a time, when a project is so aggressive and altering to the community as a whole, that dissent is the catalyst for negotiation, and potentially, with input that is welcomed, not discouraged, a compromise can be attained without killing a deal. So if I appear nervous when major developments come before our council, there are some precedents from which to draw information. I prefer even a feeble “my heart says,” objection, over a blind approval because it’s what everyone else is doing.

While so far the reader, possibly a council hopeful this election themselves, might perceive that being elected our representative, is more of a burden than it’s worth. It can be burdensome, most definitely. If however, a newly elected councillor, celebrates the democracy that gave them this wonderful opportunity to govern, they will by the same measure, be able to remind themselves of our inherent right of free speech guaranteed by that fundamental democracy. What most often happens, is that newly elected councillors believe that somehow, there was a divine hand that led them to office, not so much the will of the people. I have found quite a few elected reps willing to extend me “the finger,” the moment after they’ve been sworn to the next term of council. From handshake to finger in a matter of weeks from the campaign trail. This isn’t just my opinion but rather the feeling of many, who have also experienced the “distancing” and “indifference” when candidates have achieved what they desired. And while I don’t beg anything more than “responsible government,” from those I vote for, it irks us all to find out just how self-serving elected officials can become, forgetting a lot of the promises made weeks earlier. While most citizens just grumble and say “I knew this would happen,” I’m one of those persistent bastards who doesn’t forget the mandate of responsible government. Even if I didn’t vote for you, well, I still expect follow through on our behalf.

For the councillor, who wants to enjoy his or her term of office, it’s quite easy and fulfilling at the same time. Approach your employers with the same sense of neighborliness and concern, as you did on the election hustings, and we will come to appreciate you as being approachable, helpful, attentive, co-operative and sympathetic to concerns. There is no elected official on earth capable of meeting every demand, or able to offer the concessions to quell every conflict, but what we’re looking for is the good neighbor, who is as concerned about community welfare as we are, and isn’t afraid of mucking it up, to clarify an issue, attempt resolution, offer alternatives, and at the very least, being patient with the flexibility yet durability of democracy in action. We too are unyielding defenders of our hometown, so don’t let our civilian status fool you about the range of our power which we can and will exercise to ensure responsible government when it falters.

We can all learn to deal with each other better. Enlightenment is the key. It always has been. Always will be.

A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE - CAN YOU LIVE WITH COWARDICE

If I had been an advisor to each of the election candidates, in this October’s municipal elections, I would have spent the first hour with a reality bombardment. It would undoubtedly be a full hour of explanation, about the horrors yet to come, should they actually win their respective elections. I would fill them with doom and gloom, the concept of having four years full of untold responsibilities, having to face pent-up citizen frustration and anger, having triple the amount of phone calls, cards and letters, threats and innuendos about actions and reactions yet to come. I would make sure that each candidate was aware that the next four years serving Gravenhurst, as elected officials, will test their mettle above and beyond the call of duty. I would tell them to toughen up, expect the conflict of the century, and to prepare themselves for a barrage of anything and indeed everything. To bolster my point, I’d give them an eight by ten image of myself for their portfolios, to prepare them for the distinct possibility, I will be defending my citizen, neighborhood, town and otherwise democratic rights if and when provoked......and give them a chance to muster some sensible, intelligent answers to my concerns, before I get to the microphone. I’ve been told I irritate people with my honesty. I’m sure of it! I’m just not frivolous about any of my posturing for democracy and environmental protection.

And I would follow up by asking, “Do you think I’m kidding?” Well, if you’ve read much of this blog at all, you’d know I’m not being sarcastic or making light of a serious situation. So why will this term of office be different than the others? The past four years (especially with a guy like me ragging on about preserving The Bog) were kind of tough, weren’t they? Well, here are some differences, some showing through long before the vote.

I’ve covered a lot of elections for the local press, and I’ve studied them all out of my own interest in municipal governance. The difference this year is the carry-over anger, frustration, and economic woes of the past decade, all welling up and some of it still open to debate. There is a new and powerful confluence of unresolved issues and some catching-up to do, on the part of groups like the Ratepayers Association and the Business Improvement Association, who have some rather big bones to pick. And seeing as there are quite a few present councillors who are seeking re-election, three jumping at the chance to become the new mayor, the divide between the groups is different only by the torrent that rages in the gap between.....simply because outstanding issues over the past four years, were not satisfactorily resolved.

There are some possible elections scenarios however, that could put these unresolved issues into the life-blood of council itself, and cease to be items easily fobbed-off as distant annoyances, like sort of a headache but not quite yet! There are certain combinations of candidates, if elected, that could be quite volatile, (and we could use some of that to stir up complacency), and a council watcher might be quite amazed at how democracy can be improved by the critical approach I subscribe. We need more aggressive debate at the council table, and folks who are not afraid of standing up for what they believe, and to represent the interests and concerns of us all......that would be a capital idea.

There could be combinations as well, that create a dysfunction, to begin with, as the returning old guard, gets pushed out of their usual format of normalcy. I see a great likelihood of this happening, and there is a distinct possibility that the council debate might actually have a wee trace of fire within, and it’s going to upset the applecart, of those who have this “divine” aura about them, just because they won a poorly supported vote in a small, rural Ontario community. I would be surprised if this term doesn’t generate one or more resignations, when the elected officials begin to realize just how imposing new realities can be......and this will give other more courageous candidates a chance to run in a by-election. From knowing many of the candidates in this election, and their positions honed from past run-ins with local government, and all the past business that still rubs the citizens raw, the going is likely to be very, very aggressive from the onset, and personal agendas will be worn like breastplates. I’m not adverse at all to a wee bit of knocking about, because the survivors of this vigorous posturing, to finally get a say in municipal affairs, will eventually set democracy on its rightful course of grinding out solutions, like a giant pepper mill.

My advice to all candidates, is to review carefully the reasons they want to be members of council. If you’re trying to prove a popularity issue, gads, you’re screwed. If you’re doing this for a pay check, well, you’re nuts. It’s not enough to take what you are going to get from, as they say, “all sides!” If however, you thrive on adversity, love nothing more than a great, no-holds barred debate, are always willing to learn and adapt to prevailing situations, and you really, really love this community, and want to see it prosper, then by all means......represent us with the same dynamic.

I have known councillors brought to tears by angry ratepayers, and I’ve had coffee with some who wanted to quit but were ashamed to do so, because of the public opinion that they had somehow failed in a simple task. I’ve met with career politicians who got bored when there wasn’t controversy brewing, and did their best work under fire and in demand. I’ve had mayors who asked me, the scribe, what I would do in their position, to handle a pending crisis. And I’ve always had the same answer to all concerns. “There are folks counting on you to represent them, respect them, and warn them when required. They are as vulnerable as you are, and sometimes don’t know where else to turn to get help. What may seem like anger and rudeness initially, may simply be the budding of fear, having unresolved issues, and no one else to offer help.” I’ve also known councillors who made amazing turn-arounds, getting comfortable with the idea, that problem solving and the art of negotiation, aren’t as daunting in fact, as one expects in that gut-wrenching anticipation.....much like citizens who become life-savers at accident scenes, demonstrating courage they didn’t know they possessed.

The next four years serving Gravenhurst Council will be far more difficult than the previous term, because a number of candidates for office, represent a strong force of enquiry, that will force re-elected candidates and municipal staff to answer many more delving, intrusive questions that they may have been accustomed.....regarding past decisions particularly in the area of expenditure. It may be uncomfortable for some to be forced into re-opening discussion about past actions, such as the sale of Gravenhurst Hydro, which has had an enduring negative aura attached ever since. While I don’t expect council business will be dominated in this renewed interest in controversial decisions, the fire hall allocation, the new town hall, extra spending on the new recreation center and main street re-construction will definitely spark......whether into a wee bit of shed light, or a much, much bigger illumination. Just don’t be under any illusion this will be an easy way of getting a pay check. There’s a pound of flesh going to be taken in return. I didn’t make the rules.

In one of Dr. William Dawson LeSueur’s essays, entitled “The Critic as Historian,” there are a few insights I find apply to this advisory for council hopefuls. It was composed by the man who named our community.....one of Canada’s true intellectuals. It reads as follows:

“The mere avoidance of errors will not of course make a man an historian, any more than the avoidance of grammatical blunders will make him a distinguished writer; for, after he has got his facts right, he must let the world see how he understands and correlates them. A man of less learning will sometimes discover more meaning in facts and put a better construction on them than a man of greater learning. A word to the wise is more enlightening than many words to the foolish. Emile Reich says of specialists that they have a knack of dwelling on trivialities and neglecting the most important facts. The best way to acquire true historical insight, he thinks, is to knock about the world and come into direct contact with the hurly-burly of actual human life, and so to acquire varied and intense sensorial impressions. Ben Johnson said of Shakespeare that he was ‘naturally learned”, and his wisdom assuredly did not all come from books....”

Get out an experience our community like never before. To know it is to love it!

HISTORIANS DON’T GET INVITED TO PARTIES

Maybe some do. Get invited to parties, that is! Generally we’re a pretty boring lot, if you don’t have an interest in vigorously spun tales of yore. It goes back to high school history unfortunately, that didn’t impress upon the general student body, a passion to pursue it as a hobby once the final mark was scratched onto the report form. Those of us who have taken up as historians, antiquaries, and teachers of such, have been tarred by the same old brush. “Run, run, as fast as you can, here comes an historian. They’ll regale you with stories about old farts and the stuff old farts did before we were even born!”

Well, it’s sort of like that but most of us have learned to be good humored about our love for history, never apologetic, and never without footnotes and sidebars of explanation to validate our positions. Believe it or not, gatherings of historians can get quite jovial until it comes to the “in my opinion” part of the evening, when blood can boil....I mean get tepid, at the slightest provocation, which could be the result of a cocky contemporary taking liberty with a long held fact.

As much as I am an historian, (which kept my boys’ school chums away from our house), I am also very much a believer in the balance between what is relevant today, and what is an historic burden to maintain in perpetuity. It is perceived by many that us historians are the bane of everything modern, and are the thorns against the ease of progress in a modern world. We stop the destruction of old and dear buildings on the urban landscape, and we fuss and fume about historically significant sites that require lengthy research and digs, while earth movers sit idle, and personnel twiddle their thumbs to a developer’s howling outrage. Sometimes this is true, and again we make no apology. Often however, we do know what is best for the situation of present tense, and believe it or not, progress doesn’t, as a commonality, stab us in the heart each time we’re in its path. There are contemplative moments when we ponder aloud and pen in lengthy tomes like this, why we weren’t utilized in the decision making process, because we know about the many precedents that broke trail from here to there.

Many of my cronies, in this history-sparing and heritage promoting enterprise, are routinely miffed about why they have been bypassed yet again, when a municipal government was grappling with an historical conundrum of some significance, yet could not see their way to incorporating sage advice, learned from years of research, by inviting a wee dram of input from our rank and file. When we are, on occasion, invited to speak to such an issue of historic concern, we are absolutely delighted, and it would only be on the rarest of occasions when one of us would balk at the opportunity presented.....or strike the presenter.

Some elected folks believe us to be witch doctors who can curse projects and progress. In the case of the recent debacle over Bracebridge’s Jubilee Park, the outright refusal of the town to seek an opinion of regional historians, regarding a matter of considerable historic precedent, councillors decided that this would bring about damaging contrary opinion, and thus, selling their park-off for a university campus would be at risk. What because we’re smarter than they are? Wiser? More capable of mounting an argument than the one they had for selling an heirloom property that an urban neighborhood badly needed? This is a capital reason historians don’t get invited to opine often these days. We bring truth to cut through the fiction and blatant propaganda. The historians lost the fight to save Jubilee Park, and we will always have regrets.

In Gravenhurst we have a highly competent and incredibly co-operative community of history lovers, hard-core and gentle hobbyists, who are always willing to offer a hand on a delicate issue, and their sole purpose is to strengthen the links of community to its founding, not beat-down progress before it can muster. Yet most of us still yawn and fidget, feeling somewhat left out from our community’s future, because we are looked at as staunch rivals of anything contemporary or futuristic. Truth is, us historical types would be pretty much out of business if it wasn’t for the fact that history is being made every second of the rolling year.....such that this column, as I write it now, is already antiquated by time it reaches the next key stroke. So we are very much aware of contemporary issues, and understand how it all comes together. Historians know a lot about Gravenhurst’s cultural, social, economic and political past, that by golly, could benefit a council hopeful looking to broaden their own perspectives, and be sure of their claims well in advance of public presentations......incidentally, with quite a representation of historians occupying the seats out front, who make it a point to know what’s happening in their hometown, and are unafraid of making corrections and raising points of order.

We are sharing, sensitive, approachable folks living amongst you, and while it’s true we can be quite judgmental, we will back up our opinions with facts,....ones we’ve meticulously gathered in the many decades since we began studying our home region. Don’t fear us because of the information we possess. We have come upon it honestly. Take advantage of us.....it’s quite all right. We’ll thank you politely for thinking of us.

You can not hope to properly understand what makes a home region tick by judging everything that is present tense. And you couldn’t possibly appreciate history, if you didn’t incorporate the reality of the present. Many, many lives passed have influenced the way we live at this moment. Then to discount the viewpoints of those who pay attention to those profound and subtle influences cast by others, is to fall prey to a serious apathy of conscience,...... which indeed, in many past cases, has played a key role in the desecration of history and heritage for minimal if any tangible gain.

We don’t get too disappointed any more when we’re bypassed for social events, and if we get invited to one fete out of ten we’re absolutely speechless, we all feel there is more for us to contribute that justifies our years of research. So don’t fear us because we’ll rain on your parade, or stop you from digging a garden on ground that may hold buried treasure. Rather, appreciate the fact, we are hometown resources always ready to play our part in regional, provincial, national heritage.

We eat cheese and sip wine, watch Coronation Street sometimes, itch when we have to, and get blisters on our hands from working in the garden. Yup, we’re just run of the mill historians living in Ontario’s magnificent hinterland. Give us a call some time.

HOSPITAL CUT-BACKS AND FOOD BANK DEMAND

While the gad-about candidates for this year’s municipal elections, in Gravenhurst, seem to be preoccupied with getting elected only.....by posting really big and stupid looking signs, and coming up with fanciful plans for a main street wonderland, my support goes to the candidate who puts “Hospital Cut-backs” and “Food Bank Demand,” ahead on their list of priorities, beyond the juvenile boasting about their thoroughly amazing personal biographies.....which seems pretty much a high school tactic for winning friends and influencing others. In my own years covering municipal governments for the local press, I’ve come across some real political duds with great resumes......who didn’t live up to any of their past accomplishments. Don’t put all your faith in prior achievements.

Well, here’s the thing folks. We have a hospital in peril. I have written frequently about this but I’ll throw it out once more. Muskoka councils have welcomed with open arms, the senior citizens of the world, to come and settle in this lakeland paradise. They’ve done so even when it has been clearly known, published and protested, that cut-backs in local health care services were imminent and occurring. It seems a tad irresponsible, and dangerous, to be encouraging retirees to make their homes in a region that is facing such serious health care problems. I bet on the plethora of promotions, to get these developments here, in the first place, there was more than a little emphasis on “and yes, we’ve got a hospital close by.” The same promotion is used over and over again to attract new industry, commerce, and development generally. “We have a hospital!”

I am disgusted by the bare minimum of protest from local councillors, who have all in some way, participated in approvals, to endorse, welcome and glad hand all over the place, senior developments especially, knowing there were escalating problems ten miles north. It may be time now, to pay attention to editorials in the Gravenhurst Banner and The Bracebridge Examiner, that have for many months been reminding us of imminent problems and potential future departmental closures. Most recently it was the cafeteria. We’re not in the safe haven anymore, so generously offered us for many decades, by the staunch, unyielding willpower of Frank Miller, former MPP, and Frank Henry, former administrator of South Muskoka Memorial Hospital, who suffered greatly for so long, keeping our hospital building and services safe and sound. There are some, and I am one of them, who believe if it wasn’t for these two brave souls, it might have already closed. Only their closest friends and family know how hospital issues wore these men down, and threatened their own health. I won’t let anyone forget how folks like the “two Franks” kept our communities up to speed with quality health care. We owe the memory of these fine chaps, to carry on the fight to keep our hospital from the undertow of the present health care dilemma in this province. Please find out more about what our council can do to save the hospital from further cut-backs. It is your responsibility and in the next four years you will have no choice but to have an opinion, and a solution.

How many councillors know for fact, the present burden of the Salvation Army Food Bank? How many have thought it important enough, to find out what the demands of the day are, and what expectations are in the coming months of this recessionary period. The only thing that has changed in actuality, between the Town Hall and the Food Bank today, is that instead of a half block distance between the two, now it’s separated by multiple blocks of general indifference. But the Food Bank is not going away any time soon, and if council hopefuls want to represent their town responsibly, not just taking up space at the council table, and showing up for grip and grins all over the urban landscape, ask for a meeting with the Salvation Army Captain, and find out first hand how many clients require food bank assistance. Ask about the fear of shortfalls, when food drives are not taking place and the shelves are depleted. Put yourself in the shoes of these wonderful people, who try so hard, to feed our citizens in need. Think how heart-breaking it is at times, having to thin out provisions, to maintain a balance for all clients. Imagine if you can, going hungry in a community that seems to have so much to be pleased about. Stand out on the wharf at Sagamo Park, and see the show of prosperity.....and then recall our hometown’s need for a Food Bank in a small commercial corner, just over the hillside. Two realities very far apart. What we are most prosperous with in this town, is having the abundance of kindly souls, who generously volunteer to help their friends and neighbors get by, during the difficult times. That’s the hometown I’m proud to be associated. My greatest joy would be to discover that a new Gravenhurst Council will want to be good neighbors as well, and the first step, is to make a relationship where there has been the bare minimum.

The people who run the Salvation Army Food Bank are constituents as are their clients, and their opinions are important to understanding what we have and will face in this wonderful hometown, long into the future. And don’t think that you can get away with suggesting, “Ah, if it closed down, so would the demand. They’d just get a job and earn their own grocery money.” That’s just faulty logic. Our citizens are in need. There’s more to governing this town than catering to developers and debating infrastructure. We need to be a good neighbor town, and this revamping needs to come from the top......in the form of old fashioned leadership.

THE CRITICAL THINKER IS THE CATALYST OF SENSIBLE PROPORTION

In my opinion, and it’s just that.......If you do not understand or appreciate the significance of the following statement, you should not be seeking my vote in the upcoming municipal election. To be blunt, if you can’t figure it out, or understand its implications, you shouldn’t be representing our town at any level. In my world the critical approach, not to be confused with a negative perspective, is what we all need to save this planet, this country, this neighborhood we call home. It is the tool we must use to judge a good development from adverse, a good plan from one that is embellished to serve the promoter, not the user. It is what must be used by intelligent folk, to know bullshit and otherwise propaganda from the truth.

“Criticism should be the voice of impartial and enlightened reason. Too often what passes for criticism is the voice of hireling adulation or hireling enmity. Illustrations of this will occur to everyone, but there is no use in blaming criticism, which, as has been said, is an intellectual necessity of the age. The foregoing remarks have been made in hope that they may help to clear away some prevalent misconceptions by showing the organic connection, so to speak, that exists between criticism as a function, or as a mode of intellectual activity, and the very simplest of intellectual processes. Such a mode of regarding it should do away with the odium that in so many minds attaches to the idea of criticism. Let us all try to be critics according to the measure of our abilities and opportunities. Let us aim at seeing all we can, at gaining as many points of view as possible. Let us compare carefully and judge impartially; and we may depend upon it, we shall be the better for the effort.”

The author of this brief summation of the critical approach, was written by Dr. W.D. LeSueur, the gentleman who gave our town its name in the year 1862. One of Canada’s intellectual jewels, he was also an official of the federal post office, at the time, and Gravenhurst should be proud of this important connection. A writer, historian, philosopher, he also once wrote, “the essential nature of history....is not affirmation but enquiry.” This is a man who despised popular histories that lacked even a smidgeon of critical analysis. While some authors were writing “a good time was had by all” histories, LeSueur was debunking myths about what really happened, and who were the actual heroes of our nation, and who were the glad-handers, slackers, big-shots, self-promoters and bums. We need the guy right now because there’s a quagmire of bullshit out there to navigate.

If there is one aspect of council representation I’m continually chagrined about, it is this almost defiant refusal to be self critical, issue-critical, action-critical, and uninterested in anything but their own rallying cry.....and in the Survivor mentality, following their chosen Svengali. Many simply follow the leader and vote.....well, not according to a dogged pursuit of understanding but out of laziness and convenience. More than just a few lack the ability to question themselves, and admit they don’t have enough information from all sides, on how to vote responsibly. These are the same councillors who have given a much larger decision making power to municipal staff....and that is a problem faced by provincial and federal governments. The tail wagging the dog! Staff lasts through many changes in leadership, and it is this upper management that most often provides us with our general opinion of town hall’s demeanor. Who is really running the town. Those with the power of information, all the facts, adaptable capabilities to serve any master, contacts, networking prowess. The lowly elected officials are at the mercy of those who know exactly what the critical process is all about, and practice it as a means of survival.

This is not a profound or even enlightening statement. It is easy to appreciate that senior staff are the cogs of municipal governance. The problem presents, from time to time, when the cogs are overpowering who we have elected to represent us.....and seeing as we don’t have a vote as to who remains employed at town hall, all we can do is fiddle a wee bit with the four year rotation of citizens taking the plunge for elected office.

We need to make a change at the top. Those who are elected need to be more critical of administration, and just what their role should be......and matters of accountability. Rogue cogs exist in governments around the world, so why would it be different on home turf.

The people I vote for must be willing to challenge the commonplace of local governance, and practice a more critical approach in their representation. They must truly appreciate that something is not working in this town.....something is not as it should be, and there are many citizens who know why. Insight is a first step, and complacency is a step backward.

“To rejoice not in iniquity, but to rejoice in the truth is one of the marks of a very superior grace.” W.D. LeSueur.

If you don’t have an answer to a question, and the answer to this question will affect the lives of many, many people that you are ultimately responsible to, it does seem that logic would prevail upon the individual, to seek out the information necessary to make an informed, educated answer. Here then is the fundamental break down of sensibilities from the ground up. It is what would turn the good Dr. LeSueur in his grave, Complacency and resulting error in judgement. It is an epidemic and we, in turn, are placed at risk because of this failure of common sense as the protocol of responsible government.

As one example of where the critical approach would be of particular value, as we are continually patting ourselves on the back for being a good and safe community, consider what council should know about the prevalence of crime in Gravenhurst. On a goodly number of occasions, council reps would look at the statistics as presented by the Ontario Provincial Police and rest their judgement on that sole assessment. The critical, and really only sensible approach, if you want the truth beyond the anchoring that stats obviously provide, is finding out what crime occurrences, for any number of reasons, never made it to the blotter. The mistaken impression is that the OPP statistics are the end-all yet they will tell you on further enquiry, there are many other events that occur, when citizens, business owners, public employees are aware of a crime, from trespassing, vandalism and theft but do not report it to the police for a variety of personal reasons....one of course being feared retribution. In some cases this is quite valid, as business owners believe getting involved in shoplifting prosecution, will mean being targeted for future vandalism.

The council representative who wishes to be ahead of the curve, and truly aware of what is going on in their community, on the crime front, must seek out this information from a variety of sources, including opinions on this from the OPP, as well as checking with a sampling of store owners and residents, who have learned to live with break-ins, theft of property and shoplifting, refusing to make complaints that would engage a police investigation. The number of car break-ins in Gravenhurst may not seem huge on the OPP blotter, as compared to other communities of similar size, but what percentage are never reported. The number may prove much, much higher. So what is the crime level in Gravenhurst and vicinity. It is found in a compilation of information from many different sources. One collection of numbers won’t provide, in any way, an accurate profile of the community crime scene. But should you wish to enlighten yourself because you believe it’s important, I’m pretty sure the command of the OPP would be delighted to assist.....because having the local governance with their heads “out of the sand,” could greatly assist their efforts to fight crime......because we all need to be a part of this neighborhood watch.

More blogs to follow on the Election of 2010.

GRAVENHURST ELECTION? BRAVE SOULS

The next four years of business for the council of the Town of Gravenhurst, will be inundated with challenges nobody will be able to duck, blow-off, side-step or navigate through without some morale bruising.

With a new mayor at the helm, and at least a few new council faces, old business will be new again, and I suspect it will take more than a year to establish a new protocol, a new responsiveness and new attitude about how the town deals with its citizenry, which frankly has been poor at best. While each election year council hopefuls bandy about the idea of greater openness and transparency, generally the feeling we get is.....forget about it. The rules change as soon as councillors are sworn in. And the distance between us gets greater and greater over the four year term.

What’s different this term, is that there is a great deal of unfinished business with some weighty barbs attached that will have to be resolved by a new council. From what I see of the weak talent pool, I’m reasonably sure it will be a lengthy process of review and revamping, revision and restoration......particularly in the way the public’s interest in fiscal management has been stomped and heeled into the ground by council’s arrogance.

There are several council hopefuls who I know will institute a greater accountability, especially in fiscal matters, and this is good for us all. As for councillors who think it would be neat to win a popularity competition, you will be sucked into a vortex of high pressure you may not have anticipated, where you are going to be held to a much greater level of accountability than in the town’s history. I expect more than a few council hopefuls haven’t thought this out, more than how wonderful it would be to get a pay check and expenses to attend meetings. Add in the pissed-off public wanting answers on how their money is being spent. It could get pretty uncomfortable being this popular, at a time when some big issues are on the table.

The biggest of all, is the Highway 11 bypass. It is an enormous issue. It has a devastating potential, especially to all the investors who spent big money to locate in the town’s south end. It’s not just a main street issue or a south end issue, it’s a council issue, pushing each and every one of a new council, to jump on this matter swiftly, and prepare for a massive protest to the province. Unless of course you like the idea of a northerly interchange.

Be careful who you vote for. This is a pressure cooker term. We need brave souls who won’t throw in the towel because the going gets a little rough. We need a council that doesn’t ignore the people who can help......and that would be us......a very interested group of citizens who happen to love their hometown, and want to see it have a fighting chance of competing with its neighbors.

Talk to the candidates. Measure their responses. Hold them accountable. But be informed.