Laurie Watt on Municipal Affairs

Utopia. And now, Ivy

What do they have in commmon? They could have been places where people gathered to learn about being good stewards of our land.
Back in my Girl Guide leader days, we had our sights set on Utopia -- an old conservation area in Essa Township, for our new camp. Taught by my own Guide leader to leave a place better than you found it, I believed we could be good neighbours today and well into the future.
In Utopia, we would teach girls from around the area how to protect our precious water resources and how to be good stewards of our land, as well as how to work together to build a better community.
The neighbours had a different vision, however.
We were not welcome; so 16 years ago, we purchased 100 acres in Springwater, a site just outside of Midhurst.
I hope the former Barrie and District Agricultural Society doesn’t face the same fate we did.
Still too vividly, I remember the night we went to Essa Township council to share our vision with the community. The neighbours convinced council us big-city types would ruin their countryside with our traffic, our noise, our pollution.
The debate reminded me of a recent Essa Township meeting in which the Barrie and District Agricultural Society went to defend its plan for an agricomplex on 100 acres in northeast Essa, near Ivy. The neighbours used the same excuses: traffic, noise, litter. They didn’t want the city crowds coming in and defacing their land.
Yet the newly named Essa and District Agricultural Society would not only have its annual fair there – which indeed does create traffic but which also does teach the urban crowds about agriculture, its practices and its scientific advances. It teaches them to respect the critical roles farmers play in not only feeding us, but in caring for our land.
And the Ag Society’s plan to develop the site would focus more on this teaching role, as it set up an agricomplex where school groups could learn – and yes, where even the agricultural community could gather. It could be a focus of learning and of community.
Yet, the neighbours would rather see the 100 acres farmed, as they fear for the supply of prime agricultural land.
This is untenable. Few spoke out as Simcoe County, in its new Official Plan, relabeled hundreds of very-prime land to industrial, under the new, trendier names of economic or enterprise zones.
Let’s hope that Essa Township council has moved beyond the myopic times of former Mayor Charlie Pridham – and can look beyond its borders and see a new, yet very important role it can play in teaching our children to understand and support the agricultural community but also how to trade-off a small piece of cornfield for a teaching resource and gathering place for the agricultural community. Let’s encourage the neighbours to be neighbourly – to welcome others and share with them their way of life.

User pay approach has its limitations

The harsh and cold northwesterly winds blew streamers of snow across Kempenfelt Bay Wednesday morning as I chatted with senior city officials and politicians after a budget session.

Couched in politically correct language, the city’s key message to the business community that morning was “make the users pay and save the taxpayer some cash.”

Of course, that’s the kind of message many gladly swallowed with their tea, fresh fruit and croissants.

Pleased with how things went down, a councillor in the small elite group asked me what the story would be.

I didn’t tell them they what they wanted to hear.

“Look out the window. We live in a harsh land. We need to band together, to make the struggle to survive less onerous on each of us. We’re better together – and if that means spreading certain costs on taxpayers, that’s what it means,” said I.

Gulp.

Consider health care. Imagine having to fork over your credit card at the clinic or hospital emergency room rather than your health card.

When we all pitch in for something valuable, we all win. There is less worry, less stress, less struggle.

For their municipal tax dollars, residents used to be able to depend on certain key services – one of them being garbage collection.

This is continuing to be whittled away. About 10 years ago, Barrie implemented a two-bag limit. Then when the city introduced its organics program almost three years ago, the city reduced the limit to one 20-kg (44-pound) container.  The rationale was you were allowed to put out the same amount of waste – but you were putting it out differently.

And anyone who had the need to put out more bags could buy tags, to attach to the extra waste.

Throughout the years, the city’s bulky item collection program has changed, too. There once was a time when the city would pick the items up. Now, if it’s a stove or fridge, those who cannot get the item to the landfill site can call Habitat for Humanity, pay $25 and rest easy knowing the item is going to the landfill and won’t land in a creek or pond.

Still, illegal dumping is a problem. Ask those who live near Milligan’s Pond what they fish out each spring – a variety of bulky items, furniture, tires, shopping carts, clothes.

One official said the user-fee would position Barrie at the forefront of environmental issues because it encourages reuse and recycling. However, there are some items that aren’t optional, aren’t reusable and aren’t recyclable, like those convertible child seats – the ones that must be tethered.

Practically, every child born will need two – one for each parent’s car – and possibly a third for Grandma’s car. Not only mandatory, these car seats are subject to expiry dates but also changing regulations. You cannot sell, let alone give away, a used car seat.

So, when the child’s outgrown his three car seats, not to mention the ripped crib mattress (every parent who’s changed the sheets knows how heavy they are, despite their more-compact size), and the stroller with thousands of miles, squeaky suspension and rutted, rough wheels – what do you do?

You take them all to the landfill site, using your free 500-kg annual allowance.

Ending this could hit the families who are struggling to juggle the financial demands children place – whether it’s stocking up the nursery or paying for sports and recreation fees.

And, did I mention those fees are going to go up too? But then again, playing on a soccer team – it’s a privilege to play, isn’t it?

That’s not the question that should be asked: the question should be “isn’t it essential a child be able to play soccer (or hockey or whatever his chosen sport may be)?”

Studies show that access to recreation programs helps families break the cycle of poverty. Making the user pay will keep them there and out of programs. This further adds to their marginalization and sense of isolation and desperation.

So we’re back to the harsh environment in which we live. The economic winds are cold and harsh. Now more than ever, we need to band together and support each other, to build a better community for our children.

And now more than ever, we need to prudently plan financially – and placing more emphasis on unstable sources of funding (like the dumping fees or increasing development charges or, for another level of government, sales taxes) is unwise.

Don’t make that mistake. Don’t make users pay, to make them struggle more, just to make your own life that much more comfortable.

I don’t think that’s who we are. I pray that’s not who we are.

We need to work with the county...

Vision, courage and determination.

Essentials for a mountain climber or a municipal politician?

Both.

And, for an excellent example, we can look to former Barrie Mayor Willard Kinzie.

Now 89, Kinzie was the visionary Barrie reeve who could see a better future for his community if it became a city.

Even then, he recalled, Simcoe County’s rural reeves and deputy reeves called his town “Big, bad Barrie.”

It’s a phrase I encountered as a Girl Guide leader almost 20 years ago; we were wanting to buy land for a camp. We had envisioned turning the old Utopia Conservation Area into a place where girls from Barrie and throughout the area could learn about nature, learn about each other and about themselves in the program that challenges girls and women to become responsible and responsive citizens. Dressed to the nines in our Alfred Sung uniforms, we ventured out to Essa Township council, only to hear the words “big bad Barrie” and how our girls could ruin the rural nature of Utopia. I shook my head at such nonsense emanating from the mouth of former Essa Mayor Charlie Pridham; in the end, we bought 100 acres in neighbouring Springwater Township, where municipal officials welcomed us.

Such nonsense had predated us. Kinzie encountered it at Simcoe County council in the 1950s. “Once I tried for the Sea Cadets, but it was turned down. Someone got up and made a speech – if great big Barrie can’t afford to support their Sea Cadets, something’s wrong. There were a few things like that that turned me against being a part of Simcoe County and having our own destiny,” he recalled.

Today, however, the world is different and there is no place for it.

The global economy is in a tailspin. Communities no longer compete with their neighbours for jobs: they compete worldwide for investment and for talent and for creativity.

Simcoe County recognizes this larger newer reality. Warden Tony Guergis tried repeatedly to reach out to Barrie, only to be rebuffed; he invited Barrie to join in the work on the Simcoe Area Growth Plan – but the city refused. The reason?

The city’s voice would be rendered insignificant. The city would be outnumbered. The city’s position is never considered anyway, the city line goes.

That is old thinking.

Barrie lost out on an opportunity in 2008: the city could have joined in the discussions on how the area should grow over the next 25 years.

The city perhaps needed to separate from Simcoe County in 1959 and shape its own destiny. Kinzie had a vision to bring more industrial jobs to his community and he enlisted every citizen to help. Incorporated as a city 50 years ago this week, Barrie is much, much better for his vision, his courage and his determination.

Yet, as we learn from the past and take inspiration from Kinzie and the trails he blazed, we must also look to the future.

No longer are communities only competing with other Ontario municipalities for jobs, for investment, for doctors. We are competing internationally.

We must therefore have a larger vision; we must envision our entire area as an economic hub and as a sparkling productive place to invest our money and not only our lives, but the lives of our families.

We must work together to envision and define what we want to become for our children and their children – and act strategically, courageously and determinedly.

All the best for 2009.