By John Francis, Bruce Peninsula Press
The story of the daycare at St Edmunds Public School begins nearly 40 years ago when the late and much lamented Paul Martindale was appointed as Director of Education for Bruce County Board of Education.
The job was a hot potato from day one — he took over in the summer with an elementary teachers’ strike due to begin on the first day of school and the trustees determined not to spend one penny to resolve the conflict. Martindale listened to the teachers’ grievances and found ways to improve things. He was able to avert the strike just by being helpful and collaborative — he didn’t have to spend any money to solve the problems.
A few years later, plans were approved to build a new school in Tobermory. This had been discussed for decades but had never gotten beyond the stage of vague future commitments. Suddenly it was galloping towards construction.
The plans included an excellent gymnasium, suitable for community use evenings and weekends.
But a funny thing happened along the way. Negotiations with Bruce County happened in parallel and some County money found its way into the budget to make the school a little bigger by adding a large room that could be used as a daycare.
That was public administration, Martindale style — find ways to collaborate with everybody to make things work better and to make the school facility as useful as possible to the community.
At that time, Tobermory’s daycare operated out of a single room in the basement of the township office. The much larger room in the new school would have been a huge improvement but somehow the switch never happened.
A few years later, the whole peninsula education community got caught in a vortex of endless Accommodation Reviews — an ongoing fight to keep our schools from being closed. That went on for nearly fifteen years, during which time the School Board got amalgamated into Bluewater District School Board, the Township got amalgamated into Northern Bruce Peninsula and school enrolments dropped precipitously.
A dramatic turnaround in corporate culture at the school board happened just in time — for about ten years now, they have bent over backwards to keep St Ed’s school open, despite enrolments of fewer than twenty kids.
And thirty-five years later, Paul Martindale’s foresight is paying dividends. When the province finally coughed up the money for a daycare, the room was there waiting to be used and the administration was willing to collaborate with community partners.
Apparently the gym is getting some community use again, too.
Paul Martindale would be delighted.
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A source with some familiarity with such things tells me that when anything goes to court — or any other hearing or tribunal process that involves lawyers — you should expect a bill of $20,000 or $30,000 for every day of hearings/trial/proceedings. Part of that goes to attending the proceeding itself; part of it goes to reading the relevant materials and preparing arguments and strategies.
That rule of thumb gives us an insight into what it cost the municipality to defend its zoning process from a challenge by Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy at the Ontario Land Tribunal hearing last September. We are left to wonder how much has already been spent in preparation for a similar challenge regarding another property. (EBC recently withdrew that second complaint.)
But I’ll bet the sum total investment would have covered half the cost of the proposed reno of the Eastnor Township (Rotary) Hall in Lion’s Head.
And just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, a lobby group is challenging the language in our Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw, insisting that because tour boats are not specifically mentioned in the permitted uses for the C1 Commercial Zone, boat tour operations are therefore not allowed.
For background, it should be noted that pharmacies, restaurants, laundromats, motels, ferry docks and supermarkets are also not mentioned. Planners assumed that generic terms like general store, hotel, laundry, transportation hub, eating establishment and marina would suffice.
If the municipality actually has to defend its zoning bylaw against this challenge, the costs will be astronomical.
It’s easy to imagine critically needed infrastructure projects getting kicked further and further down the road to fund the legal and consultants’ fees.
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There is a controversy at full boil right now concerning the $250,000 in grants, donations and discounts that has been raised to fix Cabot Head Road and turn it into a wilderness trail for cyclists and hikers. The proponents have rejiggered their proposal so that the money can be used to just fix the road. Council is twisting itself into knots, imagining all the bad things that could happen if they accept this money.
I wonder how Paul Martindale would have dealt with this…
