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Have a Spooktacular Halloween
The Spooktacular Halloween Fest returned to Fairfield Park in Amherstview last Friday evening to the delight of local youngsters. The event includes many goulish delights from the haunted cellar to outdoor activities fr the younger trick or treaters. Head volunteer Elycia Cormier and Recreation Coordinator get into the Halloween spirit at Farirfield Park last Friday. Photo/John Harman
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OMB hears challenge to Kingston’s electoral boundary bylaw By Bill Hutchins Reporter
Kingston Heritage – With the battle lines drawn, it’s now up to a provincial board to determine the shape of Kingston’s municipal election map. The quasi-judicial Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) spent the past week hearing testimony from nearly 20 councillors, citizens and neighbourhood groups over controversial changes to the city’s 12 electoral districts. A contentious bylaw adopted by council in a close 7-6 vote last April aims to eliminate a downtown district in order to expand representation in the west end suburbs. In doing so, council decided not to include post-secondary students in the population count, a common practice in most university towns. “We are not arguing that students shouldn’t be counted as constituents. The
issue before the Board is the division of electoral wards in the city,” clarified lawyer Tony Fleming, who was hired to defend the city’s bylaw. The Sydenham District Association, Queen’s University Alma Mater Society and a local resident appealed the bylaw to the OMB, while a dozen others were granted participant status. Board chairperson Sylvia Sutherland, a former mayor of Peterborough, listened to arguments for and against the bylaw during hearings held in the council chamber. “I’ve always maintained that I thought there was a very good chance the council bylaw would be overturned in favour of option 4,” said Sydenham councillor Bill Glover, who spoke at the hearing. Coun. Glover stands to have his own district wiped off the municipal map if the bylaw is upheld by the OMB, as Sydenham and Williamsville districts
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would merge into one for the 2014 election. Coun. Glover says his choice of Option 4, as presented by staff last spring, would preserve both campus area districts and reflect college and university students in the population count. Instead, council went with Option 1, which shrinks the number of downtown districts and excludes students. The city’s lawyer argues that either option is legal and justifiable. “Staff’s position was that all of the options presented to council were defensive, reasonable and provided effective representation. It was two different ways of looking at the same problem,” Fleming explained. However, students and neighbourhood groups see it differently. They say not formally including thousands of postsecondary students is an affront to local democracy and disenfranchises them. Many complain the district changes will
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place a greater workload on downtown councillors because their revamped districts may not reflect student numbers but their phone calls and emails will. During his testimony, Coun. Glover noted that downtown councillors tend to champion more student-friendly issues such as transit, cycling lanes and property standards than their suburban counterparts, which may be difficult to do if the west end gains more voting clout around the horseshoe. “My sense is the strongest support for those sorts of things come from downtown councillors,” he testified. But Glover would not make a guess as to how much of his time is taken up responding to student issues versus those of other residents. Former councillor Joyce MacLeodKane, who also addressed the OMB, spoke in favour of including students.
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