I am in my 20th year of living in the Municipality of Meaford, and I am glad that I decided to move here all of those years ago. There are many things I love about this community, but there are also things that frustrate me, and things that I would change if I could, but on the whole, I can’t think of many other places that I would rather live.
Much of what I love about living in the Municipality of Meaford are things that are shared by many who live here. The small town charm of course is a strength of this community, as is the low crime rate, and the friendly residents who I found to be generally welcoming when I moved here two decades ago. I also love the natural surroundings found here, from the bay itself to rivers and trails; we have an abundance of nature virtually at our doorstep.
As a life-long municipal governance nerd, I was thrilled to find such an engaged community when I moved here. Having relocated from a much larger city, where most folks I knew had little to no idea what was happening at the city council chamber, and in fact most couldn’t name the city councillors if they were asked, so it was refreshing to find myself in a community where many seemed to have a very good knowledge of who was serving on council, and what they had been up to.
I like an engaged community, as to me, it is a sign of a community that cares about what is happening, a community that wants to help shape the future while honouring the past.
Something else that I love about this community is that it has been becoming more culturally diverse. When I first moved here, my one complaint was that I found the community to be painfully void of the wonderful influence of other cultures, something that I had always enjoyed in the much larger communities in which I had lived before arriving in Meaford. In the years since I moved here however, I have seen cultural diversity creeping in, which from my perspective is a benefit to the community.
While there are many things to love about this small, rural municipality, there are of course some things that I don’t love so much.
Public transportation for example, is always a challenge for small, rural municipalities, and Meaford is certainly among the communities with that challenge. This is a municipality that covers a large area (588 square kilometres, more than five times the area of the City of Barrie, for example, with a fraction of the population), and many of the important services that residents rely on require trips a half hour away to Owen Sound, yet public transportation is understandably less than adequate. It is a frustration, but it is one to be expected in any small community as the provision of public transportation is extremely costly, and is historically overwhelmingly subsidized with tax dollars.
Given the realities of small town finances, I would never expect this community to have a robust public transportation system, but it is still a frustration, and something that one must adapt to if they are moving here from a larger community.
Our local school is also a concern for me.
The decision to merge our three local public schools, two elementary and one high school, into one building was looked upon with suspicion by many at the time, and I think it is now widely seen as a blunder, and rightly so. The school has been bursting at the seams practically from the day it opened, and already in its short life features portable classrooms.
My own sons are now grown adults, so the size of our local school doesn’t impact me, but I hear about it from frustrated friends and acquaintances who do have school-aged children. Simply put, when I moved here two decades ago, there were three public schools in this community, and today there is just one to serve from kindergarten through Grade 12, and there are more students than the school can properly accommodate. That just isn’t suitable for a growing community.
We all have a wish list of course of things we would like to see changed in our community if money were not a consideration.
While our roads are generally in good condition (before the angry letters start streaming in, I know that we have some roads in horrible shape, but objectively, our roads are generally adequate), when roads begin to deteriorate, residents become understandably frustrated, and at times that frustration can build into anger.
Any municipality can never spend enough on keeping their roads ship-shape, and Meaford is no different. In a perfect world there would never be a shortage of funds for road repairs, and all of our roads would be as smooth as marble, and would be clear of snow within minutes of the flakes falling.
One of our municipal facilities that doesn’t get talked about as much as it should, in my opinion, is our nearly 50-year-old community centre and arena, which itself is in dire need of millions of dollars in upgrades and rehabilitation. With the full implementation of the provincial accessibility legislation to take place next year, our arena is one municipally-owned facility that is far from accessible, and despite the issues having been identified and talked about at council for years, there has been little action.
More than two years ago I wrote an article about the arena, and at the time the most recent report to be brought before council on the facility, which identified the need for a renovation that would likely cost more than $12 million, significantly more than the roughly $8 million spent to build the new library just a few years ago.
I would argue that the arena and community centre is as valuable a facility as a library is, and I have been surprised that more folks haven’t turned up at council meetings demanding an acceleration of the plans to renovate it.
So, in my 20th year of living in the Municipality of Meaford, there is much that I love, there are some things that frustrate me, and there are certainly some things I would change if I could wave a magic wand. But on the whole, I can’t think of anywhere that would provide a better place to live given that I prefer small, waterfront towns with a small but vibrant population, low crime, with access to natural areas like rivers and trails.
