Stephen Vance, Editor
Today is Remembrance Day. A time when we as a nation (as an entire Commonwealth in fact) take some time to stop and reflect on war and the countrymen (and women) who we have lost in battle, defending freedom.I've never been personally touched by war. Like many in this fine nation, I am the first generation of...
Stephen Vance, Editor
Remember when public input sessions for municipal budgets would see turnouts of 150 (mostly angry) residents or more? My, how things have changed – but why?
Three public input sessions for the 2017 municipal budget were held last week in Annan, Bognor, and at the Riverside Community Centre, and none of the three meetings managed to attract even...
Stephen Vance, Editor
In a couple of weeks this little community newspaper turns seven years old. While I would normally wait until closer to our actual birthday to thank our readers, these days November is smack dab in the middle of municipal budget season (anyone remember when Meaford's municipal budget season was in March? My, how some things have improved),...
Stephen Vance, Editor
I've covered municipal politics in this town for long enough to know that the relatively small property tax increase of three percent (with proposed budget enhancements included) will infuriate some folks, it will anger some others, and while most people will simply shrug their shoulders and cough up the extra fifty bucks next year, there will also...
Stephen Vance, Editor
When Meaford's council was presented with the most recent proposal for a location for our library, my first thought was that it made a lot of sense. After mulling over the idea for the past week, I'm even more convinced that the building at 390 Sykes Street would make a great location for a library.The facility is...
Stephen Vance, Editor
Much has been made recently about inter-community transit links. The province is talking about the need to establish public transit links between rural communities, Grey County has inter-community transit on their radar,and Meaford's municipal staff had signalled a desire to explore the possibility of establishing public transit links between the neighbouring communities of Owen Sound to the...
Stephen Vance, Editor
It's not uncommon for people to launch into attack mode whenever they hear that their council has been presented with a proposal that could cost the municipality (and ultimately ratepayers' pocketbooks) in the neighbourhood of $5 million (which is understandable - $5 million is a pretty expensive neighbourhood).
That's what I was thinking as I took in...
Stephen Vance, Editor
I doubt that there are many of us who would enjoy sitting in our front yard while cars whizzed by at 90 kilometres per hour, but for some residents that is their reality. From talking to some homeowners on Highway 26 west of the urban area of Meaford on that stretch of the highway, from the outer...
Stephen Vance, Editor
On Monday Meaford's council proved once again that handing off the administration of the annual municipal community grants program to a third party just might not be such a bad idea.
In the past, council has had difficulty sticking to the eligibility requirements, and not wanting to say no to otherwise worthy causes they have approved grant requests...
Stephen Vance, Editor
Week after week, it seems as if we hear our upper levels of government boasting about the billions upon billions of dollars that they will be spending on infrastructure, supposedly in the very near future. Being the 'infrastructure-nerd' that I am, I sure hope it's true, but even more, I hope that many of those billions of...
