Once again the voices of the people of Central Manitoulin have swayed decisions being made at the council table and that, given the perilous waters our democracies sail in, is a very good thing.
Central Manitoulin, and Mindemoya specifically, has a long history of successful community activism—witness the battle over the fate of the Mindemoya Old School building where a small, but hardy group has managed to shift the course of council from a plan to demolish that historic structure to allowing a community advocacy group to lease the building with an eye to repurposing and preserving the structure.
Who says you can’t fight city hall?
This time around, the battle has been over the fate of the JH Burt Memorial Arena in Mindemoya which was recently closed to the public due to structural and safety concerns. The half-million-dollar price tag to fully repair the building by replacing a wall that was shifting due to snow loads was balked at by the municipal council—ever mindful of the cost those repairs would foist upon taxpayers.
Enter a determined group of local parents, jersey-wearing amateur hockey players, coaches, teachers and concerned citizens armed with hastily gathered petitions of support, hand-drawn signs all calling for repairs.
It’s helpful, critical in fact, that the engineers who were assessing safety of operating the facility provided an out for council in the form of a less expensive stopgap option to shore up the wall. While the eventual fate of the building is still up in the air pending engineering reports, the summer season activities look to be able to proceed and next year’s hockey season also appears to be salvaged.
All thanks to people who did much more than take “no” for an answer.
Neither of the aforementioned groups of community activists simply protested the decision of council to condemn their cherished buildings, although they did do plenty of that—politely, assertively and consistently as is the “Canadian” way. Instead, they rolled up their sleeves and set about raising funds to meet the butcher’s bill—with one pancake supper alone raising nearly $12,000.
Other Island groups have lamented the decisions of their councils to demolish or divest of buildings with huge history behind them, unsuccessfully, but in those cases the groups making the noise were seeking to have their respective councils foist the entire cost of saving those structures onto the taxpayer.
To be sure, there were, and will undoubtably be, costs for the taxpayers in the aforementioned two instances of saving the Old Mindemoya School and the J.H. Burt Memorial Arena in Mindemoya—but those expenditures are demonstrably supported by a significant portion of those taxpayers.
It is said that there are no tighter hands upon the public purse strings than those of a small rural municipal council—even if often accused of being “pennywise and pound foolish,” but it is also said that municipal politicians are those closest to their electorate.
The lesson is clear. You can, in fact, fight city hall—but you better have your troops and ammunition (data and fundraising) marching in step when you do.
Congratulations to the community of Central Manitoulin and especially to Marie Ford and Karlene Scott for their volunteer efforts on behalf of the children—but also to the council of Central Manitoulin, both for finding a way forward to meet the challenge of keeping the arena functioning, at least for the next couple of years, and for being open to other solutions that meet their community’s needs.
With the prospect of turbulent economic seas ahead for our nation, province and municipalities, it is not beyond the ken of a forward-thinking person that upper tier governments will be looking for infrastructure projects such as a new multi-use complex to invest in. Central Manitoulin council has sought just such funding, so far to no avail. Time will tell and the times, they are a-changing.
For the parents of hockey players, coaches, teachers and a host of community organizations that depend on the JH Burt Memorial Arena, today is a good day on Manitoulin.
