MINDEMOYA—Deliberations over the fate of the Mindemoya Old School building, operated as a commercial office building by the Municipality of Central Manitoulin for a number of years, continue with a meeting to explain the council’s conundrum over continuing to put taxpayers’ dollars into the facility and to seek public input (depending on each councillor and the mayor’s perspective) as to ideas that might give the venerable building new lease on life that doesn’t involve the current money losing focus on leasing commercial office space.
The members of the municipal council were touring the building on Monday (March 21) to get a first hand look at the upgrades and renovations that are believed to be required to bring the building up to snuff.
One community member with deep roots in the community has no illusions as to whether the current situation is viable.
“The Old School bears a plaque commemorating my father, Farquhar Anglin, as a long-time reeve,” noted Perry Anglin, himself a former reeve of the community. “He would be the first to agree with council that the township has no business renting out office space at a loss.”
But Mr. Anglin stopped far short of endorsing tearing down what many consider to be a building of historical significance in the community, even though it lacks official recognition as a heritage building.
“I am sure he would also want the building to be preserved as a historic site and used for the good of the community,” Mr. Anglin continued. “Some years ago it was poorly conceived as a business centre and has been badly managed at below market rents,” he asserted. “Even with renovation it may not be competitive as office space.” That assessment was somewhat telegraphed by the municipality’s own approach to the building, he pointed out. “Our ever-expanding township recently preferred to build new offices.”
“What to do with the Old School was an issue in the last election,” Mr. Anglin continues. “I understand council has now decided to act.”
“Built in handsome stone and brick, the building is almost 100 years old and truly historic,” he pointed out. “It may have been the very first ‘consolidated’ school in Ontario under a new law designed to bring scattered one-room schools into one building, with different classrooms for the different grades.”
A different perspective comes from someone who signed a three-year lease in the building in December, lawyer Janelle Proulx. “I find it disappointing,” she said of the suggestion that the municipality might be cutting short the arrangement. “Why did they allow me to sign a three-year lease and go through all the expense of setting up the office? I signed with no caution (notice) at all.”
Ms. Proulx just recently finished installation of a new door, drywall and associated painting to prepare for a long tenure.
Not only had Ms. Proulx not been informed of the likelihood of the municipality closing the doors on the Old School building when she was negotiating her lease, “I still haven’t been officially notified.”
Ms. Proulx said that the Monday visit by the councillors seemed “not very positive. Some of the councillors barely even came into the office. I have nearly 700 square feet and three rooms.”
She said that she first heard about the issue a couple of weeks after she signed her lease. “I heard about it the same way the rest of the public did,” she said. She wrote to each of the Central Manitoulin councillors and the mayor and that she only received a reply from three. “One came to see me in my office, one called me and one sent me an email,” she said.
Ms. Proulx was further disappointed when she attended a property meeting and a council meeting after finding out about the potential closure. “Councillor Derek Stephens said that this was nothing new,” she recalled. “He said they have been talking about this for eight years.”
The lawyer has had to put her plans for a satellite office in Gore Bay on hold as a result of the current situation. “When I first decided to set up practice on the Island I was encouraged to consider Gore Bay where a lot of people told me they need a lawyer,” she said. “When I decided to set up in Mindemoya the last thing I thought I would be doing is looking for another place to set up my practice. Why am I in there?”
Ms. Proulx reiterated that her main feeling on the matter is disappointment. “As a young professional, setting up a business, putting so much into this,” she said. “It is all so preventable.”
Adding to the grief the situation is causing her, Ms. Proulx finds she is discussing the matter “two or three times a day. It’s been very negative,” she sighed.
The Old School was controversial in its own day, even before the first stone was mortared into place, as many questioned the need for a consolidated single and central building that would require the expense of busing students in to classes. “Doing so was furiously opposed by farmers content with the frugal status quo,” Mr. Anglin recalled. “The Rev. W.W. Anglin, my grandfather, was physically threatened at a meeting where he spoke at length in favour of building the new school. When he got home safe he said he was lucky he was with three strong sons to protect him.”
The reverend’s own children attended the new school, noted Mr. Anglin, and “one of them taught there.”
“Many years later, his son Farquhar Anglin was reeve and arranged for the township to buy the old school when the school board built a new one,” related Mr. Anglin. “The building housed the library, a council chamber and township staff,” adding, “I don’t know why it was abandoned in favour of the undistinguished municipal building we have now.”
Mr. Anglin, as it turns out, has some interesting ideas about what to do with the historic edifice. “The Old School would be a splendid art gallery or a magnificent museum, provided it had a worthy collection,” he surmised. “The only one that comes to mind is the nearby Jack Seabrook collection of farm implements and tractors.” Mr. Anglin pointed out that the late Mr. Seabrook’s collection is “of provincial and perhaps national importance.”
Mr. Anglin went on to point out that “the family was interested in loaning the collection and looking after it in a township building some years ago when I was the first reeve of Central Manitoulin. I don’t know if they would be interested now.”
A commemorative plaque celebrating the contributions of Mr. Anglin’s father is affixed to the outside of the Old School and Mr. Anglin has some views on the fate of that plaque and his father’s considerable legacy.
“Whatever the building’s fate it would be nice if my father’s plaque stayed connected with education,” he suggested. “Taking after his father, he took heat in some places when he promoted building our present ‘consolidated’ high school and maneuvered some federal funding that made it happen. There are stories about that,” he confided, referencing his family’s longstanding connections with the halls of power.
The public information meeting is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, March 30 at 7 pm.
