CFN – The delegation from South Glengarry expected to be moving forward with plans to link up to Cornwall’s massive ability to furnish water and sewage to help expansion for not only South Glengarry; but also Cornwall.
CFN spoke with Mr. Brandt this morning who was bewildered and frustrated by Council’s decision to kibosh plans. He suggested that there were private interests at play; but when I asked him to name those interests he categorically suggested I contact Cornwall Council members. (Irving expansion plans at the 401?)
The Cornwall Airport expansion deal was also put on hold. It really seems that there are some issues at play that are not being shared with taxpayers?
Mr. Brandt discussed that South Glengarry could go over Cornwall’s head to the province to force access; but that process would take a lot more time than if the two municipalities could simply negotiate a solution.
Only Mayor Bob Kilger and Councilor Syd (I do whatever Bob tells me after he got me off those sign charges – well ok, I did whatever he told me before too) Gardiner voted to turn on the taps for South Glengarry.
So Cornwall, which has excess capacity if you listen to the city’s video presentation; LINK that can feed Alexandria and Maxville doesn’t want to use up to 2% for the Boundary road area of South Glengarry? And who would be working at those jobs if those lands were utilized instead of on Cornwall?
The focus is how much higher taxes are in Cornwall and the council members are very much right, but maybe, just maybe, if they as a group weren’t burning through millions on scandal cover ups taxes would be more in line with our neighbours?
And what is this power broker that Mr. Brandt is talking about? What caused council to do a 180? Bob Kilger is not that good an actor and to this filmmaker the council session looked staged. Badly staged. Mayor Kilger’s undramatic plea and speech is directed at whom?
Amalgamation isn’t a solution either. It really hasn’t worked well in Ottawa; nor has it worked well in Montreal. There is always give and take in any merger.
I’m sure something will come out because frankly people around here just aren’t good at keeping secrets. As someone stated earlier; just hang out at Timmies or ….Winners….and something will shake out.
In the end of the day this is a power play that in the end will hurt the…..taxpayers of Cornwall as we need our airport and if you deny a neighbour water will that help around the counties table? If South Glengarry can go to the province and force Cornwall to play nice will that delay to South Glengarry have been worth this powerplay?
What do you think viewers of CFN? You can post your comments below.
CFN is proud to announce our first group of performers and speaker for the upcoming Town Hall meeting!
PS! Apologies for dog whining; but Fitzy seems to whine whenever he hears Mayor Kilger speak….
Regarding the disappointing council vote Monday night……
I feel miffed by councils on behalf of the future of CORNWALL…YES CORNWALL, for the unfortunate vote last evening (09/09/13) on both the expansion of our water supply and the Airport
into South Stormont territory. I can understand the tax concerns, however the lack of
insight would be the consumer driven influx these extra business’s can and would surely bring.).
To add to that the Airport extension is long, long overdue and short sighted. Massena airport
does not and will not service us as well with fast, in and out commutes from across the country
by executive who simply do not have the time for a four or five hour delay(customs/traffic on bridge, etc.).
It is this kind of backward thinking that this town has had thrust upon them for 50 to 60 years now.
Stupid is what stupid does and we’ve collectively been stupid here for a very long time.
Dave Windsor
From Beautiful though SERIOUSLY Conflicted
CORNWALL, Ontario
Mr. Windsor and everybody. For some time now I have been thinking about the long commutes in Cornwall to Ottawa and Montreal and so on as well as the water system, the gas, oil, etc. Things are starting to change and if you come here to Ottawa most of the homes are those condominiums and townhouses and those MacMansions will be turned into multiple family dwellings in the near future. I have something here for everyone to see which is 52 minutes of a video and it is important to look at.
The End of Suburbia – 52 minute documentary on peak oil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
We will be living a very different life compared to what we have now and this video is a must see. People will be growing food in their yards if they have a yard and things from China and other places can become a thing of the past because of peak oil.
The same holds true with water – it is a very precious commodity and going to be even more precious as time goes on like what oil and gas are going to be and more. People will have to learn how to live a different kind of life and a lower standard of living.
This video concerns everyone and about an airport that is funny for a place as small as Cornwall and as small as Massena. LOL LOL. I can’t stop laughing at this one.
Watch the video and I think that people will learn something from all of this. Things are going to change in the very near future and it is already starting to change right here in the big cities. The past is gone and time to reflect on another way of life which is long overdue.
Admin
Your comment about poor Sid was bang on , no question about it, brown nose Sid wouldn’t stand a chance of stopping if Kilger came up short, sad to say but only his boot laces might show, what a suck.
Sid was always a wee bit light of late, just acting like the Village Idiot that many think him to be I guess .
And I for one can’t believe the rest of Council starting to appear to suggest that they have the Taxpayers best interest to protect and that is what this is all about . This getting down to business would be fine but for the fact that this gutless bunch did NOT STAND UP and do the right thing in protecting the Taxpayers Money ,Law suites ,scandal costing us Millions of $$$ that could have been put to better use . 2014 Can Hardly Wait ( ELECTION Time )
How can supply potable water to
One township and not others?
Yo GlenGrant time to stop sucking up
To your buds . Cornwall lost a mega
Wallmart because of goofs like you.
Built a arena on a toxic waste dump
Because of goofes like you .
When is The xDomtar Site going to
be cleaned up ? Maybe time to think to pack it in .
You are worried about change and new
Competition and the effects about growth
On the other side of Boundary Road
Maybe you should embrace the possibilities
elsewhere.It does seem u and your misguided
friends want growth,
As far as a retirement community ,you best think again .
Check out where the top paid city employees live.
Not in Cornwall. Spend your monies in Cornwall?
Ha Ha where do they holiday? Maybe Ski
Big Ben .
Hello Wake up.
Oh by the way two back to work
three (forced retired),not done yet.
The fun has just begun.
Gag order by who?
Mr Dale Who? HR Mr Joke .
How long is your contract ? Best save .
Going to need it .LOL .
I don’t see anything sane about building an airport in Cornwall when they can’t even have a Voyageur Bus nor a train station in full operation. Like someone said above just like I said many times before about having built a 3 pad professional arena on a toxic garbage dump. If this is for retirement some people sure have their screws loose and should be thrown in the nut house somewhere out of sight. Bare Ass is not fit even to be a dog catcher let alone a mayor and the same goes for his council. The whole thing is one big scam after another and pulling the wool over the sheeples eyes at every turn they take. Anybody who is stupid enough to fall for all of this nonsense deserves what they get. This bunch is something out of the gong show.
Jules the Airport is built years ago its off of Summerstown road i know not really Cornwall but the issue there has always been longer runways larger planes maybe small private jets will be able to land there to allow commuter service also better facilities i imagine improved landing markings maybe for night time operation etc.
Jobs next door means paying jobs to Cornwall citizens paying jobs means more purchases ability to pay taxes or maybe buy a house therefore construction jobs , electrical companies and plumbers doing maintenance and the list goes on and on.
But the old boys club controls the playing field always has like way back when a few merchants members of that old boys club of the time stifled development along the 401 corridor while other cities built up there commercial zones to attract travelers we banned development north of tollgate and we built a copy of the famous Sparks street mall in Ottawa known here as the Piitt street mall where the old boys club members had there businesses it was beautiful serene and void of traffic and the sales and failed . The Cornwall square was a victim of this ban i believe at the time and therefore located where it is now. does anyone remember ???
Yup not much has changed here in Cornwall oh my I am wrong there is no more smell of money IE Domtar forward thinking is needed not passing the buck forward.
Lack of vision, backward thinking, no real plan to follow. The one accurate statement concerning this present council and most of the past councils of the last 40 years or so is CONSISTENCY !
BRAVO BOYS AND GIRLS, BRAVO.
Perhaps, just perhaps the results of the next municipal election will produce a collective body of strong independent thinkers who understand the concept of developing an open and transparent action plan that the average taxpayer can follow. One that meets current needs, maintains options for the future and the flexibility to change with the times as necessary. Out with the self serving concepts, lack of planning and foresight that has plagued this community for far to long. Anyone else have any thoughts ?
Question I have to ask is
Who, besides Glen Grant (who hates all outsiders, in particular Wal Mart) put their thumbs on the necks of 8 councillors who voted thumbs down on the S.D.&G. water wishing well and the Airport extension. Here we have the blind leading the blind.
Equality of exchange, money for water, balancing different costs in lieu of tax variances, win win set up and pre ambled out of site.
This council could have been given a million dollar gift and still they would have said NO.
Industrialist thinking from Domtar left overs is killing expansion.
In 1970 we had 52,000 citizens. Now 46,000. Is it any wonder?
let me see now South Glengarry gets water and sewage from Cornwall and Cornwall should share in its tax base good thinking councillor Bernadette what a novel thought I am sure South Stormont would welcome that type of revenue sharing as surely fair is fair and Cornwall could share its tax base with South Stormont because a lot of Cornwall has been build on the lime stone from its quarry , limestone blocks for basements and the Cornwall Canal crushed stone for its road base and asphalt etc etc etc wow what a financial windfall for them you could say that the surface of Cornwall may not even be Cornwall at all LMAO
local economic success pays bigger dividends over the long term than short term gouging .good neighbours for good neighbourhoods .
There was talk of a food distribution company looking at a possible base of operations in this region. Most supermarkets carry imported produce and produce grown in hothouses. The combination of a food distribution centre with a massive hothouse nearby would compliment each other . . . it would reduce fuel consumption bringing that hothouse produce from far away. So the question begs to be asked, Is their enough space in Cornwall for the combination of a massive hothouse as well as a food distribution centre?
Would there have been enough space that Cornwall and South Glengarry both co-operated on developing land on both sides of Boundary Road?
The may be enough space on either side of Moulinette Road at Long Sault, between Highway 401 and the CN Rail line . . . a food distribution centre on the east side and one or several massive hothouses on the west side . . . perhaps with a conveyor built over Moulinette Road. A food distribution centre that would like to have a massive hothouse nearby, may actually like the surroundings at Moulinette Road. The hothouse could source water from the St Lawrence River . . . and perhaps use geothermal heating to maintain winter heat inside the hothouse.
With regard to helping a competitor, let us recall the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon cars that Chrysler built many years ago. At the time, Chrysler was in bankruptcy protection . . . . most of the parts that went into the Horizons and Omni’s came from Volkswagen . . including the 1.7-litre 4-cylinder engine. Many years later, there was a little van known as the Mercury Villager . . . except that it was built by Nissan . . . had a Nissan engine and transmission. There was also a little front drive Chevrolet Nova car . . . . built by Toyota . . . in fact, it was a Toyota Corolla sold with a Chevrolet badge at GM dealerships.
Many, many years ago, General Motors built city transit and intercity buses . . . powered by General Motors diesel engines that at the time, were the preferred engine of the industry. it was a corporate decision that resulted in GM selling their engines to their competitors.
Dating back to the 1950’s, GM built the Chevrolet Corvette while Cadillac sold their V-8 engine to a British builder of high-performance cars known as Allard . . . GM later hired Allard’s chief engineer as head of engineering for the Corvette. The high-performance ISO cars from Italy carried Chev engines while Chrysler V-8 engines powered such high-performance British cars as the Bristol and Jensen, the Facel Vega from France and the Monteverdi cars built in Switzerland. For many years, the 3.5-litre V-8 engine that powered the British built Rover 3.5-litre and Rover 3500 model cars, came from Buick.
There are any number of examples from the corporate world of competitors sometimes collaborating with each other.
Had the water system been privately owned, the issue of South Glengarry obtaining water from a filtration plant in Cornwall, would never even have come up for debate.
Harry there’s more to this story than our mayor and council are letting us know…
I have an alternate solution for South Stormont and Glengarry Counties.
Create a horseshoe city around Cornwall. You would call together all the politicians, mayors,
reeves councillors you can to a town hall /counties combined meeting with this in mind.
By ignoring any possibility of Cornwall amalgamation of your industrial park to satisfy their need for a mutual tax base, or any other part of the counties land, simply turn table by creating a twin city. Why not?
We have Kitchener/Waterloo and we use to have another before Thunder Bay was created. There is nothing wrong with creating another one called, lets say Seaway City or Horseshoe City. It would encompass the Burroughs of Long Sault, St. Andrews, Glendale. Glen Walter and Summertown (of course the Airport as well).
Surely this area is populated enough to qualify for a city (min. 15,000). My guest would be 30,000 to 40,000 citizens. Combining services even more than you do now would hold your tax base and surely would qualify you to ‘tap in’ to Cornwall’s water by proxy, or to erect your own water tower.
This would free you to ‘compete’ as it were with anyone around.
I hope I have raise a valuable idea for all of you to review in more detail with each other in order to move on.
Over the past several years, there has been the occasional hit of ANNEXATION between Cornwall and part of the surrounding area. Perhaps some Cornwall City councillors may be entertaining the idea of annexing part of a neighbouring township . . . . south of highway 401 extending east to Purcell Road would certainly give the city a piece of industrial real estate . . . or perhaps as far east as Summerstown Road.
Back during the late 1950’s when the Seaway plans got under way, then Cornwall Mayor Dr Emard palayed the annexation card and right at the time when Cornwall Township was losing much territory to the holding reservoir for the then future power dam. Prior to ‘Doc’ Emard doing so, Marlborough Avenue and Cumberland Street were the eastern and western boundaries of Cornwall, outside of which was Cornwall Township with industries galore. While Federal and provincial Government ‘doctors’ were performing surgery on Cornwall Township, ‘Doc’ Emard showed up in the operating room to perform some surgery of his own.
Cornwall Township councillors at the time were shocked with utter disbelief as to what happened to their formerly economically dynamic township . . . . almost overnight, it became a rural community. Gone was the industrial tax base from the paper mill, textile mill, cotton mill, river port and commercial district along Montreal Road. Over the decades that followed, bad feeling simmered between city and township elected councillors. Township councillors rejected extending Brookdale Avenue northward across their territory, in the form of highway 438.
While the idea of a horseshoe city may have merit on paper, there are old sentiments that would such a concept problematic in the form of unproductive clashes between city and township councillors.
Annexing part of South Glengarry Township would give Cornwall additional industrial land . . . and could provide enough space for the combination of a mega-size greenhouse/hothouse and food distribution centre. An alternative location would be a greenhouse/hothouse on the west side of Moulinette Road between the CN Rail line and Hwy 401, with a food distribution centre on the eastern side. Such a situation may cause conflict between councillors representing the 2-municipalities on a horseshoe city committee.
Regardless as to where such a combination ‘sets up shop’, the people of the area (including Cornwall) will benefit . . . OK, OK . . . so some Cornwall residents may have to commute to Long Sault.
Harry Valentine September 18, 2013 at 10:35 am
Valid and informative points Harry. Much appreciated as usual for you intelligent, well stated and informative research on the issues.
I proposed the idea of a Horseshoe City as a way of stirring the pot to highlight points for both Cornwall and the Counties.
In my view this can only forward action and highlight to our Cornwall council that there definitely is a bigger picture here than merely their 4 boundaries, West, North, East and waterfront.
There is definitely a limited informative detail that council is/would be privy too that drew them to the decision of water refusal, primarily as well as for the extension of the airport.
I simply envision that we are bigger than ourselves. That as a community we are advantaged by our amenities that service our entire region in many ways. For one, S.D. and G. hold in their possession the former jail and court house property at Pitt and Water street. These offices service a number of their departments, just as City Hall and the Civic Complex house most of our Cornwall departments.
The further purpose was to realise that thinking out of the box rather than slowing growth due to narrower views has to be our only access to combined progress. As I mentioned and will advance that very probably 95% of those living outside of Cornwall have in some way used our Service Ontario and Service Canada Offices, our Convenience store, our Post Office, malls and grocery units and the Cornwall, East Court, Wal-Mart Malls, legal services, court systems and just about any venue we have to offer…ice rinks and other sports facilities and library included.
So, quickly one can see that those out side of us, workers here and shoppers, may not pay our taxes, however they do enjoy spending here…considerable spending here. Surely to goodness this realization must come into play when considering co-operative issues such as water and airport needs.
I am a Cornwall citizen and offer NO offense to our valued council, simply an alternate opinion, liked or not. We have to be fair to all concerns, not just our own. Yes, we have industrial lands to offer as well, however, with the strength of drive for so called outside interests, is it not time for both sides to cool their jets and come to mutual understandings?
We are all Canadians, Ontarians’, friends, supporters of each other…happily to do so. We have family in and out of each of our districts. Therefore, we truly are brother and sisters. We are into sports for and against just as in war we stand tall when any of us are in distress.
So good people of the district within Eastern Ontario, we all know that in time, we will in years to come be among mega cities by 2050 and beyond. What is it to stop us from working in that cooperative direction now.
Certain Cornwall City councillors have been hinting at and commenting about annexation and amalgamation with the townships . . . except that the townships are not interested. During the last round of amalgamation, Cornwall Township amalgamated with Osnabruck Township to form South Stormont . . . pairs of townships amalgamated across the United Counties . . . and the City of Cornwall was excluded.
Comments made at a recent meeting of Cornwall City council suggested that several councillors are well aware of the potential for future economic development along the eastern side of Boundary Road, between the CN Rail line and Hwy 401. Politically, some Cornwall councillors may be motivated to go for some form of annexation of part of the township next door. Historically, Cornwall pulled it off once before and could use that precedent to make a second attempt.
The City of Cornwall may be sharing some services with South Stormont in the vicinity of the railway grade crossing over RR # 2 on the city’s south western corner. It may be difficult for the city to annex that little industrial area in South Stormont and may be much easier to annex to the east.
If this region is considered for a possible food/supermarket distribution centre, the City and South Stormont may be in competition with each other . . . both municipalities have available land for such a distribution centre, that could be located near to a mega-size greenhouse/hothouse. Depending where such a distribution centre settles, there may or may not be a future for a horseshoe city concept.