The Southern Avalon Tourism Association celebrated a milestone this past summer when its 175,000th visitor walked through the doors of its visitor centre next to Foodland in Bay Bulls.
SATA has operated the centre for over 11 years. “We worked out a deal with Sobey’s that basically we put lots of people on their parking lot here at Foodland and they help us to stay here,” said treasurer Bill Luby. “It’s also good for the whole community.”
Luby said staff at the centre inform tourists about any services they might need while travelling the Irish Loop, including food and accommodation businesses, tour companies, heritage and ecological sites, and the east Coast Trail.
“This is what we’re here for,” said Luby. “It’s non-profit, membership driven and we heavily promote our members.”
The centre employs four to six students a year at the centre. “And this year I went directly to the College of the North Atlantic and told them I had a management position here as coordinator of the information centre and they gave me their top student, Eric Trudel,” Luby noted. “ I was really happy because he was in the Tourism Management Program and he hit the ground running. It worked out really well.”
Trudel helped the centre provide travelers with an Irish Loop visitor’s app for their phones, updated SATA’s website and got the association on Twitter.
Luby said the Bay Bulls centre may the only one in the world that can boast it has helped visitors from every continent. “I’m saying that because last year six scientists from Antarctica came here, the forgotten continent,” he said. “They went out on a couple of whale tours because they wanted to see how the whales behave up here.”
On the day of this interview, the centre had seen visitors from Chile and Poland, as well as many British who had arrived in St. John’s aboard a luxury liner. A couple of weeks earlier, a woman from Austria arrived driving a 1977 Mercedes Benz army truck refurbished into a camper. She had had the truck shipped to Vancouver, drove it across Canada and ended her stay by visiting Ferryland before returning to St. John’s and having the vehicle shipped back to Austria.
Many tourists check in at the centre on their way back too. “Most have had a very happy experience,” Luby said. “But just a few weeks ago two women came back and they were ticked off. They said, ‘You said there were no bears on the East Coast Trail… We saw one outside Witless Bay on the trail and we took a picture of it before we ran away.’ They stuck this smartphone in my face and I said, ‘Mam, that’s a Newfoundland dog. That’s not a bear. It might lick you to death.’”
Luby said people visit the Irish Loop for all sorts of reasons, including the whale and puffin tours, the Colony of Avalon archaeological site and the fossils at the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve. “There are quite a number of people who search for their Irish roots,” he added. “They come here looking to find perhaps which cemetery may contain a certain family name… And we put about 100,000 people each season on the east Coast Trail alone… And they get hungry and they want to go kayaking… there’s lots to see and do.”
St. Mary's Bay councils come to aid of plant workers
Several dozen workers who didn’t get enough hours of work to qualify for employment insurance benefits at the Deep Atlantic Seafoods fish plant in St. Mary’s this past summer are finally getting help thanks to the efforts of local town councils.
Many of the workers were laid off as early as April, reportedly because the plant’s owner could not source enough crab from fishermen. The workers went without income until a few weeks ago when councils in St. Mary’s, Gaskiers-Point la Haye, Riverhead and St. Vincent’s-St. Stephen’s-Peter’s River managed to secure provincial government funding for community work projects. The money is being provided under the Community Economic Enhancement Program.
Gaskiers-Point La Haye Mayor Pearl Kieley said her town council has created jobs for 13 of the plant workers in her town. “They’re doing work around the community including renovations to our Community Hall,” Kieley said. “And they’re cleaning up around our water line system. They’re kept busy and at least they’ll get their stamps for this year.”
St. Mary’s Mayor Keith Bowen doesn’t return telephone calls so it’s unclear how many plant workers the council there has managed to employ with the CEEP funding. Kieley reckoned the number at a dozen. St. Vincent’s-St. Stephen’s-Peter’s River is employing about 13 people, she said, while Riverhead has one.
Kiely said a couple of people in her community didn’t manage to get CEEP work so she is hoping the town can get funding for another project. When people can’t get enough hours of work during the summer, there isn’t much work locally at other things that they can pick up, she noted.
Kiely is worried about the future of the St. Mary’s plant, which is the main employer in the region, though many workers have moved on to jobs in other places the last few years or taken jobs locally working in home care. She is also worried that given the state of the provincial government’s finances, it may be harder to get CEEP funding next year.
“It’s a lot of money for these three towns after coming in,” Kiely said. “If the plant doesn’t open next year, I don’t know what will happen.”
Stella Maris' success proves small schools make good things happen
In 1979, when Kevin Ryan started teaching in Trepassey, enrollment at Stella Maris Central High and Holy Redeemer Elementary totalled 732 students. Today there is one school from Kindergarten to Grade 12, Stella Maris Academy, which serves students from St. Shotts to Portugal Cove South. The student population is 40.
“There were lots of families and lots of children,” Ryan says of his early years teaching in what was one of Newfoundland’s busiest fish processing towns. “It’s a different scenario (now).”
The fish plant and trawler fleet was closed in 1991, taking hundreds of jobs. Many working age residents had to take their children and move away for work on the mainland. But Trepassey and the towns around it survived.
Ryan argues a small school is not necessarily a bad thing. “All of my students who did public exams this year did very well,” he notes. “Ninety-eight per cent of the kids succeeded here because they’ve got a small school. Like they say, ‘good things happen in small schools.’”
Though he is principal, Ryan reckons he spends 70 per cent of his time teaching. Much of the administrative work he does after hours at home.
Last year, Ryan taught all three levels of the World Geography course in a multi age classroom. “They (the students) beat the provincial average by nine points,” he says. “And five of those people had over 90.”
Ryan says even though the school is down in enrollment and there aren’t as many teachers as years ago, Stella Maris is still able to offer the curriculum students need to move on to post-secondary education after they graduate. To accomplish that, Ryan, who includes himself among the school’s 5.8 ‘teaching units,’ has to work a little harder and plan a little harder.
Some high school courses, including honours math, French and some of the sciences, are offered by distance education. But the students do well.
“There’s an attitude and the attitude is we’re here and we’re here to stay,” Ryan says. “Just because we haven’t got the numbers doesn’t mean we can’t do well.”
There is no Kindergartner this year, but a student has signed up for next year. The school runs four home rooms: Kindergarten to Grade 3 in one room, Grades 4 to 6, Grades 7 to 9 and everything higher in the fourth room. Stella Maris has been operating with multi age classrooms for years. Kindergarten students generally stay for the full day and thrive. The older students seem to benefit from serving as role models for the younger students.
“The younger you are, the more benefit you get,” Ryan adds,” because you see the older ones doing similar things to you, but at a higher level.”
This year, Ryan is teaching Grades 7, 8 and 9 math the one time. He expects the younger students will pick up a lot of the concepts the older students are learning and by being exposed to it for a couple of extra years, they will excel by the time they reach Grade 9. “There’s something to be said for the multi-aging,” he says.
In a school of 40, everybody knows each other, Ryan adds. If someone is down, there is someone to pick him up. “It’s almost like family,” he says.
The principal, who commutes from Fermeuse every day, is confident that as long as there are students in the region there will be a Stella Maris.
“I’m very confident of that, not just because of the distance, but because of the geography,” Ryan says.
Trepassey is flanked on both sides by 20 to 30 kilometres of windswept barrens –between Cappahayden and Portugal Cove South on one side and from Trepassey to Peter’s River on the other. It doesn’t take much snow to create blizzard conditions. That would mean a good many days during winter when students would not be able attend any school in Ferryland or St. Mary’s if they were to be bussed that far.
“There are an awful lot of parents who have said to me they would never put their children on a bus on those barrens in the winter time,” Ryan admits. “And in my estimation they would lose more schooling than they would gain. There has been absolutely no talk of amalgamating or closing this school.”
The above average achievement extends beyond academics to the gymnasium and sports field and to things like art, public speaking and music. Stella Maris students routinely win regional and provincial awards for their talents and efforts.
“It is a special school,” says Ryan. “It is a special place. It is heartwarming. I could have retired quite a while ago. This is my 38th year and teachers generally retire after 30 years. I keep coming back because this is an awesome place to teach students. You see so much going on it’s amazing. And I suppose as long as I can still see the lights coming on in students’ eyes, it will keep drawing me back.”
Over the years, many Stella Maris students have gone to great success stories, Ryan says. “People have graduated Stella Maris who became doctors,” he says. “There are three that I know of. And there’s two lawyers and more engineers than you can shake a stick at.”
Ryan says the students know that once they graduate they are probably going to have to move on to somewhere else for work. That influences their efforts too. Most move on to post-secondary education or training.
The principal is expecting good things from this year’s classes too.
“We’ve been defying expectations for years,” says the principal. “It’s done differently… but the results speak for themselves.”
Change in publishing schedule
Please note, this week's print edition of the Irish Loop Post has been moved to Monday, September 28.
We will resume our regular bi-weekly publication schedule on Wednesday, October 7.
St. John's council to move Big Pond monument to Quidi Vidi Lake
The mystery of the missing monument at Bay Bulls Big Pond that was solved four years ago, is apparently a mystery again, though for different reasons.
The monument to aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne, who pitched down on Bay Bulls Big Pond on July 12, 1933, went missing from its site four years ago, causing residents in the area to worry about what had happened to it.
It turned out that staff with the City of St. John’s had removed it, promising at the time it would be re-erected at a different site near the pond once some construction at the water treatment plant there was completed.
Four years later however, with that construction long over, the monument is still under wraps – somewhere. When reached Tuesday, Ward Five councillor Wally Collins promised to look into it and was shocked to learn City officials plan to move the monument to Quidi Vidi Lake, where Lindbergh also touched down.
“I’m not too fussy about them taking it out of the Goulds, to be truthful,” Collins said. “If they want to put another monument down at Quidi Vidi, that’s up to them. I don’t want it taken out of the Goulds.”
Collins said he intends to discuss the matter with the staff person responsible for the decision. He said the monument was removed in the first place because nobody was maintaining it. “And there was a lot of garbage and everything being dumped down around that area,” he added.
But Collins said he can’t see why the monument can’t be erected again and maintained better this time around. “I’m going to look into it further,” he said.
Goulds resident Don Earle, who grew up near the Big Pond and alerted the Irish Loop Post to the monument’s disappearance four years ago, was the person who brought attention to its status again this time. He called several weeks ago wondering if there was any news on the monument, as it had not been reinstalled at the pond.
“The monument itself is thrown out on the ground behind the water treatment plant, just like an old rock,” he said. “Being from there, I’m having a problem accepting the fact that a part of our history, a part of what happened in there, is being thrown by the wayside and kind of forgotten about.”
Earle made those comments about a month ago. When the Irish Loop Post visited the water treatment plant on Tuesday, there was no obvious sign of the monument anywhere on the grounds indicating it has since been removed to yet another location.
Earle suspects some official decided arbitrarily to have the monument removed from the Big Pond on the pretext that visitors to it were leaving garbage.
“That’s a load of BS,” he said. “There was never any garbage dumped in there like there is in off the pipeline or in the woods. I used to be in there every day. They’re full of baloney. They wanted an easy way out of blocking off access to that pond because it’s a water treatment area. And my problem is the powers that be told us they were getting ready to erect a (new) site at the bottom of the pond, which never, ever happened.”
Earle said he understands the pond is a water supply and has to be protected. But he is confident that if senior officials checked with the City workers who actually clean up the area, they would learn the monument wasn’t used as a dumping ground.
The Lindbergh visit - at the time he was one of the most famous people in the world being not only an aviation pioneer, but also a celebrity because of the infamous and tragic kidnapping of his child – is part of the area’s history, Earle said. “Is it acceptable just to throw that stuff to the wayside and forget about it?” he asked. “That was part of the pride of being a Big Pond boy… I don’t think it’s good enough.”
It doesn’t come close to the mystery of what really happened to the Lindbergh baby, but the whereabouts of a monument dedicated to his father that had gone missing from its home aside Bay Bulls Big Pond has been solved.
An official with the City of St. John’s says the monument has been taken down and is being stored for placement at a different site near the pond once some construction at the water supply plant is completed.
The monument is dedicated to aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, who was no stranger to Newfoundland, having made history by flying over St. John’s in 1927 in his plane the Spirit of St. Louis on his way from New York to Paris in what was then the world’s first solo, non-stop transatlantic flight.
On July 12, 1933, Lindbergh and his wife Anne pitched down on Bay Bulls Big Pond drawing a crowd of onlookers from the city. It was an era of rapid aviation growth, with a fleet of Italian planes landing at Cartwright, Labrador on the same day enroute to the United States. By then, Lindbergh was even more famous, but tragically so, because of the kidnapping and murder of his 18-month old son Charles Jr., in March of 1932.
Sometime subsequent to the 1933 visit to Newfoundland, a monument was erected in Lindbergh’s honour just off the main road near the head of Bay Bulls Big Pond. A city official said when the city took over the area as part of its watershed in the 1980s, it found the monument in disrepair and fixed up the site, even adding a picnic table and garbage can for people dropping by to view it.
However, lately a trailer was parked at the site and city officials became worried that the area could get polluted. About a month ago, the monument was removed.
One local resident, who has asked to remain unnamed, isn’t happy with the decision. The resident, who grew up near the pond, said the monument pre-dates the city’s acquisition of the area.
“They (the city) took the monument out of there and there was no notification to the residents of Bay Bulls Big Pond,” said the man. “I’m sure over the years there have been thousands and thousands of people who have stopped down there and had a little picnic. I know I spent a lot of time down there over the years with my children. Now I don’t know the history of it, but he (Lindbergh) landed on Big Pond and they put up a monument all about it. There was a picnic table there and a garbage bucket and it was a nice little place to go in and relax for a little bit with your children and the City removed it.”
The man said local residents used to take pride in the fact the monument was never vandalized. “There was never any garbage thrown around there, there were no problems with loitering,” the man said. “I just want it brought to people’s attention that it’s gone, They’re talking about putting the monument at the foot of the pond down where Newfoundland Power has all the generators. Now I mean that’s not a spot where you want to be hanging out with your children.”
Councillors cite threats by e-mailer using fake name
At least two councillors in Witless Bay said Tuesday they are being harassed by anonymous e-mails, letters and telephone calls.
The issue came to light during the regular public council meeting. Councillor Ken Brinston said he is taking a lengthy missive sent to his private e-mail address on Sunday evening by a person writing under the pseudonym of Peter McCann as a threat. It warned him not to attend this week’s council meeting, at which some members of council were expected to schedule a Friendly Hearing on a conflict of interest charge against councillor Kevin Smart for voting on the Town Plan, which rezones some of his land to allow residential development.
From the contents of the e-mail, Brinston said, it appears that ‘McCann,’ whoever he is, is watching his house and monitoring his activities. The councillor read the letter out loud in its entirety for the benefit of council and the residents in the public gallery, which included a vocal contingent of the small group of large property owners off Gallows Cove Road who are opposed to development near Ragged Beach.
‘McCann,’ who claims in the letter that he knew Brinston’s grandfather, said he was asked to look into council’s behaviour. He accused Brinston of “collusion” and “conspiracy,” warned him of possible legal liability if he takes any action to vote Smart off council, and suggested he could be investigated by the RCMP.
“If you are part of a plan to ignore professional legal advice, you could be liable to reputation damages and sued personally for negligence,” McCann charged. “If found negligent, punitive damages as well as substantial litigation costs could ensue… It is certain that should either a civil or criminal action proceed, yourself and the other councillors will be individually deposed…”
‘McCann’ went on to warn Brinston against communicating any further with councillors who are moving to vacate Smart’s seat. ‘McCann’ further alleges that one of the other members of council who is participating in the effort to schedule a Friendly Hearing for Smart, “is erratic and has weak reasoning skills. If this is the case I would advise you to no longer collude outside the council chambers with this person for the immediate future.”
Brinston said that judging by some of the references in the letter, the writer has knowledge of matters that were discussed at private council meetings and not yet made public. He also has knowledge of the personal e-mail address Brinston uses to communicate with the rest of council.
“Now, I’ve got a question to the two councillors right here,” Brinston said, referring to Mayor Sébastien Després and councillor Smart. “Which one of you wrote this?”
Brinston then detailed instances referenced by ‘McCann’ pertaining to details of private council meetings on August 12 and 25. “Either one of you two wrote this letter to me, or someone disclosed information of two meetings (to someone else),” Brinston said.
“I don’t know how to respond to that, but I can tell you I don’t know who Peter Mccann is and I’ve had nothing to do with that letter,” Després said. “Is this person Councillor Smart’s legal counsel?”
Brinston said whoever ‘McCann’ is, he is trying to “scare me out of here tonight… It’s after crossing a line.” He added that he is happy to debate ‘McCann’ on any issue, or deal with him “man to man,” but if he contacts him on his private e-mail address again, he will go to the police.
Turning to Smart, Brinston asked whether he knowingly or unknowingly shared information from private council meetings which was forwarded to ‘Peter McCann.’
“No,” Smart said.
Brinston posed the same question, individually, to councillors René Estrada and Albert Murphy. Both denied having done so. “Private meetings are to be kept private,” Estrada pointed out.
Murphy later asked Smart if he has someone writing letters to other councillors on his behalf. “I’m not answering any of these questions,” Smart said, arguing the allegations of conflict of interest against him are unfounded. Smart has claimed since the allegations were raised last fall that he made no request to have his land rezoned under the proposed Town Plan.
Councillor Estrada, meanwhile, said he too has received threats.
“This has gone too far,” he said. “There are some people here who are defaming councillors. I have received e-mails defaming specific councillors, which is not what I consider appropriate for this community nor for this type of forum. This should never have happened.”
The Irish Loop Post has also received e-mails from ‘Peter McCann’ over the past two years opposing development at Ragged Beach and making charges against some of the people involved in the applications. However, all requests to ‘McCann’ to provide a contact address and telephone number to confirm his identity so that the letters can be published have been ignored.
After the council meeting, Brinston telephoned the Irish Loop Post to say he had a further discussion with Mayor Després and is satisfied he isn’t responsible for the threatening letter from ‘McCann.’
In other council developments, two attempts by the mayor to have lengthy resolutions passed that would see the reinstatement of Dena Wiseman and Ralph Carey to council were voted down 3-2 with only Smart supporting the motions. Wiseman and Carey saw their seats vacated this past summer for allegedly participating in a discussion about snow clearing on a private road leading to property they own that is getting rezoned for residential development. In a Notice of Appeal filed with the Supreme Court, the husband and wife councillors admit participating in such a discussion, but claim it was not an official council meeting and therefore the Town had no grounds to vacate their seats.
Meanwhile, council voted Tuesday to schedule a fourth ‘Friendly Hearing’ for councillor Smart to respond to the conflict of interest allegation against him. Smart failed to show up at the previous three hearings.
Festival of Newfoundland and Irish music set for the Shore
The Féile Seamus Creagh festival is spreading its wings again this year and changing some of its venues with two shows set for the Southern Shore this weekend.
On Friday night, the festival will hold an opening concert at the O’Brien’s Tours Stage Head in Bay Bulls. It will feature Jim Payne and Fergus O'Byrne, Oisin McAuley and Caoimhin O Fearghail of Ireland, Cara Butler of the United States, Jimmy Crowley of Ireland, Graham Wells, Benny McCarthy and Conor Moriarty, the latter two also from Ireland.
On Sunday, September 13, the festival moves to the Folk Arts Council building in Ferryland where John Curran and Greg Walsh of the Masterless Men will take the stage along with the Dunne Family from Ferryland as well as Irish performers Crowley, McCarthy, Oisin McAuley, Caoimhin O Ferghail and Butler, who is American but excels in the Irish step dance.
The festival is also staging shows in Carbonear and St. John’s. The Regina Mundi Centre in Renews was among the venues in previous years.
Keith Mooney of the Southern Shore Folk Arts Council said he expects to see a good night of entertainment in Ferryland given the large and diverse lineup. Tickets cost $20 in advance and $25 at the door. They are available in local stores and at the Folk Arts Council’s building.
The festival celebrates traditional music and songs from Newfoundland and Ireland. It’s named after the late Irish fiddle master Seamus Creagh, who played in Newfoundland some years ago. Creagh’s connection to Newfoundland is thanks to Graham Wells, whom he took under his wing when Wells went to Ireland to study music. The pair recorded an album of Newfoundland and Irish tunes in 2002. Wells is the founder of the festival named in Creagh’s honour.
“Graham started this event and it features a great combination of established musicians,” Mooney said. “For Celtic music followers it’s a great opportunity… I attended the shows in Renews and it’s fabulous entertainment. And in this case it’s going to be a well-rounded show because you have the instrumentals and the singing, and you have the step dance, so it’s pretty appealing to a wide range of Irish-Newfoundland music enthusiasts.”
Bay Bulls council set to meet for first time in nine weeks
It looks like Bay Bulls council will meet for the first time in nine weeks next week without having resolved any of the conflict of interest allegations levelled against three different councillors.
The public meeting scheduled for September 14, if it goes ahead, will mark the first time council has met since July 13, when unexpected allegations of conflict of interest came to light against councillors Jason Sullivan and Joan Luby.
Sullivan is accused of breaking conflict of interest rules by land developer Martina Aylward, who claims Sullivan voted on development applications even though he is a developer himself.
Sullivan, meanwhile, is the accuser in an earlier conflict of interest allegation levelled against Deputy Mayor Harold Mullowney. Sullivan claimed in a letter to council this past spring that Mullowney is a competing developer and should not have participated in a council discussion regarding Sullivan’s application to develop a 37 acre subdivision in Bay Bulls. Mullowney has denied the allegation and said Sullivan is misconstruing his application for a small parcel of Crown Land. Sullivan’s move against Mullowney was kept off the public agenda until this past summer when the Irish Loop Post learned of it and published details about it.
The allegation against councillor Luby, by a developer applying to build a subdivision in the town, contends she discussed a development application belonging to her sister-in-law. Luby, who was elected in a by-election earlier this year, maintains the incident happened during her first night on council and that she didn’t know who was behind the application when the discussion started. Luby pointed out that unlike the other councillors in attendance, she was not provided with a detailed agenda and briefing book until she was sworn in at the meeting and so she had no time to prepare for any of the discussions.
All three matters were expected to be addressed at the August 10 public meeting of council, but the meeting was cancelled at the last minute when councillors Sullivan, Rick Oxford and Gerard Mulcahy indicated they were unavailable to attend.
Mayor Patrick O’Driscoll did not respond to a request for an interview this week.
When contacted, Deputy Mayor Mullowney said no ‘Friendly Hearings’ have been held by council to discuss any of the allegations, as is required under the Municipalities Act when conflict of interest charges are made.
“All I’ve heard is that they’ve sent it all off to legal again and the lawyers were supposed to meet with council to give them some indication of what was on the go – that meeting was supposed to happen last month, however the lawyers went on holiday as far as I understand, and were supposed to be back around mid-August, but I haven’t heard anything regarding a meeting,” Mullowney said. “So I don’t exactly know where it is right now.”
If the Town has obtained a another legal opinion it will be the third one requested by the mayor and council in regard to the allegation against Mullowney. In the first opinion, the lawyer reportedly sided with Sullivan’s allegation against the Deputy Mayor, but after hearing from Mullowney himself, issued a second opinion opposite to his first finding. Mullowney has contended that Sullivan’s allegation is frivolous and that council is wasting money by hiring lawyers to entertain it.
Mullowney said he has since been contacted by a couple of councillors who are backpedalling and claiming their move against him was blown out of proportion. “I said nothing was blown out of proportion by me,” he noted.
Mullowney said he expects at some point he will be given a Friendly Hearing and despite any legal recommendation that he is not guilty, a majority of council can still vote to vacate his seat anyway. “If people want to, they can disregard the legal opinion,” he said. “So I’m waiting to see where that goes. I’ve been told by a number of individuals that they don’t see any conflict in my case and I don’t see it there, but at the end of the day it still comes down to a vote of council.”
The longest serving member of council added he is still working to fulfill his duties but he has a sense council itself is drifting. “There was no meeting last month and they didn’t set a date for a follow-up meeting, so I’m assuming now we’ll have one this month,” he said.
Mullowney acknowledged the Department of Municipal Affairs hasn’t done much to help the town resolve the situation. “Municipal Affairs generally wipes their hands of a lot of this saying there is a mechanism and procedure to be followed, but they don’t seem to really want to get involved too much,” he said. “But I agree there needs to be a greater role and presence (by the department). This situation is going to become more prevalent I think as development picks up in the Northeast Avalon and unless you have mechanisms to deal with it properly it is just going to continue to fester.”
If the regular public council meeting does go ahead next week, a number of items have been added to the agenda by councillor Luby that may generate their own share of debate. Luby confirmed Tuesday she intends to question why council adjourns so often in the middle of public meetings to hold unscheduled privileged sessions, as well as seek clarification on council’s policy regarding the use of cel phones and texting devices by councillors during public meetings. Luby said she has observed some members of council texting during debates, including occasions when one councillor is outside of the chamber because of a declared conflict of interest.
Local heritage groups get small grants
Admiralty House Museum in Mount Pearl served as the backdrop last month for an announcement of some $1.2 million in operational funding for 115 heritage groups throughout the province, incouding a number on the Irish Loop.
Some $9,770 of the money is being allocated to the Admiralty House Museum and Archives.
In this area, Cape Race – Portugal Cove South Heritage Inc. is getting $15,360, the Colony of Avalon, $89,300; Ferryland Historical Society $2,210; the Fisherman's Museum - St. Vincent's $1,000; the Petty Harbour Maddox Cove Heritage Museum Association $1,000; and the Witless Bay Heritage Committee $1,000.
Business and Tourism Minister Darrin King said the recipients of the funding are reviewed by a special Heritage Advisory Council struck in 2012 and composed of representatives of the department, the Museums Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives, and the Association of Heritage Industries.
Seven groups are getting funding to help with special projects, including the Newfoundland and Labrador Archeological Society which hopes to encourage owners of private collections to come forward so that their artefacts can be documented.
“We want to gain a better understanding of collections that may not be curated,” said the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society, Tim Rast.
King complimented groups such as Rast’s for the invaluable work they do in preserving the province’s heritage.
“As the summer winds down, this announcement is a reminder of the valuable role these organizations play in our communities,” King said. “Summer time is a very important time for museum and heritage organizations across Newfoundland and Labrador. Employees and volunteers work hard to showcase our history, our culture and our heritage to Newfoundland and Labrador families on vacation, to children in summer day camps, to those who have long summer days to themselves and free time, and to tourists who come to our province to experience for themselves this very special place that we call home.”
Mount Pearl North MHA and Health Minister Steve Kent welcomed all the press conference guests to Mount Pearl. He noted he has a special connection to Admiralty House, having worked with a number of community organizations when the museum re-opened in 1997 and having supported it later as mayor. “This has been an important part of community life for me and thousands of citizens over the last number of years,” he added. “I’ve been involved in touring many youth groups through this facility, many celebrations have happened here at Admiralty House and the beautiful grounds that surround Admiralty House. I’ve attended many arts events at this facility and cultural events. I’ve performed wedding ceremonies (as mayor) out on the grounds.”
Kent said the heritage funding announced by King helps heritage facilities and organizations to operate.
Later this month, Admiralty House Museum, which is mostly funded by the City of Mount Pearl, will celebrate a milestone of its own as it marks its 100th anniversary. The facility was built as a secret naval wireless station for the British navy during the first world war. It is the oldest structure in Mount Pearl.
Museum chairman John Riche said the actual anniversary is September 16. On that day the staff and board will hold a small event at the site. The main celebration will come on Saturday, September 19. “It will be a big event,” said Riche. “The CLB band will be playing, we’ll have their Honours the Lieutenant Governor Frank Fagan and Patricia Fagan, Senator Elizabeth Marshall is bringing greetings from Ottawa, Mayor Randy Simms will be there and the provincial government will be bringing somebody.”
The event will be hosted in the back garden. “Our grounds are spectacular in the early fall,” Riche said.
Meanwhile, the museum’s board and staff will soon start working on a funding application to prepare for the centenary of the sinking of the S.S. Florizel in 2018. Admiralty House has an extensive display and collection of artefacts related to the famous sealing and passenger vessel, which sank off Cappahayden in a snow storm on February 25, 1918 with a loss of 138 people.
Municipal Affairs minister moves to finalize Witless Bay's Town Plan
With the Witless Bay council hamstrung because it doesn’t have enough councillors who are not in a conflict of interest to adopt a new Town Plan, the process is finally being handed over to residents to decide.
Residents will be given a chance this week to review two versions of the Town Plan and to vote by plebiscite sometime next week as to which one to accept.
The Department of Municipal Affairs will hold public meetings at the Southern Shore Arena for residents to review the two plans though it’s unclear how much guidance they will receive as to what is in them. Both plans are fairly complicated and while similar in many respects, weigh in at over 200 pages each, plus supporting maps that outline the various zones for housing, recreation, commercial and other uses in the town.
Municipal Affairs Minister Keith Hutchings said he has ordered the plebiscite because council is unable to deal with the plan. He mailed a letter to all households in Witless Bay on Friday, but with the main Post Office closed on Monday because of Labour day and no effort to advertise the hearings in local media, it’s unclear whether residents are being given enough notice of the three dates at which they can review the two plans before voting next week.
Mayor Sébastien Després did not respond to a request for an interview. But he did note at Tuesday’s council meeting that all the dates outlined in Hutchings’ letter for reviewing the two plans have been changed and that a new letter is going to be issued.
“This is an action of Municipal Affairs,” Després said. “It does come from the Town.”
The new letter is necessary because of mistakes in the original one. Hutchings referred to the Town Plan submitted in 2013 as having been submitted in May 2014.
That incarnation of the plan, known as Version A for the purpose of the plebiscite, is the document that was submitted by the previous council, reviewed by Municipal Affairs and sent back to the Town for ratification. It essentially allows development of many family-owned lands in the town under the regulations and guidelines that have been in use for years.
Version B of the plan, which the current council submitted in December 2014 after taking back the original submission and making substantial changes to parts of it, prohibits development of privately-owned and Crown land in a number of areas, including near The Tolt and the area between Mullowney’s Lane and Ragged Beach by zoning the areas Recreational.
In his letter to residents, Hutchings said that if they vote for Version A, registration of it will proceed faster than if they vote for Version B, because public hearings were held on the first plan, as required under the Urban and Rural Planning Act, but weren’t held on the rejigged version. However, he has since changed his stance on that too. Whichever plan is chosen by residents, a hearing by a Commissioner will be necessary, he said Tuesday.
Hutchings said he is reluctantly intervening in the process, which has dragged on now for about three years.
“I called them (the councillor) in on August 31 and said, ‘We’ve gone through an extensive process in the past year, since last October when some issues arose as a result of a conflict,’” Hutchings said Tuesday. “I’ve tried to work with officials and the Town to expedite this and get it to a point where we can get a plan adopted for the Town, unfortunately through our efforts we haven’t been able to get there.”
With two councillors having had their seats vacated because of conflict of interest allegations, a third facing a Friendly Hearing on a similar charge and a fourth councillor voluntarily declaring a conflict of interest, only three members of council are left to vote. That’s not enough for a quorum. Hutchings said council asked for permission to vote on the plan without quorum, but he rejected that request.
It makes better sense, he said, to let the residents choose “democratically” which of the two plans they prefer. “I’ll take that plan then and move it forward, adopt it for the Town and then on a go forward basis that plan will be a working document for the Town,” said Hutchings. “In the future it could be amended in accordance with the regional Urban and Rural Planning Act and we’ll proceed from there. But it seems right now we’ve gotten to a point where we don’t see a way forward to getting a Town Plan for Witless Bay.”
Hutchings said he has heard from many residents on the issue.
“For this reason I am taking the steps as outlined above,” he said in his letter. “I know that you, as residents, are invested in the future of your town and this plebiscite provides you with the opportunity to move your town forward.”
Both versions of the plan are based on the assumption that the town will grow by about 250 new houses over the next 10 years. The purpose of each proposed plan is to guide how that development takes place. In version A, lot sizes in residential zones have been set at just under a half acre and at three quarters of an acre in areas zoned Residential Rural. In Version B, lot sizes remain at just under a half acre in Residential zones, but have been increased to a full acre in Residential Rural zones.
