The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

If you have been at Walmart of Kent lately, you will have noticed the land development activity that is going on behind these stores.   That development is designed to open up commercial development space in that Shoal Harbour Drive / Coish Place area.      The developer, in this case, is the Town of Clarenville. The Town has borrowed and spent a good chunk of change in order to make that land usable.  At the Council meeting this past Tuesday, the Town accepted a tender from Cougar Construction for $293,000 to do further work.  The problem is that this tendered amount was 30% more ($93,000) than what was predicted by the Town’s own estimates.  That’s a significant overage and a large amount of money that the Town will have to unexpectedly borrow.  It could also potentially affect the town’s ability to borrow for other things - like much needed road improvements.  Although I have no doubt that over tim...

This Crosswalk can be found at the intersection of Huntley Drive and Harbour Drive.   I call it the Town's "Invisible" crosswalk because each day people cross here and each day cars zoom past oblivious to it. I go through this intersection many times a week and last week as I was stopped at the intersection I watched in horror as an RCMP cruiser sailed right through the crosswalk while somebody waited to cross.  Of course, I can't totally fault drivers for missing the crosswalk.  Eastbound traffic travelling at speed cannot really see it, or the sign indicating it's there until they are upon it.   More to the point, eastbound traffic can't see pedestrians crossing at the walk until they are up on them. It's a disaster waiting to happen. With school back in session and with the courtesy bus service discontinued from the Clearwater subdivision there are bound to be some kids using that crosswalk.   I shutter to think. There are two i...

This week's edition of the Packet carries a story on the continuing saga of the parking lot at the Clarenville Shopping Centre.  Normally parking lots are not newsworthy but this lot is special - you own it!  (see story: A 'lot' at stake , The Packet) In the context of 1966 when the lot was built, it made perfect sense for a community interested in growth, to develop a piece of land (that would become the Clarenville Shopping Centre's parking lot) so to encourage private developers to build a “modern’ shopping facility.   The idea worked, but the fact that someone neglected to write in a sunset clause into the development agreement that specified that ownership of the parking lot would transfer to the developers after a defined point in time is still haunting us almost half a century later. So what’s the matter with the Town owning the lot you may ask?   For starters the fact that “our lot” is 50 years old means that it needs a tremendous amount of very...

Clarenville is moving closer to the Newfoundland and Labrador Winter Games set for March of 2014.   Our committee has been active for almost a  year and collectively we have spent a lot of planning time so far in making sure that this games will create a lifetime memory for this generation of young people in the province in general and the greater Clarenville region in particular. It is with this vision in mind that we made a conscious decision to hold the latest key pre-games event in front of the over 700 students of the Clarenville school system.   This group will be our athletes.  This event we saw the release our games logo (developed by Pilot Communications), the  Provincial Government presented a cheque for its investment of $350,000, and  Our committee launched a game's slogan challenge.   Be sure to watch the video (below) to see  a clear demonstration of the enthusiasm of our youth! Follow the games ...

Have you ever had the experience of slipping on ice?  There's no worse feeling than not being able to get a grip.   Sometimes I can't help but feel that the Town is slipping on the icy slope that we call development. This week's edition of the PACKET clearly illustrates this in a story and in its editorial.  The question is, are we trying to get a grip or are we just spinning our wheels? SPINNING OUR WHEELS  The story of the man whose property is being overwhelmed  by the Katherine Estates development is not new to me.  ( Pay More Attention , The Packet, September 13 , 2012).   I was on Council when we approved the Katherine Estates development.  I voted for it.   I was asked to make a decision based on a photocopied 8.5*11 paper drawing of the street layout for that development.  The whole affair has been a learning experience for me. I was not told - nor did I know enough to ask, about the elevations - I assumed ...

START YOUR ENGINES? Next Wednesday’s running of the TARGA road rally through the streets of Clarenville sure seemed like an afterthought in the discussion yesterday’s Council meeting.    To be fair, this end of meeting information item did turn into a 15 minute discussion that unfortunately,  left me feeling more concerned than I should given the unequivocal guarantees that Council said it was looking for before it finally approved the running of the Clarenville leg of the Targa race for 2012.   It was a discussion that heard Councillor Rodway proclaim that “It’s is much more safe event  (this year) and I think that this group has a good control over that.  It seems like Targa has done a lot more work in training this year.”  From there the discussion was further peppered with talk of safety tape placement and with words and phrases like “we’re getting”, “will be posted”, “I think”, “hopefully”, “not official yet”, “don’t have...

This past week, an ad appeared in the PACKET for a position at White Hills that would focus on marketing the facility.  That, coupled with the Town's pronouncement that it would renew efforts to build a Winter Tourism Strategy, started me thinking about some of the tangible things we could do as a community  to take better advantage of the tourism opportunity.   (I use WE because we own the WHITE HILLS RESORT so its future affects us).   I ca ll my suggestions: "Strategic Doing". Of course, these are only my thoughts, I'd like you to share your thoughts here as well.  Together we could all benefit. OUR GOAL I’d like to see a very clear goal spelled out for everyone (especially employees of the Hill) who has anything to do with winter tourism in Clarenville:   OUR GOAL:  The Winter Customer Experience in Clarenville (White Hills) will exceed or at least equal what we promise IT’s ALL ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS: Comm...