The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

On Tuesday September 24, townspeople in the Province's municipalities will vote for new municipal councils. Nomination Day is Tuesday, August 27.  In Clarenville there will be two votes; one for the position of Mayor and another for the 6 other councilors who will constitute our Town's government for the next 4 years.   If you are interested in running, Municipalities NL and The Department of Municipal Affairs have created a great resource called MAKING YOUR MARK - it has lots of useful information for would-be-councilors. Here in Clarenville, I expect there will be a lot of interest from people considering running.  I’ve been there and I have some insights on what a new Councilor should know about the town.  Here is a summary of publicly available information on our Town. THE MUNICIPALITY THAT WE CALL CLARENVILLE Population Serviced Clarenville has one of the fastest growing populations in the province.  With an official 2011 population of just over 6000, up

On Tuesday September 24, townspeople in the Province's municipalities will vote for new municipal councils. Nomination Day is Tuesday, August 27.  In Clarenville there will be two votes; one for the position of Mayor and another for the 6 other councillors who will constitute our Town's government for the next 4 years.   If you are interested in running, Municipalities NL and The Department of Municipal Affairs have created a great resource called MAKING YOUR MARK - it has lots of useful information for would-be-councillors. Here in Clarenville, I expect there will be a lot of interest from people considering running.  Here's my take on what I perceive to be the key issues a new council/mayor/councillor will face...   Immediate Issues Municipal Waste - Clarenville is one of the only communities in eastern NL to have twice a week, all you can throw away, garbage collection. We have no curbside recycling and no composting (These make up about 50% of garbage by we

When you think of public spaces in Clarenville, what do you think of? Elizabeth Swan Park? Perhaps. Kids and their parents might gather because of the playground. But usually the gathering is because there's something happening--Winter Carnival event, Clarenville Day, Arts Under the Stars. Where do people in the town go to hang out, meet up with people, feel good about their community? Some of you are thinking Tim Horton's! The Shoal Harbour Trail is the beginning of what could be a nice public space. Many people enjoy the walk around the harbour but there's not really a gathering place per se. White Hills plays a bit of that role. Many people hang out at the lift line! Or meet in many of the cross-country chalets or the downhill chalet. There's a sense of community there. The creation of public places is an important topic to consider in community planning. Communities thrive because neighbourhoods thrive. Because people know and care about each other. Does t

It’s a cool Saturday morning as I write this in Clarenville. The temperature is hovering at the 5 degree mark.   At this hour, on Harbour Drive, crews from a paving company are in the process of repaving damaged parts of the road. This “scratching and patching” as it is known, started Thursday morning.  Numerous pieces of equipment and numerous people swarmed over the road at the Huntley Drive intersection – at 8:30am.  10’s of vehicles, including school buses full of children were lined up to get in the single entrance way to Riverside school and 10’s of vehicles were lined up trying to get out. It was, for anyone caught in it, anarchy. Exactly one week before Council crews were busy doing a similar road repair in the middle of the intersection of Memorial and Manitoba Drives – again at 8:30 am at the height of morning traffic, causing further traffic anarchy and making a dangerous situation for Council crews. Arguably these jobs are necessary and have to be done some ti