The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

Random Thoughts...: Who's Running for Clarenville Town Council? : I ask because people are declaring their intentions all over the province. The current Mayor of Grand Falls-Windsor will be running again. T...

I have had a day to digest the potential impact of the of the Provincial Government's budget cuts on the town of Clarenville.  As I noted in last week's blogpost on this same subject , we have good reason to be concerned.     As a service centre for the region, Clarenville has a high proportion of jobs that are filled by professional people in various government departments & agencies - most notably in health and education.  In fact,  one in four jobs in this town are government type jobs.    Based on the information/calculations below, I estimate that the 2013 budget could potentially lead to the elimination of between  45-54  jobs in Clarenville this year - most of which are occuppied by well educated, younger individuals with families who are making over $50,000 annually.     No doubt, the Hebron ramp-up will cushion the effect of these potential government layoffs on ...

Here's a few of the great performances from Thursday's show - more will be added.  If you are looking for a particular performance and would like to see it here email me and I'll add it... pauldtilley@gmail.com Riverside Choir Shae-lynn Winsor (Violin), CHS Saxaphone Quartet & APPA (Celebration) Anthony Paddon Elementary Choir

The Clarenville Co-op held their annual general meeting this past week and I see from their financial statements that they invested just over $4 million into the development and construction of their new store/carwash/gasbar on Shoal Harbour Drive.  By any measure, that’s a substantial investment by the Co-op in its future.    I use the word “investment” purposefully.   Anyone who has had the opportunity to visit that new facility will know that it is as good, or better, than any comparable facility anywhere – It came at a high absolute cost but it stands as a testament to the Co-op’s commitment to Clarenville (and the region) and its members.  I want to see that same commitment shared more broadly in Clarenville by developers and businesses.  To illustrate my point,  drive past (or better, walk past) some of the stuff that has been built in Clarenville lately and take notice.  The vast majority of the commercial buildi...

Discovery Board "Closing", Employment Assistance Services (EAS) "New Delivery Model",   Service Canada Offices "De-staffed", School Board offices ????… These are just some of the latest non-headlines that have not raised the ire of our local government in our town.  Essentially these all spell job cuts in the publicly funded sector and there are strong signals of more to come.  As we await budgets at the Federal and Provincial levels we are probably going to see more of less in Clarenville.  Unfortunately, other issues, like potholes in parking lots have taken the limelight.  I would argue that the Fed’s and the Province love our focus on our potholes because it keeps our focus off what they are up to! Headlines & the Twitterverse are filled with announcements of government belt tightening at both the Federal and Provincial Levels these days.  The impact of these cuts is starting to be felt in government dependent towns such as Clarenville. ...

At this past week’s Council meeting, it was revealed that a home builder had built a house in such a way to contravene the town’s building regulations.  The house was built closer to the road than is allowed by the current code.   This situation was discovered only AFTER the house was built.  So the Town was, once again, left in a pickle prompting Mayor Best asked: “How did we get to where we got?” Unfortunately, that fundamental question was never addressed at Tuesday’s meeting – it needs to be.   ( listen to the PACKET’s March 5 Meeting Coverage starting at the 15 minute mark ) There are essentially three choices when a breach of the regulations is discovered. 1) Get the home owner to bring the build into spec.  2) Ignore the contravention or  3) Change the regulations.  Unfortunately this latest situation is not an isolated occurrence. It has happened before and from previous experience the Town’s attempts to force builders to...