The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

On October 30, Clarenville Town Council invited interested parties and groups to present to them recommendations towards developing the 2013 Town of Clarenville Budget.  This is my submission: My presentation has three major themes: 1) Clarenville needs to focus on its people:  We need the right people, with the right skills (working for the town and living in the town) to grow Clarenville. 2) Clarenville's growth needs to be managed.  Rules are important, but more importantly these rules need to be applied and monitored. 3) Clarenville's future success relies on NEW people coming to town.  Without the luxury of a baby boom, our future success will rely on attracting and retaining younger, better educated, community oriented people.  To be attracted and to stay these people require that the Town be an attractive place to live, professionally run and with the amenities that they want.  If we don't do this other towns will. (Greater St. John's, CBS, CBN is our im

Naheed Nenshi is the Mayor of Calgary.  He’s young, just over 40, and he’s innovative.  Mayor Nenshi spoke at Memorial University last week and in St. John’s.  His hour long talk and question and answer session is a fascinating look on how we can renew municipal government and engage citizens in the process.  It’s well worth the watch – see it  here Key discussion themes that Mayor Nenshi raised in his discussion.  I reflect on them as LESSONS FOR CLARENVILLE: On Involvement - people will be involved in their community if they are asked to be involved. On being open as a country   - Nenshi noted that in order to continue our growth we are going to need imported talent.   We have to be more open.   Nobody should care where you are from - be concerned about what you can bring to the table On Transparency  - People want honesty and transparency. Transparency breeds honesty and citizen engagement On the importance of Municipal Government - If the federal or pro

Last week you and I and the Town of Clarenville bought a new pickup truck.   It’s a pretty regular occurrence for the Town to purchase a piece of equipment to allow it to do the things that we, as citizens, expect to be done.   In order to help ensure that our elected officials get the best value for our tax dollars, things of any significant value (>$500) need to be purchased through a tendering process.  This means that we get at least three quotes on a significant item before we buy and then we, through our elected council, select the best of the bids. Multiple quotes ensure that our best interests are served.  Last week this did not happen and I’m not at all sure why.   According to the transcript of the meeting (reported on the PACKET website Oct 6 meeting @ 33 minute mark) , only a single quote was received for a ¾ ton pickup to the value of $39,947 +HST.  This single quote was accepted without question by the Council. There are many companies that sell this

After carefully listening to Tuesday’s Council meeting I was taken aback by Council's approval and insistence for “in writing” only proposals and limited private meetings for the pre-budget consultation with the finance committee scheduled for October 30. The formality of this approach will almost ensure that fewer people will seek a meeting and, because of the insistence on “in writing” comments, even fewer people will take part – especially those who are not competent speakers or writers – they will simply not bother to participate in the process. What impact will this decision have on the retired senior, people who prefer to express themselves vocally rather than through the written word  or the young person who each might have some very insightful thoughts to share with the Council but who will be frozen out? If you feel Clarenville needs more opportunity for citizen participation rather than less, please express your concerns to Mayor Fred Best  fred@clarenville.net

Surely by now, if you own property, you have received your 2012 property assessment in the mail.   It’s been a jaw dropping experience for most people as we have seen the appraised values of our properties go up by 25% or more over the last assessment 3 years ago.   Because of this, the Municipal Assessment Agency, the provincial agency that calculates the values, has become a lightning rod for taxpayers and municipal governments alike. Tuesday night’s Council meeting was no exception.  The MAA received an impassioned bashing – but I’m not convinced. If you look at your assessment, I am sure that you will agree that it is a truer reflection of the actual value of your property.  Ask yourself honestly – could I get at least this much for my house if I sold it?  I am sure you will agree that it’s a more realistic value.   Because this assessed value is more realistic, banks will more readily acknowledge the value of your assets – making loans easier and cheaper to get. As well,

I was at the hockey game this past weekend, where you?  If you were, did you work your way through the smoke outside the entrance? I remember when I sat on Council, we passed a progressive piece of legislation that outlawed smoking on all town owned property – including the stadium and stadium grounds.  At around the same time, several other  government departments and agencies, as well as some privately owned shopping malls, also adopted policies outlawing smoking on their properties.  It seemed like the thing to do. Since that time I have seen this rule made a mockery of time and time again – not just at the stadium but virtually everywhere that adopted the policy. Like many of the rules that are made, I wonder if they are made more to “look’ like some organization is being progressive rather than actually being progressive.   Old habits die hard, both for the organizations that make the rules and for those who choose to ignore the rules. Now I'm not out to

Random Thoughts...: A New Piece of the Rotary Trail : Clarenville has a new trail to enjoy. Part of the Rotary Trail, it starts at the Dog Park and meets up with the original Rotary Trail. L...

Making the Town better - Here’s a laundry list of ideas that I will file under the heading  “People Potential” Ice Cap Opportunity The Clarenville Events Centre in all its splendor as Danny Williams, CEO of the Ice Caps, presents a cheque for $5000 to Clarenville Minor Hockey. On Sunday the AHL's St. John's Ice Caps and Syracuse Crunch played a preseason exhibition game in front of 1100 hockey fans.  This event proved to be a great opportunity to showcase the Clarenville Events Centre and the Town to the league.  With the potential to hold the Allan Cup in 2015 and the upcoming 2014 NL Winter games, this was an incredible opportunity to showcase our capabilities. Based on the positive comments from the league and the media covering the league, they were impressed. Kudos to the organizers! The Highway Lookout Where's Clarenville: The TCH lookout at Naked Man is getting grown in For anyone who has traveled the TCH towards Clarenvil

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 time the newly developed land will be sold and the Town will recoup its

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 issues that nee

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 expensi

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 on: Twitter: @NLWG2014  (#clarenville2014) Facebook:

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 (wrongly) that the development would follow the natu

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 the budget” & “seems”.   Let’s just say

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: Communication is critical for Winte

The NL Summer Games just came to a successful conclusion in Carbonear/Harbour Grace.  Hard to believe that the 2014 NL Winter Games Committee has been hard at work for more than eight months now. And while going to meetings to discuss winter sports during 25 degree weather seems somewhat odd, we have been making great progress. It takes a lot of effort to pull off a provincial games and the committee is very focused on the games being all about the athletes. Over the coming months, there'll be lots of activity and more information will be available about the games. You can keep apprised of the games at Clarenville2014 on Facebook or on Twitter @nlwg2014 . And don't forget, we'll need lots of volunteers. It's never too early to sign up! Clarenville is proud to host these games-it will be a community effort!

Several months ago, I wrote a post on my blog about development in Clarenville. In the post, I referenced the importance of communication with residents to alleviate any concerns that they might have about a neighbouring development. The development that I wrote about in February 2011 referenced concerns about flooding and timelines for completion. The development is still ongoing and today there was evidence of concern of potential flooding and impact that the development will have on those people who live on Prince and Viking Streets.  Culverts on those streets are almost full today after last night's rain. In fact, work had to be done early in the morning to divert water away from houses. While it looks like there are plans in place to divert water, it's not done at the moment and those who live in the area are not aware of future plans. It's very disconcerting, particularly with Hurricane Igor still in peoples' minds and hurricane season upcoming, to see culver

The Kraft Celebration tour rolled through Clarenville this weekend and you helped make it an outstanding success. We wanted to show Clarenville at its best - and we did.    This past weekend was a culmination of a summer long effort that under the leadership of Jill Monk, saw the people of greater Clarenville demonstrate the very best in "community". During the planning meetings that we held for this weekend, the folks from TSN and Kraft wanted to show the scenery and the history - and they did that well.  But we wanted to add to that, we wanted to show something a lot less tangible and a lot more important - Community Spirit.  Thank you all for showing that so well. The Cheque The Antics! CBC Interview:  http://www.cbc.ca/video/player.html?clipid=2269515400&position=5758&site=cbc.news.ca We have a huge selection of photos on our companion Our-Town facebook site As well you can see the TSN in Clarenville broadcast @  http://watch.tsn.ca/clip730734#cli

Random Thoughts...: Municipal Leaders Eating Their Young : The Town Council in Bonavista found itself in the news this week . Councillor John Norman spoke to the media regarding the poor shape of som...

All this week at the College of the North Atlantic a dozen young girls are building some great go-carts!  The girls are part of GETT - Girls Exploring Trades and Technology hosted each summer at Clarenville Campus. This Women in Resource Development program is designed to introduce girls to technology and trade careers and encourages them to consider a variety of career choices.  It's a free program that is sponsored by the oil industry and it seeks to  reinforces the importance of taking science; advanced math subjects and industrial arts in high school by stressing the impact those subjects have on career decisions. If you have some time, take the opportunity to come out on Friday afternoon,  Aug. 17 at 1:30 in the parking lot of Clarenville Middle School to see what these girls have created and witness just how much they have learned. To find out more about the camps, go to http://www.wrdc.nf.ca/erc/gett/index.htm. Here's a look at last year's races: