The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

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 fix their contraventions (option 1) have am

I see Councillors are getting an earful on the “old” mall parking lot. (see The Packet "Pot Holes Persist Feb 28/2013  )  The Town and the Mall owners have been at loggerheads for what seems like forever pointing fingers of blame at one another as absolutely nothing gets done to clean up what has become a decrepit part of Clarenville.    From the mall owner's/tenant's point of view, the Town owns the lot and IT is clearly the one responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the lot.  (This is thanks to an omission in the original 1960’s era development agreement that neglected to pass the ownership of the lot to the mall owners within a specified length of time)   From the Town’s point of view, it wants to be rid of the lot and the associated liability.  And their stand has a lot of merit from a taxpayer's point of view.  As long as the Town is forced to take care of the lot the owners & tenants are receiving an effective subsidy on the backs of taxpay

> Clarenville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Sixth Annual Business Excellence Awards. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL NOMINEES  2013 Clarenville Area Chamber of Commerce Awards Recipients (L/R) Jason Strickland, Lee Bennett, Chad Fisher, Stephen Chaytor of Meridian Engineering, Large Business of the Year; Wendell Moore, Clarenville Business Hall of Fame inductee for 2013; Dan Moody - SW Energy, Small Business of the Year; Daniel Allan, Salvation Army & Jill Monk - Kraft Celebration Tour, co winners of the Community Cares Award. The Clarenville Chamber of Commerce's Business Excellence Awards are designed to recognize businesses and the people behind these businesses who contribute to making our community and our region one of the best places to live and work in this province.  It is an opportunity to showcase what we do well – something that I believe we need to do more of.  Over 90 people attended the awards ceremony this past Wednesday evening, and in considering th

As many other towns in NL are suffering water woes, Clarenville's investment in a modern water treatment and distribution system is paying off for its residents.   Just yesterday, the CBC reported that 128 municipalities in this province have THM levels in excess of the Health Canada imposed standard of 100 micrograms per litre - we are NOT one of them.  What's more disturbing for the province is that the number of municipalities with questionable water has doubled in the last thirteen years. Clarenville's report (see below and link HERE ) consistently shows that the water coming out of your town fed tap is safe and safe by a good margin. That's great news and something that the Town and particularly the people who manage our water treatment plant should be very proud of.  (There is a bit of a disturbing trend towards progressively higher THM levels however and something that we should work on addressing.) THM's are a by-product of the chlorination process.  C

It’s time once again for the provincial government to start putting its 2014 budget together and, as in previous years, the pre-budget consultation road show starts this coming week.   This year, it’s being held in Clarenville on Friday the 15 th of February from 9-11 am at the Clarenville Inn.  Are you reading this and listening Town of Clarenville? Last year, the Town of Clarenville was conspicuously absent from the pre-budget consultation process.  It  wasn't  too long after that that our Town officials went crying to government, on a couple of occasions, for money for “very important projects” such as an overpass for Clarenville.   Was this a matter of doubting the merits of the process or just someone dropping the ball? I'm sad to say I think it was doubting indifference. Regardless of the perceived merit of the pre-budget consultation process, the process at least forces Town officials to plan - identify potential projects, cost them out and make an init

Random Thoughts...: Welcome to Clarenville. What's Your Role? : The Neighbourhood of Friends Family Resource Centre had a very successful Meet and Greet last week for families new to the area. The Centre ...