On Monday I attended the first ever public meeting hosted by Melancthon council about the proposed Highland's mine project.

As someone who grew up in Toronto, lives in Oakville, and spends weekends at my farm in Melancthon, I was troubled and shocked by the attitude of Mayor Deb Fawcett.

I am fully aware that Melancthon is a small rural farming community. But for anyone who is accustomed to city politics, the mayor's treatment of the public process was most disconcerting.

Mayor Fawcett officiated the meeting. She told us at the meeting's commencement that there would be one half hour devoted to questions, questions could be about process only, and that the meeting would end promptly at 9PM. She was doing her best to control things.

When 9PM rolled around, there were still several citizens standing and waiting to ask questions. Mayor Fawcett looked at the clock and announced that the person speaking would be the last speaker of the evening. She was greeted by a resounding echo of boos and shouts from the audience.

Clearly, we the citizens wanted more information.

Mayor Fawcett kept saying that the panel of government officials needed to get home as it was late. Maybe she needs to remember that the citizens in the audience pay her salary and those of all the government employees who "needed to get home".

One wonders what her priority is. Don't put the interests of government employees over your citizens. Who will listen to your scared and worried voters and taxpayers, about what is taking place in their town with respect to a potential mine that could destroy farmland and empty everyone's well dry?

In my opinion, the mayor's attitude toward the public in this situation was not appropriate. She needs to take a course called Mayorship 101 which involves understanding why she was elected — to listen and represent her constituents, not to shut them up and hope they will go away.

Why would council finally decide to hold a public meeting and then limit the questions and the time?

Three years ago in Oakville there was a major concern from residents about tree cutting of an old Oak Tree. To some this may seem insignificant but to resident concerns became council's top priority. The mayor at the time, a very savvy woman who understood the public process, entertained delegations on this subject for several nights in a row. Many of the delegations went until midnight. Now that is public process in action!

Elected officials in Melancthon need to understand that citizens will have opinions whether you want to hear them or not. Isn't better to tune in and listen, than turn a blind eye to public concern?

Margaret Mercer Melancthon Township

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There were some interesting revelations at the Honeywood public meeting last week. It was arranged by the Melancthon Council to layout the processes that will be followed once the impending quarry application from The Highland Companies is received by the township.

The Highland Companies promises to rehabilitate the quarry, they will blast into the rock below the soil, back into "agricultural uses". This seems to be a central idea of their proposal, and since most people know or expect that "pits" will be restored somehow, the inclusion of this concept in their plan is somewhat mollifying. The timeline for the quarry operation and this rehabilitation has yet to be revealed, but we might expect each cycle of "dig/repair" to take 6-10 years.

Needless to say, there will a lot of years behind us before we can see any positive results if there are any.

Besides the fact that the 200 foot plus hole in the ground will forever have to be emptied of the water that will try to fill it up, we have the issue of the viability and sustainability of farming down in the hole. Since there are no successful examples of rehabilitation of this type and scale to look toward for reassurance, the Melancthon quarry would be a massive experiment. One would think that the approving authorities (all Provincial ministries) would look at the plan put forward with an extra measure of caution before allowing it to proceed.

The reporter who wrote on the event last week mentioned three times that the quarry plan "must be consistent with the policies of the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS)". It is odd to me that he did not report also that a section of the PPS, section 2.5.4.1a (read out loud by Carol Neumann, OMFRA) states:

"On these prime agricultural lands, complete agricultural rehabilitation is not required if: a. there is substantial quantity of mineral aggregate resources below the water table warranting extraction, or the depth of planned extraction in a quarry make restoration of pre-extraction agricultural capability unfeasible; "

The success of The Highland Companies quarry application does not hinge upon demonstrating a successful rehabilitation.

The Highland Companies knew this long ago.

I would suggest that the proposed rehabilitation is an appeasement, and that the current agricultural operation in general is a beach-head intended to secure access to the billions of dollars that sit waiting below that Class 1 soil that the PPS considers expendable.
Dennis Sanford
Melancthon