On Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m. at the Dungannon Rec Centre, our Council will vote on whether or not to proceed with the Building Bancroft Project. This is an open meeting for all to attend. The Building Bancroft supporters are busy mustering the business people and youth in our community to come out in support of the project.

Building Bancroft supporters have asked why this community is so divided, they have asked why our MP and MPP are not supporting them, and they have asked us to take a leap of faith, and trust that they know how great this will be for Bancroft by showing our support for moving forward.

All I can say is that for two years, OEB Enterprise has been working on this project. Part of their job was to unify the community in support of the project. This community is far from unified, have they failed on this very basic objective?

When sub-committee members started to question some of the proceedings of Building Bancroft, committees were dissolved.

When citizens asked real questions about the project, they were labeled as anti-project, ‘dissidents’, and ‘opponents’.

When over 1000 citizens protested the purchase of the IGA property, at $300,000 over the appraised value, they were told it was too late.

When the IGA was eventually inspected by the Town’s CBO (long after the purchase), it is reported to be full of toxic molds and the roof is collapsing, are we now facing an Environmental Cleanup prior to Demolition? At what cost to the taxpayers?

When our MP is supporting a CAF grant application by the local lumber industries, for a BioMass project that will help create 60-100 local, full time jobs, for generations to come, but the Building Bancroft submission gets the money to do studies for the consultant’s associates, something unusual is happening.

When the Building Bancroft project committee is told that OEB is having regular discussions with our MPP about the current RED grant for over $1M, there seems to be little evidence of this.

Over a year ago, local groups were strongly encouraged not to apply for grants such as the Library or Arena funds, as it would jeopardize the big money that OEB would be going after. Now, we seem to hear that getting the big money won’t have an impact on other smaller grant applications down the road, because they come out of different government pockets.

Wasaga Beach was also approached by Greg Black who was representing the Levy Brothers idea to do a $500M makeover of the town. Things fell apart earlier this year and the Town is left owing $800,000.

Horseshoe Valley area is in the midst of a $1.65B (billion) tourism and redevelopment project called the Georgian Valley Project, with Greg Black as the Project Coordinator, stay tuned to see what happens.

There was a meeting recently where members supporting the project and those preferring smaller, right-sized development discussed obstacles to overcome. A key member of the project committee promised to table a motion at the very next meeting (2 days later) to deal with the issue. This person did not attend the next meeting.

When a federal Minister comes to Town, the Council at large is not invited, but private citizens who did show up are accused of ‘hi-jacking’ and being ‘Bush League’, even though they never said a word.

A second petition is started by the Concerned Citizens of Bancroft, Inc., Building Bancroft staff members have been going into stores that have the postcards and drop boxes requesting that these be removed immediately, “they are very disruptive to the future of the project”.

When Building Bancroft was first made public, we were anticipating about $1M in added assessment for the Town, the latest consultant report from PKF has that number adjusted to $59,040. The Home Depot that went to Parry Sound instead of beside the Price Chopper, would have given the Town triple that in assessment. Many are still pushing for the BB project as our only hope.

I think we all know how each of us feels about the Building Bancroft project. I do encourage each and every person who cares about Bancroft’s future and our enormous debt to come to the meeting on Tuesday evening and see how your Councillors are going to vote.

Larry D Haight