While it’s doubtful it will come to pass, I’d love to see a 100% turnout of eligible Dunvegan-area voters in the coming North Glengarry municipal election. There’s really no excuse for residents not to exercise their democratic right, because the Township has made the process extremely simple. We now have three possible ways to vote. Just in case you’re unclear, here are the ABC’s of voting in North Glengarry… thanks in part to voter information handout produced by deputy mayoral candidate, Carma Williams.
A: To find out if you’re on the list to vote in the 2018 municipal and school board elections, go to voterlookup.ca or call the Township Clerk’s office at 613-525-1323.
B: By this point, as an eligible voter, you should have received your Voter Information Letter in the mail. This official notification will have “IMPORTANT INFORMATION: 2018 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS” printed on the front. Inside, you’ll find your confidential voting PIN. If you haven’t received your Voter Information Letter, call the Township Clerk’s office at 613-525-1323.
C: Choose how you want to cast your ballot. One option is to vote by telephone. You can do this anytime from 8:00 am on October 17 to 8:00 pm on October 22. You will need your Voter Information Letter. It contains the phone number to call and your voter PIN. The second option is to vote on-line. Once again, you can do this anytime from 8:00 am on October 17 to 8:00 pm on October 22. Consult your Voter Information Letter for the website address to visit. If you don’t have a computer, you can use one at the Township office or an SD&G Library. Contact the Township or library for hours of operation. If you prefer using a paper ballot, your third option is to vote in person. Please note though, this election, there’s only ONE poll and it’s located at the Township Hall, 90 Main St. South, Alexandria. Don’t forget to bring along your Voter Information Letter. The physical poll is open Oct ober 22 from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. It’s that easy.
If you have family or friends in Maxville Manor, Chateau Glengarry, The Palace Retirement Home or The Palace Long Term Care Home, election officials will drop by on October 22 so residents who wish to do so can vote.
Dunvegan Ghostbusters
If you are adept at suspending disbelief for entertainment purposes, this next item is right up your alley. For two nights only — Saturday, October 13thand Saturday, October 27th— the Glengarry Pioneer Museum is hosting a Paranormal Tour of their buildings. Yup, you read that right, ghost hunting.The tours will be limited to 50 people per night and, in addition to a paranormal investigation, the fun will include some eerie artifacts and eyewitness accounts.
Investigators from Ottawa’s Bytown Paranormal will lead the tours and explain the “science” behind investigating the spiritual realm. They’ll also demonstrate exactly how their equipment works. According to the group’s web site, their ghost-finding toolkit includes aREM Pod (or Radiating ElectroMagnetism pod) to measure source proximity, strength and electromagnetic field distortion… and a deluxe K2 KII EMF Meter, a device that boasts a 4.5 star rating on Amazon.
Tickets for this rain-or-shine event must be purchased in advance. The cost is $20 per person and they’re available to PayPal users though the museum’s website: GlengarryPioneerMuseum.ca. Or, if you’d prefer to bypass the information highway, you can always phone the museum at 613-527-5230 to reserve your spot.
I’m told the tickets are going fast. So if ahair-raisingevening of chasing down hobgoblins is your cup of tea, I wouldn’t procrastinate. BTW, I’m assuming any apparitions at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum will be hobgoblins, rather than goblins. In the fairytale folklore of Great Britain, the prefix “hob” generally means the creature is smaller and friendlier. And, as we all know, Dunvegan has a better class of ghosts.
Trick or Treat alert
While I’ve got you in an All Hallows Eve frame of mind, I thought I’d mention the annual candy drive for the Dunvegan Recreation Association’s community Halloween party on October 31st. I don’t have any details yet about where this year’s drop-off depot will be. However, you could keep your eyes peeled for a sale on Halloween goodies and tuck them away until I do. I will keep you posted.
A picture’s worth…
At the Association’s last executive meeting, DRA director and Councillor at Large candidate, Louise Quenneville discussed Dunvegan’s problem with speeding and rolling stops. Twice a day during the workweek, commuters see the four-way stop at our crossroads as the starting block for an Olympic sprint. Their goal appears to be getting through town as quickly as possible. They view the posted speed limit as a loose guideline rather than a hard and fast rule. It’s not uncommon to be standing at the DRA hall and witness westbound vehicles accelerate to 100 km/hr and more by the time they pass the community mailboxes. As Louise noted in her report, Dunvegan is not alone when it comes to thiscomplaint. Greenfield, Glen Sandfield, Dominionville and others have voiced their concerns about speeding and failure to stop at stop signs.
As is the case with so many other situations like this, the “squeaking wheel” approach is about our only course of action. We need to continue lodging our complaints with the OPP’s Traffic Complaint Office at 1-888-310-1122. Another suggestion I’ve heard is to install temporary digital readout signs. These units display an oncoming motorist’s speed in real time and indicate with red and green lights when the vehicle is over or under the limit.
While a bit more radical, a third option might be more effective. I propose North Glengarry declare that its hamlets are “community safety zones” and deploy photo radar. I’m not suggesting that every road into every hamlet be equipped with a photo radar detector. This would be fiscal hara-kiri; each unit costs around $100,000. However, North Glengarry or the OPP could afford one portable unit and a whole bunch of “speed photo radar enforced” signs. The trick would be to relocate the photo radar unit from community to community on a random basis, so speeders could never really be sure if they’d get a whopping ticket or not.
Former Dunveganite is #2
What a small globe it is. Last week, our daughter Ursula called to say she had just caught our former neighbour Joyce Cutts, aged 86, on CBC Radio talking about her impressive win at a tennis tournament in Europe. During the 1980s, Joyce and her late husband Robb, owned a farm a bit west of us… where Bruce and Lynn MacGillivray now live. So I reached out to Joyce and here is what she told me.
“I was listening to CBC’s Metro Morningas I do every morning and Matt Galloway, the announcer, said if anyone had had something special happen to them to please phone in. So I did… because I had just returned from Croatia where I played in a Super Senior Tennis Tournament. My Ladies Doubles partner and I got right to the finals in the 85+-age division. We lost in three sets — so that made us Number Two in the world. These tournaments are held every year somewhere around the globe. Last year we played in Orlando, Florida.”
Congratulations Joyce. We miss you and your energy.
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