Opinion piece to the Editor

Once upon a time there was a peaceful, sandy public beach in North Hatley. Local residents went there for an early morning swim, families gathered for picnics and magnificent sunsets. It remained that way for fifty years, during which time a dedicated group of volunteers, North Hatley Recreation Society (NHRS), ran the beach safely, efficiently and harmoniously. They raised money to pay lifeguards, instructors and purchase equipment such as sailboats. The Town contributed very little to the annual beach budget. A few years ago, the friendly wooden palisade was replaced by an industrial style fence, but the gate was always open.

This “perfect situation” ended abruptly this spring when the Town made the beach their latest battleground. Now, the gate is locked most of the time. After trying to impose unacceptable conditions on NHRS, the Town has taken control of the beach and is limiting its use to certain hours on 71 days of the year. North Hatley residents collectively own this beach, yet access is now barred for more than 90% of the year, if all hours are taken into account.

If you want to swim before late June or after August 20^th or enjoy an early morning dip at any time, you’d better look for alternatives. Many citizens now go the municipal wharf for their morning swim, while the small park next to the wharf (belonging to the Lake Protection Association) is crowded with families later in the day, clamouring for better access to the lake. These new habits certainly fly in the face of the pretext of raising public safety by closing the beach when there is no lifeguard!

Other options are to crawl under the fence, remove gates from their hinges or come equipped with ladders or wire-cutters. This former welcoming haven has taken on the feeling of a detention camp, complete with surveillance camera. The beach is now half empty on hot evenings, because of the sharp increase in fees to residents of Waterville and Canton de Hatley. Far less children are enrolled in swimming, sailing and tennis classes. The rumour is that there will be no sailing and tennis for kids, this summer. Children will be the biggest losers.

The Town will now have to meet the full costs of running the beach. Amazingly, a month after deciding to take over the beach, the Town still had made no budgetary provision for this major new expenditure. Revenue will be down, while staffing costs will rise. Incredibly, the Town’s deputy manager and secretary were paid overtime to register beach users on the opening weekends in June. It takes no genius to predict a large deficit this summer, which of course we the tax-payers will have to shoulder. Paying a lot more for a beach which we will only be able to use for 1/10^th of the year is a no-brainer.

The rumour mill is going strong in North Hatley. Is the Town purposefully running up this deficit to justify renting space to commercial ventures? Setting rumours aside, this issue has undeniably raised more anger than any other Town decision in recent years. People have always enjoyed going to the beach whenever they chose. Access is now being controlled by a paternalistic Town administration. At the last two Council meetings, many citizens who normally never attend expressed strong feelings over the new beach rules. They do not want to be told when they can or cannot use their public beach. Yet their protests fall on deaf ears, nothing changes. Appeals for dialogue are ignored, as are petitions. Responses by the Mayor are misleading or meaningless, promises are broken.

Why cannot North Hatley put up warning signs, like almost every public beach in Quebec and elsewhere in North America, saying: “Swim at your own risk” or “Swimming forbidden when no lifeguard present”? 

Or perhaps the best solution: simply remove the fence and gate which are at the heart of the issue; this could apparently let the Town off the hook. I could go on and on, but I will finish by sharing three thoughts:

• One of the reasons we had for buying a home here 15 years ago was the lake and year-round access to the public beach.
• The Town is taking away an important incentive for young families to choose North Hatley, and even for new businesses to locate here.
• Some people who rent homes here tell me they might move away, if this stand-off continues. 

After all, what is the point of living in a village by a lake, if you cannot use the lake? Cutting access to the municipal beach in this heavy-handed manner may result in far-reaching repercussions on our community.

IMPORTANT: The Town has convened a special public meeting at 5.30 pm, Wednesday, July 4 at the Community Centre, to reveal the legal opinion which it has sought regarding its beach responsibilities.

Citizens should attend in large numbers, either to applaud or to protest.

There will also be a full council meeting a few days later on Monday, July 9 at 7.00 pm.

Michael Grayson

The opinions expressed on this website are those of their authors. Space on the website is provided as a service to the community and FANHCA, its administrators and host cannot be held responsible for any of the opinions expressed thereon.

(English follows)

Une réunion spéciale du conseil municipal de North Hatley aura lieu le 4 juillet à 17 h 30 au bureau municipal, pour discuter, du moins il le semblerait d’après l’ordre du jour très vague, non pas l’avis juridique que la municipalité a obtenu relativement au verrouillage de la porte à la plage publique, mais seulement la politique de la municipalité concernant la divulgation de cette opinion. C’est ce que l’ordre du jour semble indiquer, et si tel est le cas, alors, selon le Code municipal, seul ce sujet (la politique) peut être discuté lors de la réunion. En fait, cet ordre du jour imprécis soulève plus de questions que de réponses.

Question 1: Pourquoi discuter de la politique liée à la divulgation de l’opinion, lorsque l’opinion elle-même a été obtenue aux frais des contribuables, à nos frais – et probablement à grands frais, même si l’avocate travaille pour la municipalité avec une avance sur honoraires – et traite d’un problème de sécurité publique? Pourquoi l’opinion dans son ensemble n’est-elle pas présentée, discutée et rendue publique? Peut-être qu’elle ne soutient pas entièrement la décision prise par l’administration de la municipalité?

Question 2: Pourquoi tenir une réunion spéciale – à un coût supplémentaire pour les contribuables de North Hatley – sur cette question seulement cinq jours avant la réunion régulière du Conseil? Dépense-t-on inutilement nos taxes? Est-ce que la situation financière de la municipalité est si bonne qu’elle peut se permettre de dépenser notre argent sans y faire attention? Ou encore, s’agit-il d’une manœuvre de la part de l’administration pour limiter la discussion publique lors de sa réunion régulière? Comme indiqué précédemment, l’ordre du jour, en raison de son manque de spécificité, soulève plus de questions que de réponses. Et cela constitue un problème important pour tous, puisqu’il sert à empêcher les citoyens de soulever des questions pertinentes, d’interroger l’administration de la municipalité de façon significative.

Question 3: Pourquoi notre argent a-t-il été dépensé inutilement pour encore un autre avis juridique, alors qu’un avis avait déjà été obtenu par la Société récréative et communiqué à la municipalité? La SRNH a obtenu l’avis d’une avocate dont la spécialité était précisément le domaine du droit applicable au barricadage de la plage. Cette opinion indiquait qu’il n’était pas nécessaire de verrouiller la porte lorsque la baignade n’était pas surveillée – en fait, le faire rendait la ville (c’est-à-dire, les contribuables, c’est-à-dire nous) plus vulnérable que si elle la laissait ouverte 24 heures par jour. Les assureurs de la municipalité ont également déclaré, à plusieurs reprises, qu’il n’était pas nécessaire de verrouiller la porte. Pourquoi donc a-t-on dépensé encore de notre argent pour obtenir une autre opinion, celle d’une autre avocate, dont la spécialisation est peut-être sans rapport avec le domaine du droit pertinent en cette situation (cette avocate pourrait bien, par exemple, posséder une spécialisation en droit municipal, mais la question de responsabilité n’est pas couverte par le Code municipal). Pourquoi cet avis juridique n’a-t-il pas déjà été rendu public dans son intégralité, puisqu’il avait été obtenu le 22 juin, sinon avant? Et pourquoi l’administration municipale n’agit-elle que maintenant, au début du mois de juillet, sans vouloir fournir à ses contribuables toutes les informations en sa possession?

Ces questions et d’autres encore peuvent être soulevées par les citoyens participant à la réunion spéciale, mais seulement avant que le point à l’ordre du jour ne soit discuté (il n’y aura qu’une seule période de questions). Si l’accès à la plage ‘publique’ vous intéresse, et si vous êtes en mesure d’assister à la réunion spéciale, il serait important que vous y soyez et que vous portiez vos préoccupations à l’attention des membres de l’administration de notre municipalité, autant élus que non élus.

Paul St-Pierre

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A special meeting of the Town Council of North Hatley is to be held on July 4 at 5:30 p.m. at the Municipal Office to discuss, or so it would seem from the vague agenda, not the legal opinion the Town has obtained in relation to locking the gate at the town beach, but only the policy of the Town regarding disclosure of this opinion. This is what the agenda seems to state, and if this is in fact the case, then according to the Municipal Code only this subject (the policy) can be discussed at the meeting. In fact, this imprecise agenda raises more questions than it answers.

Question 1: Why discuss the policy as to whether to disclose the opinion, when the opinion itself has been obtained at taxpayer expense, at our expense – and likely at great expense, even if the lawyer is on a retainer from the Town – and concerns an issue of public safety? Why isn’t the opinion in its entirety being presented, discussed, and made available? Does it not fully support the decision taken by the administration of the Town?

Question 2: Why hold a special meeting — at additional public expense — on this issue only five days before a regular, scheduled meeting? Are our taxes being spent unnecessarily? Is the Town is such a good financial situation that it can afford to spend our money foolishly? Or is this some manœuvre on the part of the administration to limit public discussion and accountability at its regular meeting? As previous stated, the agenda, in its lack of specificity, raises more questions than it answers. And this is a problem, since it serves to prevent citizens from raising pertinent questions, from questioning the administration of the Town in a meaningful way.

Question 3: Why has our money been spent unnecessarily on yet another legal opinion, when one was already obtained by NHRS and communicated to the Town? The NHRS obtained an opinion from a lawyer whose specialization was precisely in the field of law that applies when it comes to barricading the beach. That opinion stated there was no need to lock the gate when swimming was unsupervised—indeed, that doing so made the Town (i.e., it’s taxpayers, i.e., us) more liable than if it simply left them open 24/7. The Town’s insurers have also stated, several times, that there was no need to lock the gate. So why has more of our money been spent on yet one more opinion, from yet one more lawyer, one whose specialization is very possibly irrelevant to this area of law (this lawyer might well possess a specialization in Municipal Law, for example, and the question of responsibility is not covered by the Municipal Code). Why has this legal opinion not already been made public in its entirety, since it had been obtained by June 22, if not before? And why is the Town Administration acting only now, at the beginning of July, without being willing to provide its taxpayers all the information in its possession?

These questions and others can and will be raised by citizens attending the special meeting, but only before the item on the agenda is actually discussed (there will be only one question period). If access to the ‘public’ beach is of interest to you, and if you are able to attend the special meeting, it would be important that you do so and bring your concerns to the attention of our officials, both elected and unelected.

Paul St-Pierre

The opinions expressed on this website are those of their authors. Space on the website is provided as a service to the community and FANHCA, its administrators and host cannot be held responsible for any of the opinions expressed thereon.