Disclosure. I am a candidate for mayor. Until June 2026 I reported for North Frontenac News Media (NFNM). Neither NFNM nor its editor saw or reviewed this statement before publication. Everything below comes from public documents you can read yourself, and they are listed under Sources at the end of this article.
Voting opens Monday, October 19. Election Day is October 26. This is my last update before then, and it is about the reason I am running.
What the Record Shows
Over the past year I have read a great deal of council minutes, staff reports, and by-laws. I keep finding the same thing: a good idea, a vote, and then nothing that finishes the job.
- The $337,500. In October 2022, County Council asked the Township to bring back a detailed plan for its share of the County's seniors housing money. In January 2023, a Township resolution named the people who would write the business case. NFNM reported this week that no business case appears in the public record, and that the County's reserve line has not moved in six year-ends. South Frontenac asked for its share with one resolution in April 2024. The County authorized payments eleven weeks later.
- The housing committees. The June 12, 2025 council agenda put forward a motion to dissolve the Economic Development Task Force's housing sub-committee and the Seniors Housing Committee, and to replace them with a Housing Advisory Task Force. The report behind it listed the cost as unknown, with mileage for members. NFNM reports that the new task force ends on October 31 with a list of what it did not do.
- The 2026 budget. NFNM reports it was deemed adopted on December 4, the day the Mayor issued his budget decision, while council's own 30-day window to propose amendments (Procedural By-law, section 3.10) still had a day to run.
- The minutes. The minutes of May 21 and September 11 record the final wording of motions without the amendments made on the floor, though section 7.7 of the Township's Procedural By-law (#2026-23) requires minutes to record "any amendments or other procedural matters."
Look closely at the June 2025 report, because it is a fair picture of how this happens. It said, in the Mayor's words, that the housing sub-committee was doing the work, but "Council is not familiar with their ideas or progress." That was an honest observation, and the reasoning was sound: council needed advice in a timely way. The answer was a new body.
But replacing one committee with another does not answer the real question. In any given month, how would council know whether the work was getting done?
The Township's Procedural By-law (#2026-23, section 13.1) already says a task force's terms of reference must include "Tasks and Milestones; Time Frame and Meetings," and that it must prepare an annual work plan for council. Section 13.11 caps a task force at $500 a year in spending without a council resolution. The rules are on paper. What I have not found is anyone whose job it is to check that the work gets done.
This Is Not About One Name
Several councils and many members touched these files, and many of the people involved are capable, decent, and made sound decisions. That is what makes this frustrating. The idea is usually right. The report is commissioned, the committee is formed, the motion carries, and then no one builds the plan that carries it through. We pay for the research and the administration, and then the work is shelved or shut down because no one was watching for completion.
How a Habit Becomes Culture
That pattern is no longer an accident. It has become a habit, and a habit that goes unchallenged becomes the way things are done. Nobody set out to make it normal. It took hold because no one was ever asked to measure it. We track what we spend. We rarely track whether the thing we spent it on was finished.
A township with this much experience should be getting better at this with each term, not staying where it is. Good decisions, made well, should be followed by more efficient delivery each time. Right now we are paying for studies that no one has the means to act on.
I Know How to Measure This
I have run companies, from a high-tech public company to a 70-location electronics repair operation. In every one of them, a project that was started and not finished was not neutral. It was a cost with no return, and someone was accountable for it.
Over the past year I have added certifications in Strategy and Operations, Innovation Management, Finance, and Crisis Management so that I arrive prepared. I want to put that to work for this township.
The Completion Standard
My platform already contains the model. The Roads Repair Tracker publishes what was promised and what was delivered, every quarter. I would apply the same discipline to every decision council makes.
- A completion standard. Every motion carries a named owner, a deliverable, and a report-back date. A public tracker, updated quarterly, shows what was promised and what was delivered.
- A decision-ready test. Before council commissions a report, study, or task force, it states what it will do with the answer and where the money to act on it will come from. If neither can be answered, we do not commission it.
- Honest minutes. Amendments, movers, and seconders recorded as the by-law requires, so you can see how a decision was made.
- Your voice before the money moves. 30 days of public input on non-emergency spending over $25,000 that is not already in the adopted budget, so residents are not asked to weigh in twice on routine, budgeted costs; resident-led ward committees, and a one-page plain-language summary of every budget.
- A completion report on every task force. Section 13.1 of the Procedural By-law already requires a new council, within three months of taking office, to review each existing task force and choose by resolution to continue or disband it. I will ask that every one of those reviews begin with a plain-language report: what the task force was asked to do, what it delivered, what it cost, and what is left. The reports go on the public tracker, so residents can read them too.
Emergencies Are Different
The 30-day input period is for non-emergency spending beyond the adopted budget. A wildfire, a flood, or a failed bridge cannot wait thirty days, and a rule that forced it to would be a spending trap at exactly the moment we need to move fastest.
Emergency items move on a shorter timeline. The safeguard against abuse is judgement and the public record: the reason an item qualifies as an emergency is stated in the minutes, and the spending is reported back to residents afterward. An emergency should never become a way around the rule.
What I Am Asking
Council meets one more time before the vote, on October 23. Watch what gets recorded. Whoever you choose, read the record before you do.
If you give me your vote, I will bring one habit to the council table: we finish what we start.
Art Hannigan
Candidate for Mayor, Township of North Frontenac
Authorized by Arthur J. Hannigan, Candidate for Mayor, Township of North Frontenac.
Sources
- Township of North Frontenac, Regular Council Agenda, June 12, 2025, pages 59–62: Mayor's Administrative Report, "Highlighting the Importance of Housing as an Integral Part of Economic Development through the Establishment of a Housing Advisory Task Force" (recommendation, background, comments, financial impact, and reference to the Procedural Policy for Council, Committees and Task Forces)
- Township of North Frontenac By-law #2026-23, Procedural Policy for Members of Council, Committees and Task Forces (passed April 10, 2026): sections 3.10 (budget process), 7.7 (minutes), 13.1 (task force terms of reference and work plan), and 13.11 (task force expenses)
- Township of North Frontenac council minutes, May 21 and September 11, 2026, and the 2026 budget adoption record
- County of Frontenac council records on the seniors housing reserve, October 2022 and April 2024; Township of North Frontenac resolution, January 2023
- North Frontenac News Media, October 15, 2026 edition: "He Gave Back Strong Mayor Powers and Kept the Gavel" (the 2026 budget decision), and its reporting on the housing task force, the $337,500 reserve line, and council minutes