Heather Wright/The Independent

Frustrated by the regional government thrust upon them and feeling ignored by Chatham, a group in Bothwell and Zone want to return to Lambton County.

A petition is circulating in the area which calls on the province to “release us from Chatham-Kent and allow us to amalgamate as a new lower-tier municipality under the County of Lambton.”

Emery Huszka, a former Dawn-Euphemia councillor and farmer who has land in both Chatham-Kent and Lambton, says frustration in the northeastern part of Chatham-Kent has been building for years.

Chatham-Kent council has debated the closure of the Bothwell arena for almost a decade. A community group was formed to keep it open, but each budget cycle there is concern the arena will be on the chopping block again.

This year, Huszka says, the council eliminated dust suppression on gravel roads, ignoring safety risks of rural communities.

The growing size of government is also an irritant. The operating budget of the amalgamated municipality now sits at $440 million. There are plans in the works to build a new civic centre in downtown Chatham with a price tag around $50 million. Huszka says word came Monday Chatham-Kent is considering adding another top manager at a cost of up to $250,0000.

All this while reports suggest fewer services for smaller communities, stoking fears of Bothwell’s library and municipal service centre closing.

But what seems to be the final straw is a plan to reduce the number of councillors. Bothwell-Zone would share one councillor with several other communities instead of two.

Alex Miller’s family has farmed in Zone since the 1850s. He was on Zone council before the amalgamation. He says “the local representation is not there.”

Huszka agrees. He is part of a group visiting neighbours with the petition to leave C-K.

“Back in the olden days, communities worked together by talking with each other. So it’s not a sales pitch and it’s not a leaflet drop or anything like that. It’s a neighbour talking to a neighbour (saying) ‘Hey, what do you think about how we’re governing ourselves? Are we getting everything we thought we were going to get?” says Huszka. And the ‘leave CK group’ has been getting a good response.

“Municipal governance looks after the bread and butter items that affect our daily lives and because of that, there is quite a an engaged discussion.” Many people are disillusioned with Chatham-Kent.
Huszka says residents have been telling him “It just seems like they don’t realize we exist…it doesn’t seem like they respect us or they even want us.”

Miller has that feeling, too. Many of his neighbours point to the decision to cut rural road maintenance. “We really need the roads to get to our fields, to haul our produce.” Huszka says that complaint has “permeated” the discussion.

“If you’re bringing a crop off the field, you really don’t want to tip off the road or drive through ruts or,when the dust suppressant doesn’t get applied, we don’t really want our family, to be the one to pull out on the road and get T-boned by somebody.”

And the proposal to cut rural representation, says Huszka “really does scream that our voice is not being heard quite as loudly when they’re talking about reducing the number of municipal councilors and lessening a voice that already feels stifled.”

What the group is proposing is what could be termed a homecoming. A petition is circulating “that is our official notice to the Ontario government that we think we could do better. We think that we could be more responsive to our local needs, if you would let us go back to Lambton County,” says Huszka. He hopes to present it to Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Steve Pinsonneault at the end of the month.
“We were part of Lambton initially, and then we’re taken out of Lambton and into Kent County,” adds Miller.

The Bothwell area was first settled by George Brown – one of the fathers of Confederation and the founder of The Globe and Mail. He bought 4,000 acres in 1851. Three years later, the Canadian National Railway laid tracks through the middle of his land and he saw an opportunity. He laid out a town site, sold lots and set up some businesses including a saw mill and furniture factory.

In the 1860s, oil was struck in the area and drew the likes of Petrolia’s JH Fairbank to Bothwell to set up shop. The town grew to about 3,500 people before oil production waned.

Maps from as late as 1871 show Bothwell-Zone as a part of Lambton County and, at Confederation, the federal riding of Bothwell contained the Townships of Dawn, Euphemia and Sombra. The earliest Parliamentary records of the riding identify Bothwell as a community of Kent County.

Bothwell and Zone stood alone as their own municipalities with Kent as its county government for generations until 1998, when a provincial mediator decided to end the boundary disputes in Kent County and shrink the size of government.

Peter Meyboom put all the municipalities of Kent County into one regional government with 18 councillors and a mayor. It was a solution nobody wanted, says Huszka.

“We’re proposing a correction to a process that was a good effort…It was an oversight that Bothwell (and) Zone could have been put to Lambton, had we had that in our mind, or had we had a more lengthy discussion,” he says. “The government made a decision at the time; there needed to be efficiencies – this will happen.”

Huszka admits there has been some good from the merger but “a lot of things have not lived up to their hype and it is not necessarily their fault, but we think we can do better. We think that we can be more locally driven and look after our needs better, if we have local voices. And yes, its really that simple.”

But Lambton County Warden Kevin Marriott is not so sure it would be simple. He’s been approached by some of the people involved with the movement and says he’s been having a hard time wrapping his mind around the concept.

“I just think it would be really, really complicated,” said Marriott Tuesday. “I never heard of this happening in Ontario, so I wouldn’t want to guess where you start.

“I don’t think it’d be just the provincial government which would say, ‘go ahead.’ Like, what about Chatham-Kent themselves? Like, I’m sure they would have some say,” Marriott speculates.

“I don’t think Chatham-Kent would let it go easily, even though those people feel left out.”
Marriott says the move would cost money. Take roads for example. Marriott isn’t sure if the rural roads in Bothwell-Zone are in good shape. They may need work to come up to Lambton’s standards. The new municipality “would have to have another (county) road depot,” he added.

“There’s so many things that would have to happen in order to make it work,” he said adding “I didn’t want to waste my energy just yet until I see where this petition goes, because there’s a lot of water that has to go under the bridge before it happens.”

Miller and Huszka prefer to look at the things Lambton and Bothwell-Zone have in common than worry about the enormity of unravelling services, buildings and infrastructure from Chatham-Kent.
“We kind of think the same way,” says Miller of Bothwell-Zone and Lambton.

Miller says years ago a CK administrator told him Bothwell and Zone Township “cost them more than they get from us” so he doesn’t think Chatham-Kent would be hurt economically if the region formed its own rural municipality and became part of Lambton County.

“We’re just trying to see if this will work, and if it works, it is hard to imagine it could be worse for the residents of the ratepayers of (Bothwell and Zone) township.”