Today, we reluctantly acknowledge defeat in our quest to save Vinelands architecturally and historically significant 120-year schoolhouse with the publication of the op-ed below in the West Niagara NewsNow print edition; the online version will be up shortly. In the face of apathetic local Councillors and a completely disengaged school board Trustee, the only option left was pursuit of a legal injunction against further destruction at the school site; we were unsuccessful in finding pro-bono and appropriately-trained legal counsel able to guide us in such a fight. We thank the new mayor Sandra Easton for her efforts to help. Sadly, she has only one vote on a Council that remains willfully ignorant of both its responsibilities to protect Lincolns heritage and the means that exist to assist it in doing so. If you are in Lincoln, please consider joining the Towns new heritage committee by applying at the URL below to ensure that this lamentable situation ends. Every other historic public building -- including BDSS with its stately columns, but falling enrollment -- remains under threat. Lincoln needs a heritage policy and it needs a Council willing to act on it. At present, it has neither. Lincoln deserves better. +++ Lincoln Council FAILS its Citizens Last Monday [5 January 2015], Lincoln Council washed its hands of Vineland’s 1895 schoolhouse. Councillor Wayne MacMillan argued Council has “little say” in the historic building’s future: its demolition was implicitly approved by the previous Council. Councillor Rob Foster contended this was the right decision, but that Council failed in communicating it. Council’s communications on the schoolhouse have indeed been a mess. Councillors’ statements have shown that they don’t understand their obligations under the Ontario Heritage Act to protect Lincoln’s historic sites. Furthermore, they don’t understand basic budgeting: saving the schoolhouse could be funded from outside grants without diverting money from other activities. Sadly, our Councillors also don’t understand how to open an email. We sent them extensive research on heritage policy, the historic and architectural significance of the schoolhouse, and funding options for repurposing. But our messages to them went largely unopened and even fewer received a response. Oh well: our DSBN Trustee didn’t read them either! Sure, everyone’s swamped by email, but we also made three presentations to Council that laid out all of these issues. Councillors didn’t ask a single question—not one! Why? It would have given us a chance to explain the mistakes in their muddled assertions that it was impossible for them to do anything. Councillors were keen last Monday to dispel what they called “misinformation” about the Vineland’s schoolhouse. Here’s all you really need to know: Council has done nothing to save this historic building. It didn’t even try. Councillors ignored months of requests in 2013 and 2014 by their Heritage Committee to protect the schoolhouse. Instead, they sat on their hands in the DSBN’s Accommodation Review Committee (ARC) and then approved the Board’s plan to destroy Vineland’s most important landmark. This isn’t a fringe issue: more people signed petitions to save Vineland’s schoolhouse than voted for any Councillor in October. Hold them to account: apply by noon on January 30th to join Council’s new Heritage Committee. lincoln.ca/…/citizen-appointments-boards-and-com… Brett House and Carla Mackie are organizers for the group Friends of Vineland Public School 1895.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:55:32 +0000
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