WHITEWATER REGION (Foresters Falls) — A well-known and successful businessman wants to be the next reeve for the Township of Whitewater Region.
“I’m running for two reasons,” said Joe Kowalski, owner of Wilderness Tours. “I am running for reeve because I get to sit on municipal council and I get to sit on county council. I think both councils need improvement.”
With the loss of elementary schools and churches, and low enrollment at Opeongo High School, he is concerned with the depopulation of, not only Whitewater Region, but rural Ontario.
“I see a battle between urban and rural Ontario,” he said. “The people who make the laws all live in the cities.
“I truly believe that they want us working in cubicles, living in condos or subdivisions, all right next to each other, and they want to keep rural Ontario with no people in it.”
He continued, “They want there to be just be trees and animals and deer in rural Ontario. I truly believe there are some people who honestly believe that.”
Mr. Kowalski wants to see Whitewater Region grow. It’s time the municipality fought back – not at the provincial level, but the county and municipal levels.
He has learned over the more than four decades of operating businesses how to accomplish things. It’s important to continue growing and not maintain status quo, he said.
“When you try to do something that goes against the status quo you run into road blocks, because our entire world is based on status quo, everybody wants status quo,” he said.
However, Mr. Kowalski pointed out, “We didn’t get the railroads, we didn’t get the telephone, we didn’t get progress with status quo. You have to have growth and development, you have to break out of the status quo.”
There is 500,000 linear feet of waterfront in Whitewater Region, he said, which is where people want to live, or least have the view of.
“We are special in Renfrew County in that we’re like Muskoka,” Mr. Kowalski said. “People should be moving here in droves and they’re not.”
He believes one of the reasons people aren’t able to move here is because of the roadblocks that are designed by people who live in urban areas for rural Ontario.
Instead of schools and churches closing, he wants them remaining open.
As an example, he noted when property owners want to get a severance, there are so many rules and regulations.
“Even though the rules are made in Toronto, you don’t go to Toronto, you go to Renfrew County, you go to Pembroke, you go to our municipal office in Cobden.”
Having gone up against the big powers, Mr. Kowalski is aware of the problems and how to fight them – which he isn’t afraid to do.
He recalled a council meeting a few years ago when the owners of Whitewater Brewery needed a letter of support from council stating it’s in favour of the brewery to be located in a renovated barn at the end of Fletcher Road. While the original motion was moved and seconded, it was a county planner who stood up during discussion and said since the brewing of beer is an industrial process, council should not provide the letter until there is a zoning change from tourist commercial to industrial. However, that did not happen because Mr. Kowalski was at that meeting and said at Rafters Restaurant at Wilderness Tours, there is a giant mixer used to make 1,000 cookies at a time.
“Is that an industrial process,” he questioned back then. “We’re just serving dessert.”
Mr. Kowalski said, “It’s all in how you look at it and the powers-that-be at Renfrew County look at it the wrong way and I had to intervene otherwise Whitewater Brewery would have been delayed by almost a year.”
With his vast knowledge and experience, Mr. Kowalski believes he is the right choice to be the municipal representative at county council.
“I don’t know anyone else in our municipality who even understands the problems,” he said. “They are complex, planning is complex. It’s designed to be complex because they don’t want to develop rural Ontario.”
Mr. Kowalski noted that in a recent Ottawa Citizen newspaper article, it was reported that 320 million litres of overflow from the Ottawa wastewater plant spilled into the Ottawa River. That overflow is raw sewage, but by using the word overflow people aren’t aware that’s what it is.
If a farmer were to have a little manure leak into a stream, he, or she, would be so hassled, he said. If there was a septic system problem at a cottage/home and water leaked into a water source, the property owner would be hassled.
“Tell me that all these things that come down on our farmers, cottage owners in rural Ontario, and our cities can let raw sewage into our waterways and they aren’t hassled,” adding that it’s even reported in the newspapers, and no one complains.
“All sewage plants have bypasses, which is raw sewage,” he said. “But, can you imagine if a farmer had a manure spill, or cottage had septic system problem? This is nonsense.
“That’s why I’m running for reeve.”
Mr. Kowalski believes the current council is good, and if all members were running, he might not have tossed his hat into the ring.
However, that’s not the case, and even though he is a busy man operating businesses and trying to establish a national park, Whitewater Region is too important to just maintain status quo.
“I’m doing this for the next generation,” he said. “I want my kids to stay here. I want this area to be cool, I want it to have lots of people, to have fibre (optics) and wifi everywhere and good cell service.
“If you have all those things, you don’t have to work in a cubicle in the GTA to do your work anymore. You can be on your front porch overlooking your cornfield, but not living in it.”
Mr. Kowalski continued, “Good internet and good cell service, with these programs, you can talk to people on your computer, your Ipad, your phone.
“If you have these things, you don’t have to live and work in a city sitting side by side.
“And if we don’t do something, that’s where we’re heading.”
Parents want their children to live nearby, but without growth and development, that will not happen in Whitewater Region, he stated.
“If you are not a person like me, who is trying to accomplish things, and has run into roadblocks after roadblocks after roadblocks, you don’t even now what the problem is, let alone how to solve it.
“That is why I’m doing this.
“Who in this municipality has the experience that I do? And I’m not talking about just being qualified, I’m talking about getting things done,” Mr. Kowalski stated.
If elected to the reeve’s position, this will not be his first time sitting on council. He was a councillor in the 1980s in the former Ross Township.
“I learned a lot form Alvin Stone, he was my reeve, and I sat with Don Rathwell and Jack Ferguson.”
Mr. Kowalski said it will be tough to do councils and continue to operate his businesses, but said, “I’m a workaholic. I’m a no-nonsense kind of person. I will get things done.”
He admits that his goal is to transition Wilderness Tours, Whitewater Region and Renfrew County to the next generation, and is basing it on his wisdom of living in the area for 43 years and running a business for 43 years.
“I know how to get things done and how to do things,” Mr. Kowalski said. “You have to fight the province through the county.”
He’s also hopeful this will be an easier fight with a Conservative government in, because it believes in letting councils make their own decisions.
“Most of the decisions should be made at the municipal level which means if you don’t like something, you go to your council, not down to Queen’s Park where you don’t even get past the secretary,” Mr. Kowalski said. “I’m one of the few people in this municipality who understand the problems and I think I can fix them.”
