The following is the second in a four-part series taking a look back at the amalgamation of Victoria County into the City of Kawartha Lakes 25 years ago.

When special commissioner Harry Kitchen began hosting public consultations, many of those attending came to believe the result was a foregone conclusion; that the desired outcome was amalgamation and Kitchen structured his findings to go along with what the province wanted.

There were some, however, that didn’t totally reject the idea.

“It would benefit a small municipality like us. Villages had a smaller tax base but were providing more services,” explained former Woodville Reeve Len Thornbury. “Many of the townships had a lot of money in reserves that they had carefully saved up over the years and were afraid of losing them. Some councillors would also have a hard time imagining that the municipalities that they loved and had served for years would no longer exist.”

Many left meetings with the understanding the argument creating one single-tier municipality would save money.

The last meeting of Fenelon Falls council was held in December 2000 with Tony Vincent, Barb Stokes, Wayne Hutchinson, Roger Bellwood and Ben Jowitt in attendance.

But how could replacing volunteers, who were performing so many functions for the small municipalities, with paid staff save money? There was also an expectation the new municipality would not lay off any employees.

“The true reason, I thought, was the province was tired of dealing with so many municipalities,” suggested former Fenelon Falls councillor Wayne Hutchinson.

Before Kitchen was appointed commissioner few people — other than municipal councillors — had given much thought to what structure was best. Once he was given such dictatorial powers, it seemed like EVERYONE had an opinion; debatable even today.

In some communities the meetings were not particularly memorable.

“I thought that the community centre would be packed. But there were just 30 or 40 people there. They said very little,” recalls former Emily Reeve Joe McGuire. “We presented them with the options for change, or stay as we are? These are the problems we are having, what are the solutions? Should we amalgamate into four or five municipalities? We encouraged people to make their comments, but there was very little feedback.”

The public was encouraged to vote on which option was best for them. The result was mixed — only two votes for a single-tier municipality — and relayed to Kitchen.

In Fenelon Falls, it was far from subdued, Hutchinson calling the meeting with Kitchen the........

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