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Serving the Mapleton Community
Community News Volume 44 Issue 33
Drayton, Ontario
1 Year GIC - 2.05% 3 Year GIC - 2.80% 5 Year GIC - 3.05% Daily Interest 1.75%
Friday, August 19, 2011
Music, message greet hundreds at Underground Railroad Music Festival by Kris Svela Drayton Diana Braithwaite’s smile said it all as she stood beside the stage listening to the music and looking out at the hundreds of people taking in Saturday’s Underground Railroad Music Festival at Centennial Park in Drayton. “We have more people than we had last year,” she said as the music played under sunny skies. Now in its third year, the festival is a celebration of black history, from the early 1880s when slaves and free blacks in the United States escaped captivity and persecution to carve out a life in what is now known as Mapleton Township. It was a dangerous trip to an unfamiliar area known as the Queen’s Bush settlement where, as free people, they built roads, farms and communities. At its peak in 1840, the Queen’s Bush settlement was home to some 2,000 black settlers. But the settlement died out almost as quickly as it began, when the government ordered the area surveyed and black settlers could not afford to buy the land they had settled. When slavery was abolished south of the border in 1865, most black settlers returned home to their native land. Yet some black settlers remained in former Peel Township and continued farming well into the 20th century. A few descendants of those settlers still call Waterloo and Wellington County home, but most are widely dispersed across Ontario and beyond. Braithwaite’s mother Rella, a descendant of the original settlers, attended the festival to enjoy the music and message. Together with musician
Chris Whiteley, Braithwaite organizes the festival, which annually attracts musicians from across Canada and the U.S., bringing a message of freedom and dedication through gospel, folk, jazz and blues music and prayer. “We started the festival to educate and acknowledge the other [black] history and its rich history,” Braithwaite said of the festival. This year’s event featured Braithwaite, Whiteley, Douglas Watson, Donovan Locke and gospel group the Mississippi Singers.
“Freedom is a word worth living for and dying for.” -Pastor Tim Bailey, speaking at the Underground Railroad Music Festival on Aug. 13. Pastor Tim Bailey, who made the 18-hour trek along with the Mississippi Singers from Columbus, Mississippi, summed up the feeling of the festival in words of inspiration based on the theme The Long Road to Freedom. “You’ve gathered together to commemorate the struggles of people who came all the way from Mississippi to find freedom,” Bailey said of the original settlers. “In their travels they had one common thing in mind; they wanted to be free.” The pastor said American blacks were willing to overcome any obstacle in their pursuit of freedom. He urged those attending the festival to continue the fight for freedom. “Freedom has many
enemies,” Bailey added. “Sometimes we are the biggest enemy because we don’t want other people to get ahead.” A belief in God helped settlers overcome struggles, he added. “Anyone who denies another human being to be free ... in the end there is the judgement,” he told those at the festival. “Whenever you deprive anyone of the freedom they deserve, that makes the road longer.” Bailey thanked local residents who welcomed the refugees at the time. “Thank you Canada for assisting us,” he said. The message and music was appreciated by Kathleen Scott and her sister, Carol Jackson, who attended the festival for the first time. “I just love it,” Scott said. An avid Braithwaite fan, Scott enjoyed a front row seat to see the artist perform live. The audience seemed to appreciate the music and gave a standing ovation to Pastor Bailey’s sermon and its meaning. “Freedom is a word worth living for and dying for,” the pastor said. “Freedom causes an individual to experience life at its apex.” Both Braithwaite and Whiteley are headed off for a six-week tour of Britain and Ireland, where they will be performing at festivals and concerts. Braithwaite thanked the small army of volunteers for helping to make this year’s festival a success, including the local Rotary Club, Mapleton Township and the Wellington County Historical Society. In the meantime, plans for next year’s festival are already in full swing.
Township conducting tests to assess ‘excessive volume’ at wastewater plant MAPLETON TWP. Officials here are asking for the cooperation of local businesses and homeowners in their bid to resolve issues at the municipality’s wastewater treatment facility. Public works director Larry Lynch says the township’s sewage treatment lagoons, located off of Sideroad 15, southwest of Drayton, are “experiencing excessive volume increases” as a result of excessive precipitation this year and “what appears to be increased flows” from the Drayton sanitary sewage system.
“Township staff and our system operators, Ontario Clean Water Association, will be initiating various pipe inspections in Drayton through smoke and dye testing, to determine the cause of excessive flow levels and will be attempting to facilitate resolution of such in a timely and cost effective manner,” Lynch said in a letter addressed to locals. “Over the next few weeks our staff will be knocking on residential and business doors and asking for permission to inspect your sump pump discharge locations, checking to
Main St. W. Palmerston
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Rated G. Please note that the Saturday show at 8pm is ½ price movie night sponsored by the Palmerston Agricultural Society.
TIMES: Friday 8pm, Saturday 2pm & 8pm and Sunday 7pm
For more info call 519-343-3640 or visit www.norgantheatre.com
see that rain water is not being directed into the sanitary service connection and asking residents to unhook any of these if found in non-compliance with township regulations.” Facilities manager Don Culp will lead the project, assisted by other staff members. Lynch concludes his letter by stating, “Please cooperate with Don and his team when they knock on your door for the betterment of your community.” For more information contact the township office.
Blues man - Chicago native Douglas Watson served up some southside blues at last weekend’s Underground Railroad Music Festival at Centennial Park in Drayton. Hundreds of locals and visitors attended the 3rd annual event. Additional photo on page 8. photo by Kris Svela
Officials explain moves by school board and transportation consortium by Mike Robinson WELLINGTON CTY Local school board officials have offered a different view of events following a protest by independent school bus operators earlier this month in Mount Forest. The Community News asked Upper Grand District School Board executive director Martha Rogers about how the request for proposal process affected bus students and independent school bus operators. She responded in writing and cited a Ministry of Education memorandum telling boards “the government intends to require consortia and will determine effective ways to implement consortia and efficiency measures.” She said one memo outlined which boards were to purchase services from each consortium.
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“Our board, as well as Wellington Catholic, DufferinPeel Catholic and the two local public and Catholic French boards, were to purchase services from one consortium.” Rogers said the efficiency of the local consortium, Wellington-Dufferin Student Transportation Services, was measured in 2007 by a Ministry of Education efficiency review team led by Deloitte & Touche LLP, which criticized the consortium for not being a legal entity and for not having a competitive procurement process. The consortium was to address those concerns “prior to their next review.” As a result, Rogers said, “The consortium became a legal entity with its own staff, as well as its own letters patent, corporate bylaws, governance structure and policies.”
That effectively took decision making out of the hands of any of the boards of education involved. The consortium took part “in a ministry pilot project in 2009 in which the ministry required the consortium to include 25% of [its] routes in an open, fair, transparent and accountable procurement process. The remainder of the routes were included in a similar process in 2010. The Ministry of Finance audited the 2010 process and found no shortcomings.” Rogers added, “The next ministry efficiency review awarded the consortium a ‘high’ rating on its governance, policies and practices.” She said, “There was certainly no moratorium on procurement processes,” as school Continued on page 8