A Broadway hit lands in Virgil this weekend, plus the Town Hall exit nobody's explaining

~ NOTL News Crew

Line 2 Road in Virgil is doing double duty this week. The first campaign signs went up along it Thursday, the opening move from eleven people who want six council seats and three who want the Lord Mayor's chair come October. A few doors down at the Redekopp Centre, twenty NOTL teenagers spent the same week running final rehearsals for Hadestown, opening tonight in a hundred-seat studio. One story is about who this town trusts with its money for the next four years, which lands a little differently this week given the item below about the treasurer nobody at Town Hall will explain. The other is just a bunch of local kids about to pull off something genuinely good in a room most of the town's never set foot in. Both are worth paying attention to before the weekend's out.

Kyle Freeborn ran NOTL's finances for more than fourteen years. Sometime in July, without any public announcement, he was gone, terminated without cause, at a salary north of $157,000 in 2025. Finance manager Nick Alaimo stepped in as interim treasurer on July 21, holding down both jobs at once, and the town's only comment on the "why" has been that there isn't one it's willing to give.

Steve McGuinness, one of the eleven people now running for a council seat, wants to know more. "This whole transition seems shrouded in mystery," he says, and his concern runs past one departure. Freeborn is the third senior staff member out the door since 2022, joining a former CAO and a former planning director. Layer on $632,000 in budgeted salary savings from vacancies last year, and McGuinness sees a pattern the town hasn't had to explain yet. "We can't solve the problem until we understand the problem," he says.

The town's response so far amounts to one line: legal and ethical obligations protect confidential personnel matters, says spokesperson Christie New. That's true as far as it goes, employment terminations are usually confidential, and nothing here points to wrongdoing by anyone involved. But "we can't say" and "there's nothing to see" aren't the same claim, and the town's only offered the first one. It hasn't said what this transition costs, whether there's a succession plan for a role this size, or how NOTL's staff turnover compares to any other municipality its size. Those are reasonable questions for a candidate, or any resident, to ask about who's minding a multi-million-dollar budget.

It also lands in the middle of a stretch where "who's actually accountable, and to whom" keeps coming up at Town Hall. Two issues ago it was the integrity commissioner clearing the Lord Mayor on the Rand Estate. Last issue it was how little of a shrinking council a Strong Mayor will actually need onside to get his way. Add "the town won't explain why its own treasurer left" to that list, and this stops looking like three unrelated stories that happened to break the same summer.

Worth saying plainly: McGuinness is a candidate in the same election this newsletter's been covering closely, and he has an obvious incentive to make Town Hall look opaque right now. That doesn't make the underlying questions wrong. Three senior departures in three years is a fact no matter who's the one pointing at it, and "confidential personnel matter" is the kind of answer that's true and tells you nothing. Whether this is ordinary municipal turnover or something that deserves real scrutiny is exactly the sort of thing this fall's candidates should have to answer for, one way or the other, before October 26.

George Lepp is a first-generation full-time farmer who's been growing, packing and selling peaches since 1972, and there's a good chance the ones in your fridge came from one of his orchards. Ontario processes roughly 80 per cent of the peaches sold in Canada, and the Niagara Peninsula accounts for more than 96 per cent of that, 4,400 acres, over 22,000 tons a year. Lepp alone decides when a tree's ready, walking the rows and judging shape, size, colour and taste before anything gets picked. His explanation for why Niagara fruit tastes different: "We have a soil structure here that's perfect for growing tree fruit, especially peaches... the right combination of magnesium, manganese, copper, molybdenum and phosphorus." It's a nice follow-up to the flooding warning two issues back, the same industry a University of Guelph scientist said could see real supply damage from this summer's rain, told from the ground instead of the lab. His tip if you're stocking up: buy an extra basket, wash, slice and freeze it, and you've got a taste of this summer in December.

Nominations closed for good on Aug 21 at 2pm, and the Town Clerk has now published the certified list. Running for Lord Mayor: Vaughn Goettler, Andrea Kaiser and Erwin Wiens. Running for council: incumbents Tim Balasiuk, Adriana Cater-Vizzari, Gary Burroughs, Sandra O'Connor, Maria Mavridis and Andrew Niven, plus challengers Weston Miller, Steve McGuinness, Karen Jones-Taylor, Nicholas Colaneri and Rick Mills, the last three of whom filed in the final hour before the deadline. Colaneri says the timing was deliberate: "There are people in this town who are very comfortable with how things have operated and who'd rather this race stay quiet and predictable." Election signs can legally go up starting Thursday, Aug 27, so expect to start seeing names on lawns any day now. Internet voting opens Oct 5, advance in-person voting runs Oct 7 at Town Hall and Oct 17 at the Community Centre, and Election Day is Monday, Oct 26.

My.NOTL, the customer service portal that soft-launched two days before this summer's first flood, went fully live Aug 25, replacing the town's old service-request database with a Salesforce-based system residents can use to submit and track requests directly. Lord Mayor Zalepa says it "makes it easier to stay informed from submission through completion." Separately, in a recovery update issued the same week, the town said staff are actively investigating a blockage at the King Street culvert as part of a broader inspection of roads, storm sewers and municipal drains still underway since the summer's flooding. No new damage figures were released.

Niagara Transit Plus microtransit expands to Sundays and statutory holidays starting Sept 6, and regional routes serving Niagara College's NOTL campus and the Outlet Collection at Niagara will get weekend and holiday service for the first time too. Hours run 10am-6pm, with no service on Christmas or New Year's Day. A transit spokesperson called it "one of the most common requests from riders." Full schedules land online in September.

The Shaw Festival's 65th season, running March 31 to Dec 23, 2027, will put "South Pacific" and "The Color Purple" on the Festival Theatre stage in the same year, a first. Also on the bill: "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Grimm Tales" and Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers." Meanwhile, with the old Royal George demolished this past June, the Court House Theatre keeps covering its slate while the new, larger Royal George is built on the same Queen Street spot, not expected to open until fall 2028.

A BMW went up in flames near Bella Terra Vineyards Monday evening, fully engulfed by the time trucks arrived, though the driver got out safely and police confirm it was mechanical, not suspicious. The reason response felt so quick: Monday's the Old Town station's training night, so the whole crew was already there. "Car fires are fairly routine," said deputy fire chief Darren Trostenko. "Most cars are a complete write-off with the way things burn so quickly."

Kurt Hamm and Gary Friesen were inducted Aug 22 at Meridian Credit Union Arena, with MP Tony Baldinelli, MPP Wayne Gates and Lord Mayor Zalepa all showing up for it. Hamm's been coaching youth soccer for nearly 40 years, an estimated 4,000 kids and counting, and still serves as the NOTL Soccer Club's sponsorship director. Friesen played in the OHL for Oshawa and Sudbury before finishing his career at Brock, and now coaches minor hockey and lacrosse locally. Hamm's philosophy hasn't changed in four decades: "We focus on the kids. It's all about them, the kids. Nothing else, nothing else matters."

John Petrie of Niagara Trailers has been named the 2026 Ontario RV Dealers Association Dealer of the Year, the association's top individual honour, picked from a field of four nominees from across the province. ORVDA's Natalie Conway didn't mince words presenting it: "Sometimes it's the person who quietly shows up year after year... the person who leads with integrity, earns trust through action, and never loses sight of the people who made their success possible." Petrie's been on the ORVDA board for years, including a stint as treasurer, and stays active on its show and membership committees. The business itself has real numbers behind it too: Canada's number one KZ dealer for ten years running, North America's number one three times over the past decade. Doug and Anna Petrie started it more than 50 years ago on hard work and family values, and John's kept that going while growing it into one of the province's most respected RV destinations, closing in on a 55th anniversary in 2027. Petrie's own reaction was to hand the credit sideways: "It is quite an honour to receive this award on behalf of our team at Niagara Trailers. They are the ones who really deserve this award." He's now Ontario's nominee for the national title, with the Canadian RV Dealer of the Year to be announced after nominations close Aug 31.

Niagara Trailers, St. Davids

Three issues running now, this newsletter's had a story about who's actually accountable around here, an integrity ruling, how much power sits with very few people after this fall, and now a treasurer's exit nobody at Town Hall will explain. As you're sizing up the names on your lawn signs this week: what's the one thing you most want your council candidates to have to answer for, before you vote?

Reply to this email. Best answers run next issue.