Strong Mayor Powers: Fear Sells. Facts Matter.
This piece is not an editorial. this is a real watchdog journalist holding our local journalist accountable for being part of the problem by spreading misinformation.
Jeff Green published an editorial on January 15, 2026 about “the 1st Strong Mayor Election.” He framed strong mayor powers as an unnecessary anomaly for a township our size. He also described the powers in a way that leaves readers with the impression that one person can effectively spend public money by personal authority, and lastly ends with a warning: mayoral candidates should signal they are prepared to use these powers, or they come across as “weak.”
That framing lands in the wrong place for North Frontenac. It also drifts into claims that do not match how the strong mayor framework is actually set up.
Strong mayor powers can be useful in a small municipality. A place like North Frontenac runs on limited staff, limited time, and a long list of obligations. When a council gets stuck in procedural churn, the cost is real. It shows up as delayed projects, delayed fixes, delayed answers, and delayed accountability. Delay is failure. and avoidable cost. A governance tool that can speed up decision pathways, while leaving a clear written trail and a supermajority override, can serve a rural township well.
What Jeff got wrong
Jeff’s editorial tells readers that, where spending once required a majority vote, a mayor can now make spending decisions alone and council “is only there to ratify.” That is a powerful story. It also misleads people about where the actual leverage sits.
Strong mayor powers in Ontario focus on defined areas: proposing the budget, certain senior staffing and structure decisions, bringing forward matters tied to provincial priorities, issuing written directions to staff, and vetoing certain by-laws under specific conditions. They also come with formal checks. The framework includes a council override threshold and written-public decision requirements, which means the public record is supposed to get clearer, not hazier.
Jeff also wrote that a 7 member council is the minimum size for strong mayor designation. Actually, the expansion briefings and legal commentary around the 2025 expansion describe the scope as including municipalities with councils of 6 members or more. That matters because Jeff’s “minimum size” claim props up his larger argument that North Frontenac sits outside the intent of the policy.
This is exactly why accuracy still matters in editorials more than letters to the editor. When a local paper blurs the mechanics, people stop debating governance and start debating ghosts. Fear replaces understanding, and the community pays for it in cynicism and tribalism.
What I saw in the chambers
I was present for North Frontenac’s budget process as media. I was allowed to have the floor and freely ask questions and state my concerns. something of which is not really allowed anymore but our mayor in North Frontenac specifically makes sure to allow it and try his best to allow free flow conversation. The public saw a long meeting, real debate, real questions, and real back-and-forth. I saw leadership. I saw council members pressing details. I saw decisions being worked through in the open.
The “strong mayor” label does not erase that culture. It can strengthen it when it is used with transparency and restraint, because it draws a bright line around who initiated what, who objected, and who had the votes to override.
North Frontenac’s own published guidance says mayoral powers are exercised in writing, notice must go to the Clerk and/or CAO, and decisions and directives are made available to the public. The township has already posted a formal mayoral decision dated January 16, 2026 dealing with veto powers and by-law approvals. That written-paper requirement is one of the safeguards Jeff breezed past, even though it directly undercuts the “one person runs everything in the shadows” vibe his piece gives off.
The veto safeguard Jeff treated like a threat
Jeff’s piece treats veto power like a democratic injury. In practice, the veto-and-override structure can operate as a brake and a spotlight at the same time.
A veto puts a dispute in full view. It forces the decision onto the record, along with who blocked it and the reasons given. If council wants to reverse it, members have to do that openly too, with recorded votes. That paper trail keeps responsibility attached to real names instead of disappearing into procedure.
This is also why I reject Jeff’s attempt to turn the 2026 mayor’s race into a toxic test of “strength” versus “weakness.” Candidates can talk about how they would use the tool, what guardrails they would apply, and what they consider appropriate in a rural context. Jeff’s framing pressures candidates toward performative toughness. North Frontenac has had enough of performance politics. The township benefits when power is traceable and debate is real.
What is unhealthy is when the local information layer turns policy into a simplified scare narrative.
Reality Check
Frontenac News has reach. With reach comes responsibility. A rural community does not benefit when the biggest megaphone in the county blurs how a governance system works, then tells voters to select leaders based on a false picture of that system. That dynamic feeds suspicion. Suspicion feeds tribalism. Tribalism feeds the kind of civic ugliness that has been thick across our region for months.
ROMA’s own conference program put the problem in black and white this year. One session was literally titled “Getting Accurate Information to Residents,” warning that reduced civic knowledge, the decline in local journalism, and misinformation shared through social media are fueling incivility and toxic discourse. That program item is symbolic because it is straightforward. Rural Ontario’s leadership class sees the damage pattern. They scheduled a session about it.
This is where NFNM draws a line. Editorials can stay healthy for communities when facts stay clean. When facts get loose, communities pay the price. Jeff is welcome to write his opinions on matters. However, they still have to be grounded in fact, or else he’s making my job harder.
Jeff also aimed a shot at people like me, candidates who plan to campaign on priorities while working with council. He suggests serious candidates must adopt a posture of using strong mayor powers the way Central Frontenac’s mayor framed them in conflict or else risk looking “weak”.
North Frontenac residents get to decide what they want in a mayor, and the people who live here get to decide what kind of candidates they will be. That choice belongs to this township, not to an editor trying to set the expectations from a newsroom.
One final point, because this series is called Editor vs Editor for a reason. If Jeff wants to play watchdog, the rules matter. The statute matters. The vote record matters. The difference between narrative and mechanism matters. Frontenac News already has the audience. NFNM has the job.
