Every decision Frontenac County council makes lands on four townships. Paramedic funding, long-term care, land-use planning, and the governance rules that shape municipal business across the region all run through a single table at the county level. The lower-tier municipalities get coverage. The county table gets less. In practice, it often gets none.
That changes now. NFNM is reading Frontenac County the way we read any other municipality: agendas, minutes, staff reports, attachments, financial documents, and committee records. We started pulling the full record in early 2026. We have already found things worth reporting.
Frontenac County is the upper-tier municipality in a two-tier system. It sits above North Frontenac, Central Frontenac, South Frontenac, and Frontenac Islands. Council is composed of the mayors and deputy mayors of those four townships. The Warden is elected from among them. The county funds Frontenac Paramedic Services, operates Fairmount Home for the Aged, manages the K&P Trail, and delivers planning and shared infrastructure services. Its budget is funded through a levy on the lower-tier municipalities. What it spends, township taxpayers pay.
Most residents interact with their township council. Most local media coverage follows township meetings. The county’s work gets less attention. The consequences are the same. A staffing model approved at the county level determines paramedic response capacity across the region. The Fairmount Home budget determines what care looks like for long-term care residents. A rewrite of the procedural by-law or transparency policy determines how much the public can see.
We are here for the record.
Eight Meetings, Zero Minutes
Frontenac County retired its CivicWeb meeting portal at the end of 2025 and launched a new system built on Microsoft Power Pages effective January 1, 2026. The new portal is the county’s sole public-facing source for agendas and minutes. The county website directs residents there.
As of April 7, 2026, the portal shows zero standalone minutes posted for any 2026 meeting. Eight meetings have taken place since January 21. All eight have agendas posted. None have published minutes.
The meetings with no standalone minutes posted:
- January 21, Regular Council
- January 29, PEDAC (Planning and Economic Development Advisory Committee)
- February 3, Governance Review Committee
- February 18, Regular Council
- February 18, Administration Committee
- March 3, Governance Review Committee
- March 18, Regular Council
- March 26, PEDAC
The minutes do exist. They are being produced, circulated, and adopted. We confirmed this by pulling the agenda packages for subsequent meetings. The minutes from the January 21 council meeting appear inside the February 18 agenda package. The minutes from the February 18 council meeting appear inside the March 18 agenda package. They are embedded as attachments to the next meeting’s confirmation of minutes item.
A resident looking for what happened at the January 21 meeting would have to know to open the February 18 agenda, find the correct attachment, and read the minutes from there. There is no link, no standalone document, and no indication on the portal that minutes for the January meeting have been produced. The portal entry for January 21 shows an agenda link and nothing else.
NFNM is not alleging that the county is suppressing minutes or acting in bad faith. The record shows the minutes are being created and adopted through the normal process. What the record also shows is that three and a half months into 2026, the county’s public meeting portal contains zero findable minutes for any meeting held this year. A new system that makes the public record harder to locate is a transparency problem whether or not anyone intended it to be.
We have contacted the county clerk’s office and will report on any response.
Fairmount Home: Public Data, No Public Coverage
At the February 18, 2026 council meeting, Fairmount Home for the Aged submitted its quarterly report for Q4 2025. Fairmount is the county-operated long-term care facility. Its residents are among the most vulnerable people in the region. Its reporting is legislated under Ontario’s long-term care regulatory framework, and the data it produces is public.
The Q4 2025 report disclosed the following:
- 14 critical incidents logged with the Ministry of Long-Term Care
- 6 alleged staff-to-resident abuse incidents
- 2 alleged visitor-to-resident abuse incidents
- 1 alleged resident-to-resident abuse incident
- 2 falls resulting in injury
- 1 missing controlled substance tablet
- 2 cases of misappropriation of resident funds
- 5 disease outbreaks affecting 16 residents (COVID-19, Influenza A on two occasions, Coronavirus, and Adenovirus)
- 3 Ministry of Labour inspections conducted in December 2025 and January 2026
Every long-term care home in Ontario files this kind of report. The numbers are not unique to Fairmount, and they do not by themselves indicate systemic failure. Critical incident reporting is part of the regulatory regime. Homes are required to log these events and report them to the Ministry. The Ministry of Labour inspections resulted in orders related to workplace violence policy review and food and drink at nursing stations.
The numbers are routine. The fact that no one has reported them is not. Families with loved ones at Fairmount are entitled to see these figures. They appear in a staff report buried in a council agenda package. Unless someone downloads that package and reads through it, the information does not reach the public. No local outlet has reported on them.
NFNM will track Fairmount’s quarterly reports going forward.
We Are Working Through 2025
We have the full 2025 Frontenac County council record archived and are reading through it systematically. Several files are already open. We are not ready to publish findings on any of them, but we can say where we are looking and why.
Healthcare operational review. In March 2025, council received an operational review of healthcare delivery conducted by 8020 Info Inc. and approved its recommendations. In May 2025, council approved an implementation plan. Council authorized up to $30,000 from the Strategic Project Reserve for consulting, recruitment events, and communications related to the plan. The implementation plan includes participation in the NEST staffing program through KEYS and funding for recruitment and consulting efforts. The details of what was recommended and what council adopted are in the record. We are reading that file now.
Governance overhaul. Throughout 2025, a Governance Review Committee met at least six times between January and September. The committee continued into 2026 with sessions on February 3 and March 3. The scope of its work includes the county’s Procedural By-law, its Accountability and Transparency Policy, its MFIPPA (Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) policies, and its Public Notice Policy. These are foundational governance documents. They determine what the public can access, how council conducts its business, and what notice residents receive before decisions are made. Changes to any of them matter. NFNM will report on what changed, when it changed, and what rationale was given.
Howe Island ferry subsidy. At the February 18, 2026 council meeting, council voted to petition the Province of Ontario for $1,272,924 to subsidize Howe Island ferry operations. The reserve fund for the ferry sits at zero. Ferry revenue covers approximately 20 percent of operating costs. The remaining 80 percent falls to county taxpayers across all four townships. The ferry serves Frontenac Islands, the smallest municipality in the county by population, but the cost is shared regionally. NFNM will track this file going forward, including the province’s response and any changes to the funding model.
These are not accusations. They are open files. When we have enough to report, we will. When a file requires more time, we will say so.
Going Forward
NFNM is adding Frontenac County to its regular coverage in the same way we cover the lower-tier townships. That means we will read every agenda before it is considered and every set of minutes after it is adopted. Staff reports, committee records, financial documents, and by-laws are all on the table. When something in the record matters to the public, we will write about it. When a record that should be accessible is not, we will note it. When we are still reviewing a file and cannot yet draw conclusions, we will say that plainly.
Council meets under Warden Bill Saunders. Kevin Farrell serves as Chief Administrative Officer. Jannette Amini serves as Clerk.
We will be watching.
NFNM verified the meeting portal’s contents through direct inspection of the county’s Power Pages system and its underlying data as of April 7, 2026. Fairmount Home Q4 2025 data is drawn from the staff report included in the February 18, 2026 Regular Council agenda package. Governance Review Committee meeting dates are drawn from agenda records archived by NFNM. All records referenced in this article are on file.
