North Frontenac’s Communications: A Report Card
By Donald Morton North Frontenac News Media May 4, 2026
At the council meeting of April 10, 2026, near the end of a three-hour session, Mayor Gerry Lichty stepped into a public-forum exchange about Facebook to make a declaration on the record. “I’m just going to step in here and say the primary, the primary vehicle that the Township of North Frontenac uses to disseminate information is our website,” the mayor said. “If there’s any questions about anything, we are working to drive people to that particular platform.” It was a clear claim, made under his own gavel, on a recording that runs three hours and one minute. The website is the township’s primary vehicle. Everything else is secondary.
This article tests that claim against the township’s own communications by-law, its own contracts, its own financial statements, its own clerk’s right-of-reply correspondence, and what was actually posted on what platform on the day the mayor was speaking. For residents who rely on the township for road closures, planning notices, and program changes, which channel the township treats as primary is not an abstract question. What follows is a report card. Nine categories. Letter grades. The grading rubric is the township’s own policy and the township’s own records. NFNM did not invent the standard. The township did.
1. Website Currency and Maintenance: F
The official township website at northfrontenac.com runs on the iCreate content management system, supplied by eSolutions Group (now operating as GHD Digital after a 2022 rebrand). The HTTP headers retrieved on April 10, 2026 confirm the backend runs on ASP.NET 4.0, a Microsoft framework released in 2010. The vendor itself has notified council that the platform reaches end-of-life in 2026, a fact recorded in the August 28, 2025 staff report from Treasurer Kelly Watkins. The platform is a decade-and-a-half old at the framework layer, and the vendor says it is done.
The website-as-primary-vehicle claim did not go unchallenged in the room. Donald Morton, the founder of North Frontenac News Media, replied to the mayor on the record at the 2:47:15 mark of the same recording. “On that note, Gerry, I’ve noticed the Facebook page has a lot of posts and content that the website does not,” Morton said. “So if it was the primary vehicle, one would assume either Facebook is a direct clone of all the content on there, or the website also has a section on it that shows all of the Facebook posts as well, which is completely possible.” The challenge was made to Lichty, by name, in the same exchange that produced the mayor’s primary-vehicle declaration. It was not delivered weeks later by an outlet writing at distance. It was delivered in real time, on the recording, by a journalist on the call.
That gap might be tolerable for a small municipality if the news section were current. It is not. As of April 10, 2026, the most recent news item on the township website was dated March 17, 2026: a notice headlined “Calling All Tree Planting Projects.” That is a 24-day gap. No April content existed on the site on the day the mayor described it as the primary vehicle.
Grade: F. A primary communications channel that has not posted in 24 days is not functioning as one.
2. Website Transition Management: D
On August 28, 2025, council passed Resolution 287-25. The motion approved Sandbox Software Solutions of Guelph, Ontario as the new web vendor following a competitive county-led RFP that drew 32 proposals. The approved cost was $22,288.28 for one-time implementation plus $5,700 for the first year of hosting, totalling $28,500 drawn from the Electronics/Software Sustainability Reserve Fund. The staff report indicated a planned launch window of late 2025 or early 2026. As of April 10, 2026, more than seven months after approval, the old iCreate site was still live and the Sandbox replacement had not launched.
On April 10, 2026, NFNM sent a five-question right-of-reply request to the township. Question 3 asked the clerk for the expected launch date for the Sandbox site. Clerk and Planning Manager Tara Mieske responded on April 15 with a substantive reply on four of the five questions. On the launch-date question she did not answer. The reply contained no reference to Sandbox, no timeline, and no acknowledgement of the question.
Grade: D. The procurement was clean. The execution and the disclosure are not.
3. Analytics and Measurement: C
The page source of northfrontenac.com retrieved on April 10, 2026 contains a Google Universal Analytics tag, UA-106736430-1. Google sunset Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, after which UA tags ceased processing data. The tag has remained in the production page source for approximately three years past its functional life. In her April 15 right-of-reply response, Clerk Mieske stated the township is current on Google Analytics 4 and “does have visibility into the analytics.” On the strength of that direct statement from the clerk, the township is not blind. It is collecting data. The dead UA tag is housekeeping debt, not a measurement blackout.
What the township has not done is publish any traffic figures. There is no public reporting of monthly pageviews, unique visitors, or session metrics that would let a resident, or a journalist, test the mayor’s “primary vehicle” claim against the data the township admits it holds.
Grade: C. Measurement exists. Disclosure does not.
4. Accessibility, WCAG and AODA: D
Ontario municipalities were required to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA under AODA’s Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation by January 1, 2021. In her April 15 reply, Clerk Mieske wrote: “The Township website is WCAG AA compliant. However; a statement is not published on the Township Website.” NFNM has not run an independent WCAG conformance scan; the compliance claim quoted is the township’s own assertion in writing. The township’s accessibility page lists a Multi-Year Accessibility Plan 2023-2027 and an Annual Status Report 2024 under the coordination of Director of Emergency Services and Fire Chief Adam Robinson. Neither document is a WCAG conformance statement.
Grade: D. The statutory deadline is five years past. The township claims compliance but declines to publish proof.
5. Policy Adherence to By-law #42-16: F
The mayor’s “primary vehicle” statement on April 10 was not freelancing. By-law #42-16, the Township Communications Plan adopted May 20, 2016, says the same thing in writing. Appendix A of By-law #42-16 is a matrix that lists, for each category of municipal communication, an ordered list of media. For council agendas, council minutes, the budget, and Land Use Planning, the by-law lists the Web Site first and “Share Link Via Social Media Accounts” second. The mayor was right about the policy.
Based on the website news pull and Facebook search results retrieved on April 10, 2026, the public meeting notice for the April 10 Community Improvement Plan amendment appeared on the township’s Facebook page; the same notice did not appear on the website. A CIP amendment is a land-use planning notice. By-law #42-16 specifies website-first posting for that exact category. The township’s primary-channel policy and the township’s primary-channel practice were running in opposite directions on the same day, on the same item.
Grade: F. The mayor cited the policy. The township broke it.
6. Social Media Governance: D
At the same April 10 meeting, council passed a resolution approving the township’s current social media footprint: Facebook pages for the Township of North Frontenac, the Astronomy Park, the Parklands, and the Fire Department; an Instagram account for Visit North Frontenac; and the discontinuation of the township’s X account. The resolution also directs the CAO to “review and update the social media standard operating policy.”
The Facebook adoption did not pass without challenge from the floor. During the same public forum that produced Lichty’s “primary vehicle” quote, Donald Morton, the founder of North Frontenac News Media, told council on the record at the 2:45:22 mark that “Meta banned Canadian news from Facebook in 2023” and that “research shows engagement with unreliable sources on the platform tripled as a result.” Morton’s closing line was direct: “I believe council should be uncomfortable using Facebook as a primary channel to reach residents when verified journalism about this council is blocked from it.” Council heard the warning, on the record, in the same session. Council adopted the Facebook resolution anyway.
During discussion, Deputy Mayor Roy Huetl raised a question on the record. The transcript, timestamp 1:57:18, captures it: “Considering we’re going over all the social media, do we have a policy for AI use in North Frontenac for AI at this time?” A staff member, identified by NFNM as CAO Corey Klatt, responded that “the county’s looking into it” and that staff would “tag team into that” once the county returned information. Huetl’s reply: “Yeah, okay. Because more municipalities are creating policies and it’s something we need.” The deputy mayor said, on the record, that the township needs an AI policy, and the CAO deferred to a county process with no stated timeline. As of this writing, no AI policy or updated Social Media SOP has been brought back to council.
Grade: D. A governance gap was named on the record by an elected official, and a separate warning about the platform itself was named on the record by a journalist on the call. The response was a deferral on one and a vote-anyway on the other.
7. Press Access: D
On April 17, 2026, the official Township of North Frontenac Facebook page (facebook.com/northfrontenactownship) blocked Donald Morton, the founder of NFNM, and the NFNM account from the page. On April 18, 2026, NFNM sent a formal cease-and-desist demand letter to the township citing Charter section 2(b) freedom of the press, with a response deadline of May 3, 2026. The block was lifted in the week before the deadline. The township did not provide a substantive written response beyond the unblocking itself.
Two facts remain independent of the unblocking. The block occurred after a journalist documented the township’s posting practices, and the township’s own by-law defines Facebook as a secondary, link-sharing channel. NFNM is reporting the full timeline of the block, the demand letter, and the unblocking as a separate piece in this series.
Grade: D. The block was lifted before the demand-letter deadline expired, but the underlying restriction occurred and the township’s response was reactive, not policy-led.
8. Parklands Website Governance: F
This is the section that matters most in dollars. North Frontenac operates a second public-facing website at northfrontenacparklands.com. It is the public face of the Crown Land Stewardship Program. It carries the township crest, the township’s 1-800 number, and a township staff email address. The footer of every page reads: “Copyright 2026 Township of North Frontenac. Website Built, Maintained, and Hosted by OnRes.”
OnRes Systems Inc. is a hotel reservation software company headquartered at 506-145 West Keith Road, North Vancouver, British Columbia. The company was founded in 2003 and is led by President and CEO Steve Behrisch. Public corporate sources list the company at three to ten employees. Its standard clients are hotels, motels, B&Bs, and vacation rental operators. The DNS A record for northfrontenacparklands.com resolves to 162.244.239.223, a server identified as server.onressystems.com and physically located in Surrey, British Columbia.
A search of all council minutes and agendas on the NFNM truth drive from 2020 through 2026 produced no record of a resolution, staff report, RFP, or procurement authorization for the engagement of OnRes Systems. No record was found in council documents available to NFNM. That is a documented gap. It is not, on its own, proof that no procurement happened.
What the council record does contain is the financial trail. According to the Township of North Frontenac Statement of Revenue and Expenditures for fiscal 2024, attached to the February 21, 2025 council agenda at pages 90 to 92, two account lines explicitly name OnRes. Account 01-620-0-40005, “CLSP-OnRes MNR Permits Pd Onli,” shows $297,116.94 in permit revenue processed through the OnRes platform in 2024. Account 01-620-0-40006, “CLSP-OnRes Fees Collection,” shows $39,000.19 in fees collected by OnRes against a budgeted $20,000. Based on the township’s own 2024 financial statements, the budget overrun on the OnRes fee line was 95%.
The 2024 Crown Land Stewardship Program Annual Report, presented to council on February 21, 2025 by Manager of Community Development Brooke Ross, records a program net surplus of $19,766. Based on the township’s own 2024 financial statements, the OnRes fee collection of approximately $39,000 in 2024 was greater than the program’s net surplus of approximately $19,766, by approximately $19,000, a comparison drawn across the OnRes fee line and the program’s reported net surplus on the same fiscal-year statement. The privacy policy published on northfrontenacparklands.com does not name OnRes, does not disclose that personal and financial data is transmitted to and stored on a server in British Columbia, and contains no reference to PIPEDA or MFIPPA. By-law 2024-23, signed March 15, 2024 by Mayor Gerry Lichty and Clerk Tara Mieske, authorizes the camping operations of the parklands program. Section 5.2 specifies that refunds “will be administered according to the rules and regulations set out on the North Frontenac Parklands website.” The by-law thereby embeds the OnRes-hosted site into township law without ever naming OnRes.
Grade: F. Based on the township’s own 2024 financial statements, an out-of-province vendor’s fee collection on this program in 2024 was greater than the program’s reported net surplus, on a website embedded in township by-law, with a privacy policy that does not disclose the arrangement, and the council record available to NFNM contains no procurement authorization.
9. Transparency and FOI Posture: C
NFNM sent its right-of-reply request on April 10, 2026. Clerk Mieske responded on April 15, within five calendar days. She answered three of the five questions substantively (GA4 status, WCAG status, the by-law text), attached the relevant Treasurer reports for the cost question with a redirect to the formal FOI process for further detail, and left one question (the Sandbox launch date) unanswered. The five-day window is reasonable. The substantive answers on three of five questions are reasonable. The FOI redirect for cost detail is contestable but defensible.
What is not defensible is the silent treatment of Question 3. A direct question about the launch date of an approved municipal IT project, asked of the clerk who is also the Planning Manager, on a project where the vendor has been selected and the funds drawn, did not produce even an acknowledgement.
Grade: C. The reply was timely and partly substantive. The non-answer on the launch date sits at the bottom of the grade.
Composite Grade: D
Three F grades, four D grades, two C grades, no B and no A. Two of the three F grades fall on the items the mayor himself elevated on April 10: the website’s currency, and the policy that defines the website as primary. The third F sits on a parklands arrangement where a BC vendor’s fee collection in 2024 was greater than the program’s own net surplus, with no procurement record visible in the council documents available to NFNM. A composite grade of D is the floor a reasonable rubric will allow. It is not failure across the board. It is failure on the specific items the township has placed at the centre of its own communications doctrine, paired with weakness on the items adjacent to it.
The website is not what the mayor said it was on April 10. The by-law is. And those are not the same thing.
Coda
A note on this article’s standing. The block referenced in Section 7 was lifted in the week before the May 3, 2026 deadline, and the township did not provide a substantive written response beyond the unblocking itself. The full timeline of the block, the demand letter, and the unblocking is covered in a separate piece in this series. The events described in section 8 are continuing as this article is drafted. NFNM has not asked the township to identify the OnRes procurement authorization or to explain the 2024 fee overrun. Those questions are next.
NFNM has queued formal records and information requests covering the eSolutions Group / GHD Digital website contract and annual fees from 2017 to 2025, the OnRes Systems contract and procurement authorization for the parklands website and reservation system, the Frontenac County joint RFP issued June 9, 2025, the most recent thirty to sixty days of GA4 traffic data for northfrontenac.com, the 2024 Annual Accessibility Status Report, and a follow-up request to the Clerk for the expected launch date of the Sandbox replacement website. Those findings will be published as follow-up reporting.
Everything in this article comes from the township’s own records: its by-law, its council minutes, its staff reports, its financial statements, its clerk’s reply, and a video recording of the April 10 council meeting that the township itself published to YouTube. The township is graded against the township.
