Thanks for all the beauty
The Pelham Beautification Committee has enjoyed a busy four years. As an advisory committee to Council, we worked with Town staff on a number of beautification initiatives.
This committee’s well-known ‘thank you’ initiative was introduced early in the Committee’s term with the intention to inspire Town businesses, organizations and residents to beautify their homes, places of work and the community at large. We hoped our recognition would help inspire others to step up their beautification efforts, as well as serve to showcase Pelham as a beautiful place to visit, live, work and play.
A number of recipients have been recognized for their attractive front yard gardens, restoring historical buildings, cleaning up parks, trails and ponds as well as unique farming initiatives. Each endeavour goes a long way to making Pelham a beautiful and unique place to live. It’s evident the people of our town genuinely care about their neighbourhoods and their community.
As our last act as a Committee, if you are a resident, business or organization in Pelham who does their part to beautify our town, please accept our heartfelt thanks for your efforts.
It’s been an honour and privilege to serve with the other dedicated members of the Beautification Committee including; Cathy Robins, Frances Kuypers, Lois LaCroix, and Vilma Moretti.
Jen Pilzecker, Chair Cynthia Roberts, Vice Chair Pelham Beautification Committee
“Ridiculously excessive, unnecessary, and disturbing to the neighbours”
As I sit here illuminated by the overpowering glow of light emanating from my neighbour’s backyard, I’d like to thank you for including the Town Council report by John Chick in this week’s issue of the Voice.
I’ve been trying to find a way to resolve this problem my neighbour has created through a municipal process, as the neighbour himself refuses to listen to my concerns and quite frankly seems to be intentionally perpetuating the situation knowing it is a problem for me.
For the past several months I have been communicating with Bylaw enforcement, Planning, and Town councillors in an effort to have this nuisance dealt with (the lights, not the neighbour). While staff have been very responsive and helpful, it’s evident that there is nothing currently available to them to enforce. Seeing the CAO’s comments regarding the yet-to-be-approved bylaw, it seems evident that it’s quite a ways out from being finalized and may have a limited scope and effect.
A number of Ontario municipalities have bylaws in place to address nuisance lighting from commercial and residential installations, and it makes sense to do so, as the bylaw should resolve the impact on the party being negatively affected, regardless of the source. I recognize it takes some time to create and process a bylaw, but it has been sitting in draft form for several years now and it looks like there’s no rush to proceed. I think a good push from the public is in order here to get something done.
I’d like you to consider a “Bright Lights, Small Town Part 2” article that would provide a little more detail to the problem and encourage people to contact their representatives and the newspaper with their thoughts and input on similar matters, and what the bylaw should address.
I’m sure I’m not the only isolated case in Pelham, and in my opinion these types of problems are only going to get worse when you look at the vast amount of cheap LED illumination products available.
I’ve attached a few pictures for you, a view from my backyard of the lights and how much light is projected onto the back of my house. The pictures were taken hours after sunset. These lights are on from dusk until late evening every night. You’d think it was obvious that if you stepped out onto your rear deck several hours after sunset and it was as bright as day that you might clue into the fact that your installation of 60-plus lightbulbs strung across your yard is ridiculously excessive, unnecessary, and disturbing to the neighbors. Unfortunately some don’t have a clue or have no regard for others, thus the need for a bylaw.
Dan Sebert Fenwick
Pelham gets $5.4 million federal grant
A new library. Wow, the waste of my tax dollars never ends.
Terry Mikolasek Fonthill
