Pelee Island mayor defends council transparency

Pelee Island Mayor Cathy Miller is seen in this undated photo. (Cathy Miller/AM800 News)

The mayor of Pelee Island is feeling frustrated as residents accuse her and council of a lack of transparency regarding their meetings.

Cathy Miller is speaking out after taking to social media over the weekend stating she’s tired of people fear mongering and spreading misinformation.

Miller states that a handful of seasonal residents on the island have been “attacking” council and administration for “excluding” the public during their council meetings.

Council meets twice a month, one meeting in person, and one via Zoom. The public is welcome to attend both meetings, however, the meetings that are in person are not live-streamed due to a lack of available resources on the island.

Miller says one topic that council typically gets a lot of heated responses about surround short term rentals. The island allows short term rentals, however they currently have no regulations or by-laws surrounding them. She says when council speaks about it, the seasonal residents - who only spend about 30 nights a year on the island — attack council.

Miller says council has very briefly spoken about short term rentals.

“I think there’s a kind of manufactured outrage around the fact that council is attempting to discuss the licensing, or even what a licensing framework might look like for short term rentals. And it’s a small group of people, quite frankly, that don’t spend more than 30 nights a year on this island, that don’t even want this topic discussed.”

She added, council and administration want short term rentals, but with some limitations.

“There needs to be some conversation about what standards might be, or how do we make that a more viable option that everybody can promote. We’re not a community that’s trying to say ‘no STRs allowed here’. That’s not happening. And I think there’s some miscommunication, or there’s fear mongering around that, I don’t know what it is but it’s not accurate.”

According to Miller, last year there were seven complaints submitted to the Ontario Ombudsman office - which all revealed no wrongdoings from Pelee council.

She added that she would love for the island to have a new town hall, with council chambers, with cameras and microphones, internet that can handle broadcasting the meetings - but it’s simply not where they’re at.

When it comes to making the meetings available for live broadcast, she said there’s a lot of logistical challenges.

“We don’t have an IT person, we don’t even have a council chamber, we’re not setting up microphones, we’re not buying cameras, we’re not going to live cast council meetings for people that don’t live on this island, that find it inconvenient for people to come here. We can’t please everyone all of the time. It’s not practical, it’s not realistic.”

Approximately 230 people live on the island full time, with roughly 750 seasonal residents.

— Meagan Delaurier/AM800 News