Tues July 15 - News + Editorial: What It Takes to Be Heard in Owen Sound

Plus: News updates from Grey Bruce OPP, 100 Women Who Care, Municipality of Arran-Elderslie, Meaford Hall, City of Owen Sound and more

👋 Welcome to The Owen Sound Current, your source for what’s happening in and around Owen Sound. Thank you to our Sustaining Supporters for funding contributor stories and keeping public notices and letters open to all! Upgrade to a full subscription to get the full picture with original reporting, events, curated stories, and full access to our local archives.

---

EDITORIAL

Yesterday, we shared a report on how the City of Owen Sound is handling a long-awaited meeting on downtown safety.

What was originally requested by the Police Services Board back in early May as a way to hear from business owners has morphed into a multi-stakeholder, goals-oriented… discussion? Forum? Meeting? It’s unclear.

Even after the business Town Hall hosted by the Chamber of Commerce last October, and following an $85,000 City-led community engagement survey, with all of its boards and committees and staff projects, the Corporation of the City of Owen Sound still doesn’t seem to grasp what Owen Sound businesses and residents are going through.

Nor has it shown a willingness or capacity to truly listen.

So today, we’re revisiting the powerful words of one downtown business owner, first published last August in The Owen Sound Current and read more than 27,000 times since. The letter, shared anonymously out of fear of reprisal, offers a stark and specific picture of daily life for those trying to operate in the city’s core.

Their words remain just as relevant, if not more so, almost a year later. And they serve as an important reminder of what’s at stake if the City’s process continues to drift away from listening and meaningful action in favour of marketing and PR.

We’re committed to continuing to share your perspectives and amplifying residents’ voices. Next up: your responses to the ‘Future Owen Sound: Vision 2050’ survey.

After spending $85,000 and countless staff hours on a consultant-led community survey last year, the City Manager’s Office ultimately chose not to release the survey responses to the public. Council, when informed, said nothing.

To access those results, The Owen Sound Current had to file a formal freedom of information request—a process that took over four months and cost $517.50 in fees paid to the City of Owen Sound.

We believe that when over 1,000 residents chose to take part in the survey, together submitting over 5,000 written responses to open-ended questions, they did so with the expectation that their input would be taken seriously. That those thoughtful responses would inform future planning. That their voices would be heard—not filtered, summarized, or quietly shelved.

Voices like these, who, when asked, “What is one significant missed opportunity that, if embraced, would positively impact the city?” as just one example, said:

“The harbour. All the stakeholders (the City of Owen Sound being only one) need to organize as a cooperative or agency, because the sum of their interests would be greater than, and would justify, the investments needed to develop the harbour. For instance the local trades would benefit if ships came here for winter repairs.”

and…

“Public bathrooms open to all in the downtown core.”

and…

“Nothing comes to mind aside from respecting the citizens in our community who are passionate enough to speak up continually despite non response from the city. Passionate people want to help. Listen, view it as an opportunity to recruit passionate volunteers. Foster conversation.”

and…

“Public transit. You can’t even go out to dinner or a hockey game without driving.”

Listening—really listening—isn’t easy. Feedback can be uncomfortable. It can sound like criticism, especially for those tasked with delivering the public services being discussed. But that’s part of the job; City Hall and Council roles are publicly funded, and accountability to residents isn’t optional.

Accountability doesn’t look like tuning out the people most affected by your decisions, either.

It’s understandable that City leadership may fear being shouted at, criticized, or held responsible for things they don’t feel they can influence. But that fear of difficult conversations does not justify shutting people out, and the frustration driving them didn’t come out of nowhere.

Over the past several years and Council terms, the City of Owen Sound has systematically shut down avenues for open dialogue. Business owners and residents are left to absorb the fallout of policy decisions that affect their day-to-day lives with no DIA office, no regular public meetings, and only the intimidating process of standing before Council or Committees, risking the Mayor or a Chair’s scorn and ridicule, to address the people they elected to represent them.

Residents can’t even write a letter and have it read by the City Clerk into the public record at Council meetings anymore.

And even as those doors have closed and the walls around City Hall have been raised, the policies from within have created a pressure cooker across the city. Downtown businesses were told at one point that they would provide public washrooms now, because the City has chosen not to. Facilities continue to deteriorate, infrastructure crumbles, and the town increasingly looks unkempt and unloved.

Residents are responsible for paying for their own garbage removal and water, costs that continue to climb even as property taxes increase. Under current City policy, property owners are even responsible for disposing of other people’s used needles found on their properties, or where their children play.

And when residents speak up? The only solution, we’re told, is: “Tell us which service you want cut, then.”

Owen Sound is already dying by a thousand cuts. Services are eroded slowly, quietly, through underfunding, delays, offloading responsibilities, or simply not listening, until the consequences become too big to ignore. Try relying on public transit or taxis for a week and tell us that’s not the case.

When people are not only ignored but also left to bear the increasingly costly consequences, frustration is not just inevitable—it is entirely justified.

Responding to that frustration with defensiveness or deflection only deepens the divide. What’s needed now is not another explanation of how “wrong” residents are about their own lived experiences, or that they just don’t understand how hard staff are working. It’s not another survey, consultation, or listening exercise where the results are quietly shelved.

What’s needed now is a willingness to validate residents’ experiences, to listen without judgment, and to recognize that the concerns being raised come from people who care enough to speak up.

That care should be met with respect, not resistance.

The people who take time to share their experiences deserve more than a summary report. Listening to what they have to say is not a task to be ticked off a list.

That applies as much to the upcoming downtown safety meeting as it did to the Vision 2050 survey. The people who show up and participate deserve to be heard and see their input reflected in meaningful action.

In that spirit, we’ve been working on organizing and formatting the Vision 2050 survey results (those 5,000 written responses) into an ebook for easier reading and searchability, so it can be part of this community’s archive in perpetuity, and used by those who appreciate its value to inform the change that needs to happen. That’s coming soon.

In the meantime, we invite you to share your experiences, ideas, and perspectives in letters to the editor. Email yours to owensoundcurrenteditor@gmail.com.

Public Notices

• Service Review Implementation Ad-Hoc Committee – Special Meeting Scheduled for July 16, 2025 - City of Owen Sound

• The City of Owen Sound has cancelled the Operations Committee meeting scheduled for Thursday, July 17th, 2025, at 5:30 p.m.

• Notice: Temporary July 18 Road Closure of Sykes St. E. for Freedom of the City Event - Municipality of Meaford

• Help Shape Georgian Bluffs’ 2026 Services with Your Feedback - Township of Georgian Bluffs

Local News

Keep reading for community events, our original reporting, and curated local news updates.

Today: Tragic news out of Proton Station after a drowning incident; a status update on the $850,000 roof replacement project at the Julie McArthur Rec Centre; 100 Women Who Care make their most substantial donation yet; and lots more.

Read on.

~ Miranda Miller, Editor

If you can’t see the info below, you’re missing out. (Nope, it doesn’t all appear on the website.) Upgrade your subscription for full access.