When he was elected to old Peel council in 1985, Carl Hall said in an interview that his family has always been involved with public service, and he wanted to keep up that tradition.
His father, Harold, was on the local three-man school board and then the Peel township board. Then he became secretary-treasurer of that board, and was later elected to the Wellington County school board.
His uncle, Elwood, was reeve in Peel for a number of years.
“I grew up with politics then,” he said.
Fast forward 25 years, and Hall has not only equalled his relatives’ contributions, but likely surpassed them.
He was the last reeve of old Peel township, and he was the first mayor of Mapleton. He served two three-year terms as a Peel councillor, one three-year term as deputy-reeve, and one three-year term and then a single-year term as reeve of the old township.
Following amalgamation, he served a two year, and a three-year term as the first mayor of Mapleton Township. Then, he and county councillor John Green switched positions, with Green becoming mayor, and Hall taking on the county council role for ward 2 in the final seven years of his career.
Hall said in an interview last week that one of the major highlights of his career was the amalgamation that created Mapleton Township. Some might forget that Drayton and Peel first formed the new jurisdiction, with Maryborough resisting, and then joining a year later when the rest of the county amalgamated in 1999.
Hall said he was for amalgamation because he believed a township like Peel simply could not survive the coming costs with such a small tax base.
“I was pleased to get there,” he said of all the work involved.
And was amalgamation necessary?
“Absolutely,” he said, although he admitted it took “three or four years” of difficult budget work to get the transformation running smoothly.
He noted wryly “We inherited a bridge that nobody knew about in Maryborough” that had a lien on it.
There were staffing issues, too, but Hall said now the township has excellent staff.
His 2002 term as county warden as well as mayor so soon after the amalgamation was stressful, too, he said.
“It was a challenging year, because no matter what you did, you were at the beck and call of the county and the municipality.”
He added, “I don’t know how some have taken two years” as warden.
During his time at the county, Hall was chairman of the roads committee for five or six years, and he said highlights there were the rebuilding of the David Street bridge in Elora and the new bridge at Glen Alan, which is the most costly bridge ever done by the county.
Of that one, he noted, “People went to work in the morning, and came home to the road shut off.”
Hall said the old bridge had been on the books for years, and finally county engineers said it could wait no longer. He noted, too, that if the county had kept the same path as the old bridge, the final cost would have been $1-million more.
Hall said he pushed for the library in Drayton, but wishes now he could slow down the county’s push for new libraries everywhere. He said he’d like to see that building “spread out a little bit.”
As well, he noted the township got a new administrative centre and garage in Mapleton, and he said paving starts this year and finishes next year, making Glen Alan the last hamlet with a main street county road to be done in Wellington County.
Hall said his only disappointment was being unable to hold taxes down. He said he would “like to give them [taxpayers] a break.
He thanked all the staff he dealt with over the years for their efforts.
Hall said that in the 25 years he has represented them, he was most pleased with the people who kept electing him because they were “excellent” to work with.
“They give you a chance to answer” questions, he said, noting that only once or twice in all his years did someone hang up on him or use profane language.
“They’re down to earth people,” he said of Mapleton residents. “They put suggestions forward and ask common sense questions.”
He concluded, “I wish the next people who take over my post the very best and I hope they find the residents are just as easy to deal with.”
