All day. All night. A shipping-container-sized blue metal box throbs in the corner of the Parliament Oak hotel site. It hugs the back fence, a few metres from houses across the street.

“This is driving me crazy,” says a neighbour (who asks to be anon). “I think these are pumps, draining that giant hole. But they never stop.”

He even went and measured the sound, sending me the results. They looked brutal.

So why not complain to the town, I asked?

He shrugged. “Because they don’t care.”

Hmm. Wrong answer. But one I hear all the time. Like from the Old Town people who are still waiting for local politicians to release a report on where the Shaw dump trucks they’ll have to live with for the next three years will go. Or the Virgil pickleball outcasts after officials closed the courts this year — without a word.

The point is that the most important, immediate, in-your-face, consequential and meaningful daily level of government is the one closest to you. The men and women with the power to destroy your property value, disrupt your business, impact your peace or just tick you off.

This brings us to the issue of governance. Lately everybody’s had their knickers in a knot because the province wants fewer politicians so big decisions go faster. If it comes to pass, NOTL loses. In fact, our own wee council is helping ensure that’s the case.

Here’s the story.

The Doug Ford government wanted to swallow us into the region through amalgamation, and the premier’s guy, chair Bob Gale, was supposed to do that. But he got called out as owning a book Adolf Hitler wrote and signed.

Auf Wiedersehen, Bob.

Now, says Queen’s Park, the plan is to get rid of elected regional councillors (including ours) and have Niagara managed by local mayors plus a more powerful non-elected chair.

Mayors wouldn’t be equal, however. Votes would be weighted. So, St. Catharines’ guy would have eight more times influence than ours. The Falls mayor’s vote would count for six of NOTL’s.

And faced with this threat to democratic throttling, what did our council do?

It chose to gut itself. Become 25 per cent smaller. Dump two of the eight seats at the table — a move the province has since rejected.

Deputy lord mayor Erwin Wiens argued they had no choice.

“My end goal is to keep the town as its own municipality,” he tells me. “We needed to show the premier that we were able to make hard decisions …  After careful consideration and dialogue, I put forward the motion to reduce the size of council. I know that the motion helped Minister (Rob) Flack make his decision not to amalgamate the region at this time.”

But there’s tension here. Some folks don’t understand how we keep democracy alive by making it harder for citizens to be heard or by giving “super” powers to an appointed regional czar with the ability to override bylaws, zoning or heritage restrictions.

Erasing our elected regional rep “does nothing to improve the operations of municipal government — it just reduces the access of our residents to our local government,” veteran Coun. Gary Burroughs says.

Nor was the councillor-chopping about reducing overhead. “The cost savings is $40,000, and with a multi-million dollar town budget, it makes no sense — it is strictly about access.”

Burroughs sees more anti-democratic sentiment swirling, like with the town’s recent gag order preventing officials from speaking with nasty opinion writers (gulp) and refusing to rent out the community centre for an all-candidates meeting.

“Recently, we were told that the residents are very angry and we need to restrict too much access,” he adds. “My question to staff at the time was … why do you think the residents are angry? Maybe an answer to that question would go a long way to resolving our current state. Our residents are too intelligent and too caring to let our town be destroyed.”

Meanwhile, Coun. Andrew Niven is also unconvinced we’re on the right path.

“Niagara-on-the-Lake is unique, with over two million annual visitors, a strong agricultural economy, and a distinct heritage and tourism focus, amongst other strong drivers. Because of that, I believe we need to be cautious about applying a one-size-fits-all approach and ensure any changes reflect the specific needs of our community.”

Well, here we are. Lord Mayor Zalepa formally endorsed the ill-fated move to chop council, dump our elected rep to the region, accept an unelected super-chair and submit to a voting scheme that would mute our voice. Your voice.

“This would start the demise of all small communities, especially ours,” says Burroughs. “The only use for our town will be a tourist destination for the greater good? He never received approval from council for such an important issue. Maybe he doesn’t need it anymore!”

This may not end well.

Garth Turner is a NOTL resident, journalist, author, wealth manager and former federal MP and minister. garth@garth.ca