Tom Simmonds tells me NOTL is full of snowflakes. The warm kind.

“There’s a lot of woke babies in this town who came from the big city thinking life was going to be all peace and quiet,” he says. “The idiots who complain about farmers using bird bangers and windmills to protect their crops and having burnoffs … It never stops.”

He wrote after last week’s post about Old Town residents irked by a construction fence around several doomed buildings at the new Royal George complex site. Yes, a fence is needed to contain the coming mayhem. No, it doesn’t need to be covered with promotion and branding for Shaw, its builder, architects and consultants. A mural of the iconic streetscape would have been sweet. Heritage photos. Even a pic of the new faux theatre façade.

Woke babies abound elsewhere, adds Tom. Like those who live behind the new Terminal 4 Clayfield Hotel and its 42 vacation rentals, complaining about the urban wall they now face.

“I too feel sorry for the people who live/bought on Perez, but that’s the chance you take when you buy across the street from an open lot. We back onto a vineyard/orchard but who’s to say how long it’ll stay that way. That’s the chance we took and there’s little one can do to prevent progress, if that’s what you want to call it.”

Well, progress is about to hit Queen Street. And so far, we ain’t ready for it.

Kathy Weiss, CEO of both NOTL Tourism and the Chamber of Commerce, says so far local businesses have been left in the dark when it comes to the massive Shaw construction project about to begin. No project timetable. No traffic plan.

“I think we should bring everybody together — all those affected businesses,” she says, “to discuss these challenges and make sure there’s the right people in the room who can provide answers and make an impact.”

The Shaw build is expected to take three years to erect a 55,000-square-foot complex, three times the mass of the Court House down the street, with a length extending half a block along Victoria, and towering the equivalent of six stories about it. This is a huge undertaking. Thinking it can be done without shutting down roads and sidewalks or threatening the existence of some stores is naïve.

And how will heavy construction be handled during the next three summers when Queen is shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists, cars are everywhere and festival season arrives? Is there a strategy?

The business community has none. I asked the builder, Govan Brown. No reply. I asked the Shaw’s czar, Tim Jennings. No answer. But what about the Town of NOTL? Surely our guys didn’t greenlight a $80 million monolith, the biggest erection in downtown NOTL history, without asking how it’ll be done — did they?

They did.

I asked this:

“Could you please tell me if the Town has received a construction plan from the Shaw or Govan Brown stating the various stages of demolition and construction, the time allotted for each and the approximate dates each will be commenced?

“Also, is there a traffic plan? What route will construction vehicles take to the site? Where will equipment be parked when not in use? Will Victoria Street be closed and, if so, for what duration? Alternatively, will there be a flag person on duty, especially during the summer and on weekends, if that street is to be restricted, or rendered one-way.”

“I have asked the same questions,” Coun. Gary Burroughs tells me. “But I haven’t heard back anything yet.”

Ditto his colleague Coun. Maria Mavridis. “As of today, I have not received any of the information above as a councillor.”

How about our lordly mayor? I asked him, too.

Gary Zalepa said, “Many details will be included in the development agreement, conditional site plan and site plan agreement as they are finalized.”

Staffer Aimee Alderman has been tasked with digging up more details and getting them to us. Soon. Maybe. But the project moves forward.

We’re about to rip the downtown apart. Poor snowflakes.

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