Enough is Enough

Bryan Paterson is running for a fourth term as Mayor of Kingston. And despite his recent, repugnantly enthusiastic audition for Pierre Poilievre, along with his longstanding and apparently reflexive distaste for the homeless and the mentally ill, his troubling Evangelical history, his secretiveness and dishonesty, his morally limited build-it-and-they-will-come trickle-down approach to both economics and municipal leadership, there is every chance this deeply Conservative, secretive man will be re-elected.

Paterson in the last couple of weeks reneged on his promise to release a list of the donors to his campaign (he is obliged to provide their names in the coming months anyway). He is frightened, of course, of what we would read into those names, what they would say about him and his priorities for this city. You can tell a lot about a person by looking at who pays their bills, and he knows that. Far better to hide the names until after the votes are counted. That backtracking alone should be enough to drive away his support.

But people vote most often to protect their own interests, their own status, their own income, their own future. These are anxious times and the prospect of significant change is always a frightening one. We are risk averse. It’s why we stay home, wring our hands, worry about our kids, draw the curtains when the sun goes down. Better the devil we know, etc etc etc. Incumbents play on that fear. It’s why the mayor has stood in the park lately, promising blandly to expand playgrounds and fill potholes. He wants us to believe that he’ll literally smooth the road ahead. These are cheap, tired, numbingly lazy moves.

I do think it’s possible in this year’s election to look after not just yourself, but also your neighbours, your city, the helpless, and the disenfranchised citizens Paterson would prefer to banish from our streets. Conny Glenn and Vanessa Mensah both offer a meaningful upgrade, and coherent, transparent visions for Kingston.

Vote the man out, I say. The sky will not fall, it will brighten. And unless you are a builder of towers, a relentless hoarder of resources, you’ll likely sleep better too. Vote to put a roof over everyone’s head. Vote to share the wealth rather than to concentrate it. Vote not to exclude or judge anyone for the way they live. Vote for tolerance, and for a compassionate, humane approach to our challenges. Vote for all of our interests, in other words, not just those of the monied, privileged, controlling few that Bryan Paterson protects by not naming them.

NEW PRICES

NEW LISTING - 3007 PRINCESS ST - $449,000

Just west of the Cataraqui Town Centre is a sweet, renovated bungalow on a deep lot priced more than $150,000 below the city’s average sale price.

OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY OCTOBER 18 - 2-4 PM

AMHERST ISLAND ACREAGE - $375,000

That price is new today. We were at $450,000, which felt eminently reasonable. So this development is a surprise to me (and a rare opportunity for you).

I first walked these 98 acres with the seller back in the fall of 2025 and haven’t stopped thinking about them since. I clambered down to the shoreline other side of the road, dug shards of pottery from the cliff, stared south (a little sadly) towards America. Afterwards I walked to the pond near the back of the land and marvelled at the variety of landscapes I’d moved through. There was something surreal about the experience, as if I was as likely to run into cheetah or hyena as I was tweed-clad birder. I could breathe better, and think more clearly. I wanted to both laugh and cry, sleep and run.

This is earlier in the year:

NEW LISTING - 523 BAGOT ST

Just north of Raglan Road, on the east side. If you live in the Inner Harbour you probably recognize the house. A metal roof, a pretty little scuffed-up porch, laneway parking like they might drop off coal at any minute. And that price!

OPEN HOUSE SATURDAY OCTOBER 17 - 2-4 PM

THE AI QUESTION

It’s hard to imagine, sometimes, how a vacant property might look with furniture in it. And I’ve mostly resisted asking AI for assistance. But today, fortified by a game, if flagging, September sun, it occurred to me that if I’m going to use Chatgpt to help diagnose a wonky knee, as well as offer insight into my many persistent neuroses, it only makes sense to have it also make a stab at dressing up the occasional condominium.

I tried it with two different services here. (This is for Unit 61 at Place D’Armes in downtown Kingston.)

The images I paid for - those immediately beside the original shots - are distinctly ordinary. The furnishings seem to float rather than sit firmly on the carpets, as if gravity is optional. The images are suggestive, I suppose, but also distinctly unreal. And uninspiring. They distance me from the reality. So I won’t be doing that again.

The Chatgpt efforts, though, are more convincing, at least to my eye, even with the slightly honeyed and distinctly nostalgic glow. I’d live there, and surely that’s the idea, the goal.

The trouble is, real estate rules dictate that AI-assisted images must avoid “structural drift”. Windows can’t move or change shape, ceilings can’t be lifted or lowered. What’s shown must reflect what would be seen during a viewing. And it’s hard to argue with that position. But AI isn’t supposed to disappear so much as a picture hook, either, or a nicked baseboard, which strikes me as a bit much. Real estate listings fudge the truth constantly (there I said it). The driving time from downtown, for instance, is shortened far more often than it’s truthfully stated. Stains are hidden under carpets. Art is hung over wounds on the wall. Leaking skylights are dried and touched up the night before an open house. So if the carpet is a shade lighter in the flesh than it appears in an AI conception, I think I’m okay with that. We know it’s not real. The unvarnished, untouched image is right there for comparison. The AI image is merely food for thought, nothing more. It just saves you the twenty minutes on Pinterest as you dream up possible futures for the space.

My guess is that the Chatgpt images I received here would be deemed to have strayed too much, even if they better offer a truer sense of potential. That built-in bookcase has been replaced, after all, and the railings re-stained, perhaps. So it’s complicated. My thinking is this:

1) The truth always lies somewhere outside the frame.

2) It would be a serious mistake to assume it (the truth) is contained in the wide-angle colour-balanced images shot on-site for the listing, any more than it is in the AI-assisted version.

3) Find a realtor you trust. Get a good inspector. Believe your own eyes.

NEW LISTING - 187 COLLEGE ST

Tucked into the north-east corner of the College Street circle, this grand four-bedroom home is making its first appearance on the market in more than a half-century.

NEW LISTING - 306 GLENGARRY ROAD

I live downtown and don’t see that changing. But Strathcona Park is a fine nearby alternative, with its up-and-down topography, as if rivers raged through steep gorges at some distant moment, long before its big trees took root, and the plentiful parks were imagined. 306 Glengarry is a fine brick home on a deep treed lot connecting directly to the park. I’d sneak in a gate, or improve my hurdling.

1153 HAROLD BURKE ROAD

263 Acres just north of Mountain Grove. Forest and meadow, fields and hills. Great lengths of Sharbot Creek. Deer and bears and pike and eagle. Butterfly and stoat. A blue-roofed farmhouse end of a gravel road. A Rogers tower over yonder hill and providing a steady income.

436 DIVISION ST

The sellers installed their son in this fine three-bedroom semi-detached home close to the downtown core, and spent almost $120,000 making the place right. Which means there really is nothing for you to do but collect a return on their investment.

2355 RAYMO RD - RE-LISTED AT A NEW PRICE

Fifty glorious off-grid acres of forest and granite, pond and excellent cabin (and bunkie) and solar power and jaw-dropping night skies.

625 KING ST W IN GANANOQUE

A Gananoque triplex of almost 4000 sf. Not to mention eight bedrooms and 2.5 storeys. A blend of the very new and the character-full Victorian. The young whippersnapper and the grizzled veteran.

1 PLACE D’ARMES #61

A spacious townhouse condominium in Frontenac Village with direct access to the pool via a lovely terrace with apple tree.

135 JAMES ST

It’s always reminded me of a farmhouse, some clapboard remnant of Kingston’s sparser past, but I’m dead wrong, apparently. Still a fascinating Inner Harbour property, full of possibility.

RECENTLY SOLD

MUSINGS