OTTAWA— Some area farmers believe that the upcoming Ottawa Rural Summit will only encourage rural residents to seek a bid to pull out of the amalgamated city.

In fact, a group of concerned citizens calling themselves the Rural Council of Ottawa-Carleton, are already making plans to ask the Ontario government to create a new region around urban Ottawa called Carleton County.

Others feel the summit will be just be a lot of sizzle and no steak. "I certainly hope it’s more than a public relations event for the mayor," says dairy farmer Richard Fraser.

The rural summit is a $150,000 two-day conference scheduled for late October or November. The summit will give rural residents and city councilors the chance to sit down together and brainstorm solutions to end the ongoing rural-urban conflict at city hall.

This past spring, more than 300 rural Ottawa residents were surveyed to outline their top issues concerning the recent city amalgamation in 2001. They are: communication and consultation from city staff, lack of rural representation on the council table, service issues which include road and facility maintenance, policies concerning by-laws and property rights and finally, agriculture: rural citizens are concerned about obstacles to severances and dealing with nuisance wildlife.

Moira Winch, the Rural Summit Project Manager, says she’s confident the conference will benefit local farmers. The summit will divide into sub-committees for each of the five areas of concern. "Ninety per cent of those sitting on the agriculture committee are farmers," she says. "They know the best way to deal with these situations and will be bringing their ideas forward."

But Richard Fraser says in order for the rural summit to achieve anything the city’s entire system of governance has to change.

"The problem right now is there are 15 members of council who really don’t have much understanding of rural issues," he says. "Some of the city people couldn’t care less about rural issues and that needs to change." The city of Ottawa has a 22-member council.

Fraser says his main concern is to get the city’s advisory committee for agriculture and rural affairs back in action. It was sliced out at the last election due to budget cuts.