A Town Forum Is Shuttered

By: Devan Mighton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Lakeshore News Reporter

Possibly the most popular and widely-used public forum for the ongoings of the Town of LaSalle has seemingly gone the way of the dinosaurs – caput, extinct, shuttered, archived.

The LaSalle Community Facebook page is no more, archived by its founder and moderator after almost seven years of news, happenings, celebrations, grievances and cultural trends have graced its feed.

Boasting 22,000 members, it served as a place where a good number of LaSalle community members came to discuss and share the happenings of their day and their town. All that remains is the shadowy monument of the archived page, where members can access, but no longer comment or share their thoughts.

Started just before the COVID-19 pandemic by LaSalle resident Alok Tomar, when soon the entire world had no other choice but to either sit on their hands or pound a keyboard, the LaSalle Community page quickly caught fire and became an active part of LaSalle society.

Hot topics took shape: Should the Strawberry Festival move? Should Gil Maure Park be renamed? Should the town be in fear of a marauding band of Gr. 1 students, lovingly nicknamed the LaSalle Sixers? What of the ice skating trail at LaSalle Landing? Tax levies? Towards the end, a place to voice patriotism under the threat of annexation from a foreign power. LaSallians had a place to vent, share, obviously complain, but also praise each other. A community, within a community. A town forum.

“It is not that there was any one thing or another that prompted my decision [to archive the group],” explained Tomar in a Facebook post. “I’ve just been re-evaluating the benefits of social media against the clear evidence of the costs (time, reputation, mental health) and it seemed like the right decision to shut it down. The world is a very uncertain place at the moment and I simply do not want to manage a group through another global crisis like I did through COVID. The toll is simply too great.”

Tomar did an admirable job keeping the page from spiralling into a cesspool of negativity and personal attacks and he should be commended for the civility he instilled in the group despite the odd snide remark about censorship or shade thrown his way by detractors. He did the community a service, an often thankless service, that he should be commended for.

Among his reasons for shuttering the page included the negative effects of social media.

“I’m acutely aware of the damage social media has done to the brains of children and teens, and it is time that I begin modelling the right behaviour for my children,” said Tomar. “That is why I made the decision to shut down the group.”

In the wake of the group closing down, alternative Facebook options have begun to surface, such as LaSalle Ontario Community, already boasting over 4,000 members, as well as LaSalle Neighbourhood, nearly as large.

To Tomar’s credit, as a moderator, he always stuck to his guns – from the beginning to the end.

“I know many are upset that I did not hand [LaSalle Community] over to someone else, but since the start I have run the group unapologetically my way,” he stated. “It remains my way now that I’m shutting down. I’m comfortable knowing the decision is the right one for me.”