After four years of deception, secrecy, more closed-door meetings than the previous four councils combined, and avoiding public scrutiny at all costs, Brian Saunderson and his Block minions have suddenly decided that they want to be “accessible”. I know, I know: stop smirking.
On the threshold of a municipal election, desperate to sanitize their grubby reputation, they’ve called for live streaming of all meetings – years after moving many committee meetings out of town hall to deter that very public accessibility, and refusing to live stream as early as 2015.
Amazing how some politicians can do an about-face when an election looms and they realize they are despised by a large number of voters. Consistency was never their strong suit, of course. If it’s self-serving, they’ll do whatever it takes.
As a story in the Connection notes:
“This makes our meetings more accessible to the public,” said Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson. “It makes our governance more accessible. It’s a good time to be pushing forward with this.”
I know, I know: I too laughed aloud when trying to imagine Brian doing anything about governance instead of his own agenda. And as for pushing forward – after four years of secrecy and closed-door meetings, you haven’t exactly been pushing all that hard on anything to do with openness and accessibility. Yes, I know: the hypocrisy, it burns…
But let’s be clear: for all his huff-n-puff, this isn’t a town issue. The coverage is provided by Rogers TV, not by any town department or service. Even the newly created and very, very expensive IT department (operating at FOUR times the expense it cost the town last term with plans to hire more staff and spend several millions more…) doesn’t do it: Rogers does. Brian and his buddies just want to take credit for what Rogers has offered all these years.
Rogers complained when The Block first voted to move meetings away from town hall, in 2015, because Rogers doesn’t have any recording equipment in that building. Which, of course, all of The Block knew when they moved meetings there to get away from the public eye. Meh, the Block waved them off.
And now they pretend they want to be open and accessible? Simply to fool the public. Brian and his puppets ask Rogers pretty please to provide more coverage but not, of course, take responsibility and apologize for the secrecy in the first place.
Ain’t hypocrisy grand? (Yeah, I know: where was the local media when this hypocrisy was spouted? Not wanting to embarrass their friends at the table, of course…)
It seems Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) is eating up taxpayer money rapidly, with a little help from other town departments. It was originally estimated to cost taxpayers between $2 and $6 million – and now it seems that could be much more thanks to this latest farcical chapter.
With the pending yet pointlessly vindictive Saunderson judicial inquiry – a punitive, self-serving exercise expected to cost local taxpayers of between $2 and $6 million (and potentially much more!) – I thought it might be useful to reprint in one post the timeline of the sale of half the share of Collus to PowerStream in 2011-12. I’ve posted much of this previously, in separate posts, but I also spent several days combing through online sources and archived documents to ensure I had a comprehensive timeline.
Brian Saunderson needs a new campaign slogan, now he’s officially filed papers in his ill-fated race to become mayor against the hard-working, well-liked, ethical, community-minded, former police chief, John Trude. It’s not good enough for Brian to run on his slogans from last election – “I’ll Show ‘Em Who’s Boss!”, “My Way or the Highway!”, “Why Be Open and Accountable When Secrecy and Deception Get My Way So Much Better?” and the local favourite, “I’ll Get Even With All of You!”