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You’re being lied to. Again.

DeceptionOn Tuesday, July 17, the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee held a meeting. Its sole purpose was to retreat behind closed doors (as this council does at every opportunity) and discuss the sale of our publicly-owned airport.

To date, this council has already held 16 in camera meetings about the airport. And during these secretive meetings, our council not only decided to sell our airport, but not to hold any public consultations about that sale. Not once this term has anyone on council said WHY they wanted to sell a successful, busy, publicly-owned airport. Not once has anyone at the table or in the administration presented a business case for selling it, or compared the pros and cons of ownership.

It’s all been done in the shadows. Backroom deals. The airport sale will be authorized July 23 without having had any public consultation.

This ongoing secrecy was poorly received by our municipal partners on the airport board who weren’t even informed about the move. So alienated were they that both Clearview and Wasaga Beach decided to stop contributing funds to the airport’s maintenance, and to withdraw from the airport services board.

Not that Brian Saunderson and his Block minions care a whit what others think about them, about Collingwood’s reputation or how the public feels about the deception practiced by this council.

Our council chose to ignore the 1,000-plus jobs waiting there, and instead kill our economic growth. No thought was given to the accelerating economic value of airports that our county neighbours recognized.

Why? No one knows. They won’t tell the public why they are selling it, or why they won’t ask for public input. But it gets worse.
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Saunderson trolling for votes

Two-facedAfter 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…)

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A cop on every corner and in every backyard

JeffreyCouncillor Kathy Jeffrey wants to get tough on crime. Serious crimes like throwing birdseed on your deck, not cutting the grass on the boulevard in front of your house, and riding a bicycle on a sidewalk. I suppose and we’re all at risk from imminent social collapse if they aren’t curtailled and the malfeasants brought to justice right away.

And charged. Big, hefty, bankruptcy-threatening fines.

Getting tough on crime is always a hot button topic around election time, so there’s little surprise Jeffrey is on that bandwagon now, and was silent about it the previous three-and-a-half years.

The Connection reported that in a recent council meeting, she said,

“If we can’t enforce them, why do we have rules?… It would definitely require more staffing, and it would have to pay for itself somehow…”

“If we can’t enforce them, why do we have rules?” That’s an ironic comment coming form a member of The Block who voted against her own town bylaws to fire the members of the town’s electricity and water utility boards. They’re sure a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do bunch at the table this term. Everyone else has to obey the rules, just not The Block.

Adding more staff to the bylaw department? We’ve already learned this term that hiring more people for town hall is something The Block just love to do. So what that the latest accommodation review says that The Block’s willy-nilly tactic of hiring more and more staff will cost taxpayers between $20 and $25 million? After all, it’s not their money they’re wasting.

And they sure do waste it.
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More costs pile onto the SVJI

Pie in faceIt 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.

Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry needs space, not just your cash, to conduct its business. Lots of space, it seems. The SVJI crew had set up shop in town hall, and were occupying office real estate therein, but it wasn’t enough: they needed room to expand. With space in the building already at a premium, they looked around town for some larger, commercial space to occupy. Space to spread out all that paperwork and put up posters of Saunderson’s Most Wanted (aka the previous council).

And last month, the SVJI people found just the space they needed in the Sheffer Court building. The town sighed a quiet ‘hooray’ and promptly signed a lease for them. Everyone in town hall eagerly looked forward to the move so they could get their desks and copiers back. Until someone in the Saunderson  cabal caught wind of the new address.

It seems that’s the building once occupied by the Block’s antichrist, Paul Bonwick. And even through he’s long gone, the Block fear Bonwickism is a transmittable ailment that might lead to brotherly associations with the mayor – one of The Block’s principal targets of their bile and hatred this term. Or maybe it’s his Liberalism that could be catching. Heaven forbid: the SVJI members might start hanging pictures of Justin Trudeau or even Jean Chretien on the walls.

Either way, someone had a hissy fit over the closeness of the SVJI to the ghost of Bonwick past.

In full Blockish “sky-is-falling” mode they ran into town hall screaming hysterically, and demanded the move be stopped. Now! This instant! Cancel the deal! Cluck, cluck, the sky is falling! 

But the landlord said, No way. We had a deal. You signed a lease; the offices are yours for the year. And he wouldn’t let the town off the hook. So tenant or not, taxpayers still had to pay for the offices. And the SVJI still needed space.

The solution was worthy of the Marx Brothers : move the town’s entire treasury department and staff out of town hall and into the offices instead. That’s right: take all of the people, furniture, phones, computers, copiers, files, chairs, desks,filing cabinets, Rolodex cards and printers they needed to function and move them down the block. Then install security locks, new phone lines, and new internet and network cables both there and in town hall for the SVJI folk. And, of course, we taxpayers shoulder the moving and installation costs.

It’s not Saunderson’s money, so why should he care? After all, he and his minions have raised your taxes four times this term already – another four years of him will provide the opportunity for another four tax hikes to pay for their wild spending habits. And, of course, for their mandatory pay raises they vote themselves each time they raise your taxes.

Surely the treasury department is as vulnerable to the taint of Bonwickism as the SVJI staff, but the Block don’t seem to have noticed that little inconsistency in their plan during their collective cluck, cluck, clucking.

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Timeline of the original Collus share sale

VindictiveWith 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.

There are a few related notes included that underscore the electricity market in flux in 2011, the reasons for the sale (and for a strategic partnership versus a full sale) and the criteria used to determine the best partner. Some of the links in the timeline may no longer be valid (the Enterprise Bulletin, for example, folded, although some pages are archived on the Internet Wayback Archive), but the majority remain active.

This is a long read, because it is very detaiiled. Keep in mind a few things as you read this:

  • The process last term was fully open, and included public consultation and considerable media coverage and our neighbours in Clearview kept informed – the very opposite of this term’s secretive and deceptive privatization of our once-publicly-owned electricity utility;
  • During the process last term, the public was made aware that the town intended to sell up to but no more than 50% of the utility in order not to lose local control over rates and service. There was no public outcry or comments in the media opposed to this, no demands to sell 100%. None of the bids came in at lower than 50%. There was no opposition to the sale filed through the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) over the sale or the process, even after the winning bid of 50% was announced. This term there have been numerous complaints filed to the OEB over the sale and the secretive process;
  • No sole-sourced consultants or lawyers were hired by council last term; quite the opposite of this term where sole-source contracts have been handed out like party favours to buddies without even the pretense of an RFP;
  • Our two utilities (electricity and water) were both active and respected partners in the process; consulted, but never once harassed, confronted or bullied by the council or the administration; quite the opposite of the way they have been treated this term;
  • The goal of the sale last term was to engage a PARTNER who would work cooperatively and collaboratively with the town and the utility for the benefit of our residents, not just to grab the cash; quite the opposite of the backroom cash deal arranged this term with a for-profit, out-of-province corporation that benefits only the sole-sourced lawyer who arranged it (the same sole-sourced lawyer who was hired to provide the ‘market analysis’ and then recommended the sale of the utility);
  • The entire process, including all financials and agreements, was overseen and approved by dozens of people, including the lawyers, accountants, auditors, CAOs, clerks, treasurers, mayors, councillors, board members, CEOs, CFOs and managers of four municipalities, two utilities, KPMG, PLUS those at the Ontario Energy Board and Energy Probe. The process to privatize the utility this term was all done behind closed-door using one sole-sourced lawyer, without anything close to that level of scrutiny;
  • The administration and some council members have said publicly that they don’t have all the documents about the sale. Yet I was able to find all of this documentation with no problem. Did any of them even look? As for SPTT meetings – those were the TOWN’s responsibility, not the utility’s. If those minutes are missing, ask the clerk where they got to: it was her job to record the minutes and store them.

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Really? Another sole-sourced lawyer?

William McDowellCollingwood hires lawyer for judicial inquiry. That’s the headline on a story in the Connection.

Do I understand this story correctly? The same sole-sourced lawyer who encouraged Brian Saunderson and his council puppets to launch a judicial inquiry that may cost taxpayers $6 million or more has been appointed to to be “legal counsel for the judicial inquiry”?*

Anyone remember this promise by Brian Saunderson to…

Change the purchasing policy to ensure there can be no sole sourcing of any contract for goods or services over $25,000, no exceptions.

And yet there was no RFP for a position that could be paid hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars? Even though Brian PROMISED residents there would ALWAYS be an RFP for any contract over $25,000, there was no RFP. “No exceptions,” he promised.

Well, he forgot that promise about 15 seconds after he was elected. Every municipal contract seems to be an exception for Brian if it furthers his agenda.  Under Brian’s watchful eye, this council has handed out sole-sourced contracts like party favours, more than all the councils in the past 30 years combined.**

And he wants to be mayor?

And it is a coincidence that another lawyer benefits from a sole-sourced contract on the council that lawyer Brian dominates? Or that the decision came after another closed-door session, one of the too-many-to-count this secretive council has held this term? Those campaign promises of openness and transparency? More bullshit.
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