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SVJI costs continue to skyrocket

BureaucracyAs I predicted earlier, the costs for Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) are going to climb through the roof. And of course you, the taxpayer, are going to pay for it.

Last month local media carried stories that the SVJI – scheduled to begin this month (November) – wasn’t going to meet its deadlines. It was delayed and would not start until the “new year” (apparently not until February, 2019). Bayshore Broadcasting notes in its coverage*:

The inquiry team had hoped they would start this fall, but Inquiry Counsel Janet Leiper tells us that won’t be possible and that it will be the new year before the public hearings can start. She says that’s because the rest of some of the necessary documents aren’t expected until the end of November.

Three more months of lawyers being paid $400-$700 an hour, plus travel and accommodations , plus the other staff, computers, phone, office space… That’s going to hurt the town’s budget but hey, it isn’t Saunderson’s money he’s spending. And it helped him win the election, so he doesn’t care what it costs you.

The piece also noted the inquiry had already received about 11,000 documents and interviewed more than 60 witnesses, some of whom may need to spoken to again. Ka-ching!**

Alectra – the company that came from the merger of PowerStream and other Ontario utilities – has already submitted more than 4,000 documents, sorted out from about 40,000 the company had from the time period in question. But that’s not enough: the SVJI wants more paperwork from more people.

Alectra’s lawyer, Michael Watson, said that could mean sorting through 100,000-200,000 documents from that period.  Big job. So why not do it twice? The Connection noted:

(Judge) Marrocco suggested the company provide the documents and allow inquiry staff to do a search while Alectra does the same.

Okay, let’s do some cost and time estimates on the effort required to search through 100,000 or more documents.
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Saunderson’s abject desperation

Begging for your votesI’m not sure whether I pity Brian Saunderson most for his lack of principles or for his lack of shame. Or maybe both.

Desperation makes people do things that common sense would suggest won’t work. Monday we saw desperation replace both principle and shame when Saunderson made a motion to support the hospital at the end of the meeting. It was an abject, grovelling effort. Embarrassing to watch.*

Brian Saunderson is, of course, desperate. He faces not one but two credible candidates for the position of mayor, in a town where he and his five Block minions on council are widely despised as an unethical, spineless lot more concerned with their own entitlements than the community.

Their biggest challenge – Saunderson’s albatross – is their active role in opposing our Collingwood General & Marine Hospital’s plan for redevelopment on another site. Opposing the redevelopment has been a rock-solid pillar in Saunderson’s ideology for the past two years. And his puppy-like minions have eagerly tagged along.

But in light of his campaign challenges, Brian is both desperate and shameless. This Monday Brian tossed out a “Hail Mary” motion – along with his principles – to try and stop some of the bleeding. His motion pledged full support for the redevelopment and to send a letter to the Ministry taking back all the negative, nasty things they said and did about the hospital in the previous two years. And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

It won’t work. The public isn’t fooled. No one has forgotten Saunderson and his group’s numerous attacks on our hospital. The medical community knows all too well what Saunderson has done to their livelihoods and to local healthcare. This is just a last-minute effort to pull the wool over voters’ eyes.

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Tim Fryer’s fictitious candidate

maskYou have to wonder who is being described on Tim Fryer’s campaign website when you read about claims of:

  • Transparent and Trustworthy Leadership.
  • Responsible and Accountable
  • Creative and Open Minded
  • Socially & Environmentally Conscious

Is Fryer advertising for another candidate? One not so deeply joined to Brian Saunderson and his personal agendas? One who actually stood up and fought for open, accountable meetings and public consultation when privatizing our electricity utility instead of shambling into almost 50 closed-door meetings to plot the sale?

One who refused to sideline our hospital redevelopment and delay it three to ten years? One who demanded an open process when council decided to sell our publicly-owned airport instead of sneaking into one of 16 closed-door meetings to plot its sale? Who fought against the unethical process and administration’s harassment when council fired all members of both our water and electricity utility boards and replacing them with malleable puppets? Who voted against twice extending the contract of the $200,000-a-year interim CAO?

Obviously it wasn’t Fryer. Or any of his servile co-minions. Maybe it’s someone not even on the ballot yet? Maybe his imaginary friend?

I can’t think of a single way any of those words describe Tim. I can’t think of a single initiative he has launched this term. I can’t think of a single cause for the greater good he has advocated this term. None. I can’t think of a single example of Tim’s being creative or environmentally conscious like he claims.

Maybe those are all things he thought he could be while he sat in the many, many secretive, closed-door meetings this council has held. In public, though, Tim should be saying, like Bob Dylan sang, “It ain’t me babe.”

Think hard: what does Tim actually stand for? Aside from supporting Brian Saunderson, that is. What are his causes, his issues, what does he advocate for on your behalf? Time’s up… no, I couldn’t name one, either. And yet he wants to be deputy mayor.

That position requires experience, initiative, acuity of thought, a clear strategic vision, financial and political savvy, the ability to work collaboratively with municipal and county staff and councillors, and the ability to communicate coherently and clearly.

None of which attributes he has shown at the council table this term.

Fryer claims that being a lifelong resident in town “…and my former role as Chief Financial Officer for Collingwood’s utility companies, will provide the tools to help me enhance the Fiscal Policies of Council.”

(Yes, I too grimaced over the wacky, random capitalization in his text there and elsewhere on his site). How would being a “lifelong resident” help anything in governance? Does residence alone confer wisdom? Skill? Talent? Clearly not. And one wonders why – if indeed he’s singing his own praises – he never used those “tools” to help enhance anything THIS term?

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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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Collingwood’s Reichstag fire

Reichstag fireThe Reichstag was the home of the German parliament until 1933, when it burned down just one month after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. The Nazis immediately blamed the fire on the Communists – their main political rivals – and used the event to suppress their opponents, repress opposition and dissent, consolidate power, while deflecting public scrutiny from their more hideous acts.

Many historians believe that the Communists weren’t involved, but rather the Nazis set the fire themselves to help promote their own agenda and enable their vendettas. They used propaganda tactics to enrage the public, and consolidate their position.

The Reichstag fire became a worldwide symbol of those in power: using a “false flag” attack which Wikipedia describes as, “…a covert operation designed to deceive; the deception creates the appearance of a particular party, group, or nation being responsible for some activity, disguising the actual source of responsibility.”

Sound familiar? Sound like something that recently happened here in Collingwood with a CBC exposé about alleged wrongdoing? A story with no wrongdoing but a lot of sly allegations and innuendo? A distraction from the real, important stories?

That’s Collingwood’s own Reichstag fire. Or its false flag, if you feel more comfortable with that name.

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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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