Utter contempt. That’s what The Block showed for process at council, on Monday night. And for ethics. And for you, the residents. Utter contempt.
But when they want to give benefits to their friends or themselves, boy do they rise to the occasion. Which of course they did, Monday. Anything for a buddy, no matter what negative effect it has on residents. No matter how it will exacerbate ill will in the community, or create bad feelings towards town hall. No matter what it will do to your insurance rates. As long as their friend gets his, who cares?
As I predicted last post, had proper policy and procedure been followed, what should have been a dead issue was returned to the council table by Councillor Jeffrey – she of the unlimited expense account and adipose sense of entitlement. If she or any of the Block had even the slightest regard for procedure and the standing committee system, the Fire Marque report would have died there. Should have died there. But The Block have so far failed to show any respect for anything that gets in their way, so of course she wouldn’t do as as a more ethical councillor would. Democracy be damned.
I told you so.
Besides, the salesman for Fire Marque is the former mayor: a close buddy to all of The Block. Doesn’t matter to The Block if the contract is bad for the 20,000-plus homeowners and renters here. Screw you is The Block’s attitude towards residents. If it’s good for their friends or their in-laws, it gets passed.
Doesn’t matter to The Block if the very idea of charging people for emergency response to accidents was rejected unanimously last term as an unethical practice. Doesn’t matter to The Block if you already pay for fire services through your taxes and the contract is unethical double dipping. Doesn’t even matter it if violates the province’s Fire Protection and Prevention Act. It benefits their buddy, so it gets passed.
And it doesn’t matter if it’s a sole source contract and their leader, Brian Saunderson, promised there would be no sole source contracts this term. “No exceptions,” he said. By my calculations, The Block have handed out more sole-sourced contracts than all of the previous councils for the past 25 years COMBINED. The word hypocrisy doesn’t even begin to cover it.
None of The Block asked for an independent report from an insurance company either. After all, the insurance companies would know the actual impact on homeowners, on the possibility of seeing rates rise, on how much money homeowners would have to pay above and beyond what insurance covered. But The Block disdain outside information in case it interferes with their ideology. They only want to hear what reinforces it. And what benefits their friends, of course.
We suffer an extreme ethical and moral deficit in our council.
So now you, the resident, you the homeowner, you the taxpayer in Collingwood got screwed by The Block. Again. Just one of a long litany of despicable, self-serving actions by this group. Six people voted for this contract: Saunderson, Jeffrey, Madigan, Ecclestone, Doherty and Fryer.
But we weren’t disappointed: overt patronage and utter contempt for the residents of this community is exactly what we expect from a contemptible bunch of self-serving autocrats.
Collingwood deserves better. And we will get better next election when all of this lot are tossed from office.
