Collingwood's newspeak
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 30 2009, 04:37 PM in Collingwood's Municipal Madness
The minutes for the Council meeting of June 22, 2009 read, "Councillor Chadwick expressed concern with old letters being included in the Mayor’s Correspondence as well as information from the MP’s Office."
Not entirely true. What I objected to was not the information, but rather the method of transmission: the information (such as it was) was printed on unaddressed admail, the technical term for junk mail. I do not believe admail of any sort has a place in the council agenda. Whether it comes from our MP or is a big box store flyer, it is still the same substance: advertising.
I said as much on Monday when the minutes were presented to council for approval. Not surprisingly, the mayor argued with me, saying he was comfortable with the wording as is. Of course he wouldn't want to blemish our MP's Conservative image with the idea that she produced junk mail. He probably doesn't want to acknowledge that he and his supporters actually treat her junk mail with a reverence bordering on that usually reserved for scripture.
I asked for a change of terminology in the minutes, from information to unaddressed admail. After all, that's what it was, and that's what I objected to. It's very...
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Ombudsman: revoke the fee
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 24 2009, 04:32 PM in Collingwood's Municipal Madness
Andre Marin, Ontario's Ombudsman, recently recommended that the Township of Emo make their local politics and politicians more accountable. And Collingwood could take a lesson from what Mr. Marin said.
Not that this council is likely to start becoming open and accountable so late in its already blemished term, or would re-open a debate on its past mistakes or its lack of openness. But it is worth considering, even if only from the sidelines.
What Mr. Marin suggested in his report was that Emo revoke the fee charged to citizens who want to investigate the validity of a council in-camera meeting. Collingwood also put an outlandishly high fee - a taxpayer-hostile fee - for such an investigation into its user fee structure. That fee structure was approved by the mayor and his supporters at the table.
Admittedly, Emo's $500 fee is higher than Collingwood's $125, but the principle remains: the fee discourages openness and accountability in both communities. It is a blow against democracy. But you already knew that, didn't you, gentle reader?
Hmmm. I wonder if the mayor of Emo was encouraging his or her council behind closed doors to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayers'...
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Frustrating evening at council
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 23 2009, 05:18 PM in Collingwood's Municipal Madness
Monday was more than the usually frustrating, long (4.5 hours) evening at council for me. The mayor seemed particularly contentious, frequently interrupting to argue and challenge me (despite that the procedural bylaw gives me the right to speak without interruption, he does so very frequently).
Council seemed unsympathetic to my concerns about what I saw as a zoning bylaw still in need of some polishing (obviously most of my colleagues don't consider it as important as I do, but for me it is one of the most important bylaws we've wrestled with this term - it defines what kinds of work and businesses are allowed to operate here and the conditions under which they can operate).
It's hard to know where to start voicing my frustration. I questioned why the town's naming committee* did not have the courtesy to inform the Library board it had decided to name the new library building. A simply email would have been sufficient. Instead, the board found out by seeing the ads in the newspaper. The mayor defended that action, saying the library was only a tenant and the library's CEO should have done the informing (as far as I know, she's not on the naming committee and was not informed by...
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More political junk mail on the agenda
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 21 2009, 05:33 PM in Collingwood's Municipal Madness
I would be embarrassed to show a blatant political bias as a member of council supposed to represent ALL the people of this municipality, not merely a select group of a particular political stripe. I would be even more embarrassed to publicly treat junk mail like some serious political statement and give it prominence through our agenda.
Apparently our mayor is immune to such sentiments.
Once again on our agenda we feature another piece of unsolicited, unaddressed admail in the mayor's correspondence*. And as you readers guessed, it's one of those taxpayer-funded pieces from our MP. Everyone else in town calls it junk mail. The mayor, however, must have a more reverential name for it, because he treats it with a respect usually reserved for scripture.
I wrote a piece questioning the mayor's inclusion of our MP's junk mail in the agenda in a previous entry, last September. And how little things change in nine months! Here we are again with another poorly-written, stylistically inconsistent piece of bombast being entered into the public record.
On the front page of this "newsletter", our MP presents a total of 83 words, not including her name and contact information....
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Ukulele update: June 09
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 14 2009, 05:39 PM in Personal reminiscences
Two new ukes have been added to the collection recently: a soprano zebrawood Ohana, and a tenor banjo uke from Waverly Street ukes. Both are reviewed on my ukulele page, here. The most recent acquisitions bring my working collection up to ten (plus three others in need of restoration).
The Ohana is the first soprano scale I've bought since I started playing (aside from the yard sale Diastone). I did have a soprano-body tenor from Ohana, previously, but it still had that extended neck. While I bought it for its looks, the zebrawood has given me the opportunity to play the smaller scale and appreciate it it somewhat. It has also reinforced my belief that tenor is the scale for me.
While I find it much easier to play this size than I originally did when I first started learning, the fretboard is still a challenge. Trying to build a D chord (2220) with all of the fingers in-line and none slipping off the fret to sharpen any note, is tricky. And the angle of my wrist for that chord is almost painful as I try to arch my fingers and get them all aligned in that cramped space. On the other hand, the shortened scale makes it easy for my pinky to reach much higher up the neck than on a longer scale. I can easily play...
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Growing pains in Simcoe County
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 7 2009, 08:47 AM in Collingwood's Municipal Madness
That noise you heard late last week was not a collective sigh of joy that greeted the release of the province's long-awaited growth plan for Simcoe County (Simcoe County: A Strategic Vision for Growth in PDF). It was the squeal of anguish released simultaneously from the bosoms of municipal politicians, developers and planners across the county.
See, in anticipation of the province's plan, the county had prepared its own plan with the understanding that it would be approved by the province, and that it was better to create a collectively agreed-upon regional plan than have one foisted upon up by the province. What would lead the county to believe this? Well, the province did when it created the Inter-Governmental Action Plan (IGAP) process in late 2004. That got the municipalities of Simcoe County scurrying to have meetings and consultations to try and define a suitable growth plan. That plan was approved by Simcoe County (even the standoffish cities of Barrie and Orillia got involved in developing the county plan) earlier this year.
You can read the consultant's presentation on IGAP here. You can read the press release about the Simcoe County Growth Plan here. The county even created a...
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Chicken shit, cows and BSE
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 5 2009, 05:11 PM in Science, technology, computers
The most interesting article in today's Enterprise Bulletin (June 5) wasn't a news or opinion piece, but rather a 'free' filler article on page 5-cc, titled "Are we eating American beef raised on chicken manure?" That got me on a hair-raising research expedition into BSE and cattle feed. This article is available on The Bovine, too.
In essence, the article discusses the practice - allowed in the USA, but banned in Canada - of feeding cattle on a diet of up to 70% chicken litter. Litter means manure. Guano. Shit. Basically feeding a vegetarian animal the crap of another animal.
A few years ago, the practice of feeding cattle on the remains of "downer" cattle - those which died in the field, for example: killed by animals, disease or accident rather than in the slaughterhouse - had to be stopped because it evidence showed this helped the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - BSE, or Mad Cow Disease, a nasty, and inevitably fatal illness in humans. Until a couple of years ago, the dead, infected animals were also recycled in a wide variety of animal feeds, helping spread the potential risk of BSE through and to other animals: "the brains, spines and organs that can...
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Process, what process?
Posted by ianadmin, Jun 1 2009, 12:49 PM in Collingwood's Municipal Madness
We're not here to fight issues, said Karen Poshtar, chair of the special interest group*, VOTE, at its recent AGM. "We're here to deal with process."
That statement has me baffled. VOTE has not raised a single question over process this term I can recall. Are they suggesting that this term the process has been beyond reproach? That the lack of public input is what they want from a government? If so, that's scary. But more so is their myopia if they believe this term has been anything even close to accountable or open government.
The story about the poorly-attended AGM - 26 people - ran in last week's Enterprise-Bulletin. The chair rather defensively said the group is following its mandate - and that is process. But according to the group's own website, they are all about issues. The "news" section has letters of protest from the group about several issues last term - the heritage district, the sale of the grain elevator, the sale of the Simcoe Street properties, the sale of the water treatment plant, the number of developments proposed, the Shipyards and others. Those aren't process. They're ISSUES.
"We're all about fairness, with the decisions being...
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Ukulele update: May 09
Posted by ianadmin, May 30 2009, 05:17 PM in Personal reminiscences
Tom Guy's cigar box ukulele has certainly taken over as my most-played instrument. I take it to work to practice on during slow times - usually the last hour of the day or the last couple of hours on a Saturday. I play it around the house a lot, too. I love the sound of the cigar-box uke, the action and the feel. My customers at the store all seem impressed by it, and it certainly sparks some interesting conversations. If only it would encourage them to buy ukes so we could jam!
The low-G tuning of the ciagr-box uke certainly changes a lot of songs. I've become used to high-G tuning (on all my other ukes) and find it sometimes jarring to have that low-G note when I start playing. But then I really like having the low-G for some runs that can continue on past the third string! So it's forcing me to rethink some versions of the music I like to play. That's a good challenge!
My other mainstay is the Mainland tenor, sitting beside my computer so I can pick it up and strum when I'm surfing.
Before the cigar box uke arrived, I alternated between the Mainland and the Kala cedar-top, and used the Fluke as my pick-up-n-strum uke - these were my everyday strum. But with the arrival of the...
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My musical family
Posted by ianadmin, May 30 2009, 12:53 PM in Personal reminiscences
That rather handsome young man to the left was my father, at age 17. So serious, so formal looking. My brother scanned and emailed the picture to me, part of my search to find out more about my family and its roots.
That photograph was taken in 1931, between the wars. It was also taken during the Great Depression in the UK, which lasted from 1929 to 32. He was baptised Watts Chadwick, but was known as Bill to his friends and family.
Northern England where my father was born and lived - Oldham, near Manchester - was particularly hit by the economic downturn because it was the heart of the British industrial region. Unemployment swept the north those hard years and stayed longer in the north than in other parts of Britain.
Although the depression ended (officially if not actually) in 1932, economic recovery was slow, especially in the north, and it wasn't until the country started re-arming in the mid 1930s that recovery finally came. But then the world stumbled into war, again.
Thanks to the memories of my Aunt Mary, in South Africa, I know a little more about my father and his family in those days. Here's what I recently learned.
My grandfather, Frank, was a journalist who worked at the Oldham Chronicle...
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Today, 05:16 AM
on Collingwood's newspeak