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Last week we had the chance to enjoy two really different types of music. Wednesday we went to the Station (aka the museum) for the weekly Jazz at the Station event. We watched Bobby Dean Blackburn, a great R&B and jazz pianist/vocalist with a drummer and two sax players. Free event, and well-attended, although Frank McNulty told me the crowd of 200-250 was lower than their usual 300-350 group.



A generally older crowd, and a bit sedate (although a group of mouthy 10-12 year-olds ran through the audience shouting obscenities during the performance). Nothing, of course, compared to the much larger crowd of several thousand that attended the annual street event downtown for the Elvis Festival:


Elvis is, or course, a great...

You'd think, from reading the media reports on Canadians' opposition to the government over the Long Form Census that Stephen Harper's Conservatives were taking governance lessons from Collingwood Council. As in: Governance 101: How to Ignore Public Opinion.

This week, an Angus Reid poll...

Oops. This week council was asked to respond to an email that identified a few significant snags in our new licensing bylaw that affect numerous downtown restaurants and merchants just as they start to set up for the annual Elvis Festival. Seems we had a few more hiccups with out new licensing bylaw.

First, was the requirement for permits. Seems that not everyone who wanted to erect a tent or patio downtown managed to get an application in on time. We were told staff weren't sufficient to handle all of the expected applications (recall that putting out even a simple table or rack of clothes requires a permit now!). So council was asked to forgive them for the weekend.

I agreed, although I'm not sure where the staffing...

I was more than a little surprised on Monday to hear Councillor Jeffrey comment that, if restaurant owners put their application in right away, they were very likely to get liquor licences from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission (AGCO) in time for the Elvis Festival, next weekend. Assuming, that is, they wanted to move, or could afford the curbside patio (so far, none have done so).

Surprised because that festival was less than two weeks away from her announcement. AGCO licences usually take at least 30 days to process, usually much longer. Yet she made that announcement July 12, and she had received an email from the BIA, on July 7 that said in part:

"...

Remember back in 2007 when the consultant who prepared our commercial review told us this area (our town, our neighbours and our visitors) could easily support another 500-600,000 sq. feet of commercial sprawl development on the west edge of town? And the majority of council nodded their heads in agreement like dashboard bobbin heads?

I contested that. Back then I posted about the over-crowding of retail in the community, and what I saw as numbers skewed to justify the additional development (posts September, November and December, 2007 and June, 2008). When I analyzed the consultant's numbers, I arrived at rather different conclusions.

Well this week, a different consultant told us that the region actually has more...

Sean, of Duncan's Cafe in Cllingwood, sent me this ad he plans to run in the local newspapers. He gave me permission to post it here.

I don't think I need to comment - the ad says it all.

Most of you know I play the ukulele. For 40-plus years before I discovered the uke, I played the guitar. I was never very good on the guitar: my passion for making music far exceeded my technical skills. But I had a passion for playing music that has sometimes translated itself into a variety of instruments, from flutes to sitar. I've managed to develop my musical skills somewhere between mediocre and adequate. But I love playing almost beyond my love for writing.

Since I discovered the ukulele, more than two years ago, I've been working hard to learn a lot of the music from the 1920s through to the 50s. It's music my parents would have known. Odd how that happened. I still play a lot of the music from the 1960s-70s, but I am...

...until we make the recently-passed licensing bylaw more culture-friendly and busker-friendly, we'll never see any of these type of performers or events:


Wow. Can you imagine Collingwood musicians being part of one of those videos? Maybe next term...

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=fgWFxFg7-GU'>YouTube
Either all of these buskers use amplification, aren't in a rigidly controlled location, or there are more of them than we allow. Yet look at the excitement many of these groups generate on the street. People dancing, clapping, singing along with them. That's the sort of entertainment and animation we could have had, with a less authoritarian busking bylaw.

I'm obviously a dunce when it comes to mathematics, much less economics. To me, the simple equation two minus one would equal one. Dalton McGuinty's government, apparently, has a new math, and in their calculation two minus one equals three. My schooling was obviously inadequate.

McGuinty's Liberals are boasting how more taxes will boost the economy and create hundreds of thousands of jobs - 591,000 according to one form, "nearly" 600,000 according to another. So, according to Liberal economics, having less money means we will spend more and create more jobs. Interesting theory. That means, I suppose, the poorest people in the province will become the largest employers.

It's also directly opposite to the theory...

I just learned that the traditional pancake breakfast will not be taking place downtown on Canada Day this year. Council wasn't informed of this change, nor was council even asked whether or not we wanted to participate. It was just cancelled.

I only found out because an email meant for Helena Guergis' office was misrouted to my inbox. Our MP had already sent out an information flyer about Canada Day events mentioning the pancake breakfast. She's wrong, but I can understand the confusion. For the past decade or two, it has been held here. And hundreds of residents and visitors have enjoyed a low-cost breakfast courtesy of the town. Helena usually joined us at the grill for an hour or two.

Now it isn't happening and I have...