This man should resign

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

Loading

Can a municipality operate effectively with a toxic relationship between the mayor and the CAO? Can staff avoid being involved in the confrontation? Can the public expect the best service and support from its leaders if the two top people are at odds? Clearly not. A story in The Connection reinforced just how bad things have become in town hall between the mayor and the interim CAO. Once you read it, I believe you will agree with me: the interim CAO must go. Now. Right now. He is an embarrassment to everyone. This behaviour is intolerable. It doesn’t matter that he ……… click below for more ↓

More council secrecy, more council scheming

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

Loading

On Monday’s council agenda there are again two in-camera topics that reinforce just how much little respect The Block have for process, ethics, the public, legality, openness and transparency. The Block will – again – secretly discuss privatizing our water and wastewater services to the out-of-province, for-profit corporation, EPCOR, and also secretly discuss appointing new directors to the Collus-PowerStream board. Both should be discussed and decided in public. Both should have had public input or consultation. But why should The Block change habits now? The backroom, sole-source EPOCR deal is so shady it could have been a script for The ……… click below for more ↓

Another imaginary roadblock for the hospital

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital5 Comments

Loading

In the April 24 addendum to the agenda there is a report by the interim CAO about the hospital redevelopment you should read. It seems another council hissy fit is in the making. Your first question should be: why is the interim CAO writing and signing a report that ought to come from the planning department? It’s a planning issue – was the planning department reluctant to submit it? Didn’t agree with the conclusions? It’s a political document and written in political language. Perhaps no one in the department felt they should take ownership of it. Planning issues should be ……… click below for more ↓

Collus-PowerStream responds about dividend

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

Loading

On the April 24 council agenda is an addendum that includes the response from Collus-PowerStream about The Block’s questions over the lack of a dividend from the utility. I wrote about this last month in Dividends for Dummies. I’m glad to see what I wrote then has been proven correct. The original letter from CPS back in February, stated, “The Board decision was based on the Dividend Policy of the Corporation including consideration of an appropriate capital structure and working capital levels required to continue to operate as a viable business.” Clearly none of The Block had the slightest clue ……… click below for more ↓

Book collecting: snobbery or reading passion?

Books & Reviews / Culture / Daily life / Learning & Education / Literature / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Social Order & Disorder / Writing & FictionLeave a comment

Loading

The book has always been a sign of status and refinement; a declaration of self-worth – even for those who hate to read. That’s the lead into a recent piece on Aeon Magazine about book collecting and collectors. It’s also about reading and the snobbery of readers. Fascinating piece. For me, anyway. Pretty much everything about books and reading fascinates me, from the art to the industry to the neuroscience. I am and always have been a book buyer, proudly taking my place among those “Bookish Fools” referenced in the article’s title. But perhaps from a different part of the ……… click below for more ↓

Shoulda, coulda, woulda

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

Loading

Two and a half years of calamitous mismanagement. Council motivated by wild conspiracy theories, maliciousness and personal vendettas. A rudderless, ruthless administration flailing and fumbling its way from one catastrophe to another. The town’s reputation ruined. Our municipal partners and neighbours alienated. Secret discussions determine the fate of our assets while the public is excluded from the process. Taxes and costs rising and sole-sourced contracts handed out like party favours. Ethics tossed out the window and the municipal air redolent with the stench of entitlement. And the term is barely half-way through. What a disaster. Any commentary or discussion on ……… click below for more ↓

WiFi hysteria again

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

Loading

Every so often, old crackpot ideas, hoaxes, cons and plainly silly pseudoscience resurface online under the guise of Trump-like alternate fact. Scary stories about chemicals in your food, fake health tips, and Facebook-stealing-your-photos nonsense compete for attention with actual news and factual stories. The old bromide about wireless signals (WiFi) killing things is just one to come back to life this week on Facebook. (You already know Facebook isn’t a reliable source of anything factual, even though factual content does get shared now and then. More common are the wingnut conspiracies, hoaxes and codswallop, along with cute kitten videos. Facebook ……… click below for more ↓

Why is this man still working for Collingwood? – part 2

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

Loading

Almost a year ago, I posed the question: why is the interim CAO still working for Collingwood? After his behaviour and aggressive, disrespectful grilling of the hospital board chair and foundation head, March 27, 2017, that question has even more significance. And, you might ask, why hasn’t council dealt with it? After all, his behaviour reflects on them – and poorly. The interim CAO’s relationship with the mayor is at best strained, at worst abrasive and unproductive. In a recent email she accused him of bullying and suggested he resign. Councillor Lloyd has made similar comments and recently blocked his ……… click below for more ↓

The hospital, the trolley and political ethics

Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Loading

In its decision about the redevelopment of the Collingwood General & Marine Hospital, Collingwood Council is evidently taking the track less travelled, trolleyology-wise. Seen as an ethical issue, our council has chosen to act against the greater good. Trolleyology is the somewhat humourous name given to philosophical intellectual exercises or thought problems about our ethics and ethical choices. As Wikipedia describes it, the basic problem (and there are many, many variants) is simple: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is ……… click below for more ↓

Council continues to attack the hospital

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital6 Comments

Loading

If I had the choice between spending eight hours in a dentist’s chair having oral surgery without anaesthetic and spending two hours in a council meeting listening to the bureaucratic bullshit, the administration’s unfocused mumbling and meandering, the councillors’ self-justifying, self-aggrandizing, self-righteous grandstanding, boasting, empty platitudes, and argumentative whining palaver, after last night, I’ll choose the dentist’s chair any time. It’s less painful. That’s because Monday night I spent two hours in an audience of more than 325 people listening to council trying to justify its war on our hospital, simply to support The Block’s shrunken base of supporters, all ……… click below for more ↓

Antarctica’s icy hoaxes return

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

Loading

Under the thick ice of Antarctica lies buried the remains of an advanced civilization, dating back 55,000-65,000 years. So startling was this discovery that world leaders were flown in to the perennially frozen continent to witness for themselves the proof of alien presence on our planet. Or not. Well, really not. Not at all. You don’t really believe that claptrap about Antarctica, do you? I tried to warn you about this malarky in 2013. It’s a hoax that just won’t die. Or rather a series of hoaxes. No, there’s no buried civilization on the southern continent. Humans can barely survive ……… click below for more ↓

The last walk

Daily life / Personal Reminiscences / Pets / Social Order & Disorder2 Comments

Loading

“You have to go to the pound. They have a Sheltie there.” Susan called me from work, her voice urgent. One of her clients had told her a Sheltie – Shetland Sheepdog – had been picked up by Animal Control and was in the pound, on Stewart Road about to come up for adoption. She added, “I already have a name for her.” This was in the late spring of 2008. It had been a couple of years since we had a dog and she knew I missed having one. We had had some great dogs in the past, including ……… click below for more ↓

Dividends for dummies

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water9 Comments

Loading

A dividend, as defined by the Business Dictionary, is “A share of the after-tax profit of a company, distributed to its shareholders…” This is reiterated in the description from the Oxford Dictionary: “A sum of money paid regularly (typically annually) by a company to its shareholders out of its profits (or reserves).” So in order to pay a dividend, you need to make a profit. Otherwise, all your revenue goes to operating expenses, salaries and taxes. And a dividend isn’t paid to just one person or shareholder: if one shareholder gets one, then every shareholder gets one. Dividends are NOT ……… click below for more ↓

Volte-face on water

Collingwood / Council / Utilities: electricity and water4 Comments

Loading

On Tuesday, Simcoe County Council voted to “… begin negotiations with the 16 municipalities regarding a “future role” for the upper tier in water and wastewater operations – a municipal domain.” The county wants to bring water and wastewater under its wing to standardize services and improve operating efficiencies much the same way it has done with housing and emergency services. Our deputy mayor voted in favour. The only story so far on this appears in the New Tecumseth Free Press.* Not a bad idea to explore, for public discussion and input, weigh the pros and cons. But the problem ……… click below for more ↓

The Blame Game

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

Loading

Remember The Name Game – that song from the Sixties that had those crazy lyrics: Shirley! Shirley, Shirley/ Bo-ber-ley, bo-na-na fanna/ Fo-fer-ley. fee fi mo-mer-ley, Shirley! Not the most intellectual lyrics of the era, I admit, but not forgotten and clearly suitable for local tastes. In Collingwood town hall, for example, they even sing their own version, The Blame Game: Bloggers! Bloggers! Bloggers! Bo-ba-loggers, bo-na-na fanna Fo-fer-loggers fee fi mo-mer-loggers, Bloggers! And so on. It’s part of the “not my fault” mindset that infuses The Block and the administration this term: blame everyone else for the mess you made yourself. ……… click below for more ↓

Back to Top