Stop Whining, Elvis Haters

Collingwood / Council / Culture / Festivals & Events / Music & ReviewsLeave a comment

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Don’t people who hate Collingwood’s Elvis Festival ever get tired of whining and bitching about it? I guess not. There’s another whining letter about it in this week’s Connection. More than twenty years the festival has been running successfully and they still haven’t figured it out yet. Just because you don’t like the event, doesn’t mean others don’t. In fact, tens of thousands of people really enjoy it and come from all over the province, from nearby US states and even from overseas to attend it. We cannot all like the same things and we certainly cannot all like what little lightens ……… click below for more ↓

Strat Plan Wrap Up: Addintional Comments

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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Yes, the web page really does call for “Addintional Comments.” Well, I suppose consultants aren’t hired for their spelling or grammar. Otherwise there wouldn’t be all that bizarre capitalization or the missing punctuation. But you’re here to read my summation of the Collingwood’s fledgling strategic plan, not my editorial critique. Which is pretty simple: woo-hoo. I reiterate that a strategic plan can be either practical and pragmatic, or woo-hoo. This one is woo-hoo. By which I mean it is airy fairy collection of generalities, seasoned with ignorance, ideology and irrelevancies and very little actual direction. Well, most woo-hoo plans are. They aren’t ……… click below for more ↓

Strat Plan Part 6: Culture and the Arts

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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The fifth and final objective in Collingwood’s developing strategic plan (the woo-hoo plan) is culture and the arts. For something so important to the community, with such a huge potential, it encompasses a mere two goals. Disappointingly, neither of them relate to its huge economic potential, which everyone else seems to understand except this committee and its council. “The rapidly evolving global economy demands a dynamic and creative workforce. The arts and its related businesses are responsible for billions of dollars in cultural exports for this country. It is imperative that we continue to support the arts and arts education both ……… click below for more ↓

Strat Plan Part 5: Healthy Lifestyle

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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I suppose we can all agree that a healthy lifestyle is better than an unhealthy one. And to a certain degree, a municipality can help residents choose a healthier one or at least give them opportunities to pursue it. But you have to ask just how seriously committed a municipality is to a healthy lifestyle when it sells pop, candy and junk food in the vending machines its own recreational facilities. How committed to a healthy lifestyle is a council many of whose members take the town hall elevator up a single storey rather than make the effort to walk ……… click below for more ↓

Strat Plan Part 4: Economic Vitality

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Planning & Policies / Taxes / User fees and costsLeave a comment

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What, you may ask, is meant by the term “Economic Vitality” – the third objective in our town’s strategic-plan-in-the-works? Apparently it’s one of those motherhood statements people make on soapboxes and campaign platforms that have little grist in them to mill into actuality. Sure, we all want a town that has a lively, thriving economy. but how do we achieve it? No one has an answer – not one-size-fits-all answer. certainly it isn’t found in the woo-hoo strategic plan. The economy’s health depends on creating a suitable, supportive environment that both attracts and sustains business and commerce. Let’s start with an ……… click below for more ↓

Strat Plan Part 3: The Waterfront

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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The waterfront. It defines us geographically, historically and culturally. What could be more important to Collingwood than its waterfront that covers the entire northern border of this sleepy, lakeside town? Well, pretty much anything else it seems, if you you’re on Collingwood Council. Pick the most irrelevant, pointless, self-aggrandizing effort – like rewriting the Code of Conduct or flying around the country to party at taxpayers’ expense – and this council will eagerly pounce on it as a priority rather than deal with waterfront issues. Council is determined to hold up growth and development on this all-important area until sometime ……… click below for more ↓

Strat Plan Part 2: The Shuffle Game

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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In the second part of my critique of Collingwood’s woo-hoo strategic plan, I will look at the shuffle game. This is where consultants give contestants – I mean participants – a limited series of options and ask them to shuffle these around in order of their perceived priority. Then the results are collated and the one whose list looks most like the final version wins. There are five separate lists given to contestants. Think of them as strategic plan bingo cards: Accountable Local Government Public Access to a Revitalized Waterfront Economic Vitality Healthy Lifestyle Culture and the Arts Participants get ……… click below for more ↓

Reading Tennyson’s Ulysses

Books & Reviews / Personal Reminiscences / Poetry & Lyrics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Last weekend, while watching the delightful movie, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I heard Bill Nighy make a wedding speech that included lines from one of my favourite poems: Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I recognized it immediately and it made me open the poem and read it again. The poem was written by Tennyson in 1833, but not published until 1842. I can’t recall exactly when I first read it, but it was in high school, in the 1960s. I’ve read it many times since. It’s funny how one can read into a poem something entirely different on another ……… click below for more ↓

Strategic Planning, Part One: The Woo-Hoo Factor

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Planning & Policies8 Comments

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There are, in general, two kinds of municipal strategic plans. One is pragmatic and practical. It tells you what you need to build, fix or replace, when you need to do it, how much it will cost, and where the money will come from. This is the stuff a council grounded in reality can use to budget, plan sensibly, and maintain the community’s infrastructure. It’s a roadmap that leads to a well-defined destination. The other kind of plan is best described by the term woo-hoo. It’s an airy, feel-good exercise that spews forth happy catch phrases, the more nebulous the better. ……… click below for more ↓

Time of Use Billing

Provincial Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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Until I sold my business, a few years ago, and started working from home again, I didn’t realize how much of an aggressive assault on many Ontarians – especially seniors and stay-at-home parents – our hydro time-of-use  (TOU) billing is. I had a naïve belief that it was fair. A user-pay balance. A tool to encourage us to conserve and use our appliances more wisely. And I’ve always been a big believer in conservation. But time-of-use is not what we hoped. It targets the people generally least able to afford it. Hydro rates have risen rapidly under the current government: we in Ontario already ……… click below for more ↓

Going Clear Reviewed

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Cults / Faith / Pseudoscience & Quackery / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19YGhuORcJk] I found it difficult to read Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (Random House, 2013): it gave me a sense of unease, forcing a frequent over-the-shoulder glance to see if someone was following me just because I was reading it. But nonetheless, it proved compelling – so much so that I dropped all other books and read it cover to cover, uninterrupted earlier this summer. It is by far the most complete, detailled expose of the church I’ve read  to date, and it made me wonder, why hasn’t all of this come to light before? Or did ……… click below for more ↓

Fiddling While Rome Burns

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies4 Comments

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You know that legend about Nero fiddling while around him Rome was burning? It’s a popular metaphor for political cluelessness, for inaction, procrastination, for politicians oblivious to the important business of the city while they play games. For municipal leaders who focus on the petty, the trivial, the irrelevant and the self-serving, while major issues are ignored. Pretty much sums up Collingwood Council’s record to date. Fiddling with irrelevancies. To be fair, they’ve only been in office eight months and probably haven’t got around to focusing on important things. Still, you have to scratch your head and wonder why council wastes its collective energy on ……… click below for more ↓

Another Secretive, Self-Serving Committee

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

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This week, Collingwood Council passed a motion to appoint the Block Five to a new standing committee. The standing committee system, you will recall, is a system of secretive committees that operates predominantly out of the public eye, with limited council attendance, and often without even media presence. Committees conduct town business beyond the pale of accountability. Here’s what they passed (in a 6-3 vote*): THAT Council approve the Striking Committee recommendation and appoint the following members to the Environmental Services Standing Committee: Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson, Councillor Tim Fryer, Councillor Cam Ecclestone, Councillor Kathy Jeffery, and Councillor Deb Doherty. Saunderson and Fryer are, ……… click below for more ↓

Nailing Collingwood’s Door Shut to Business

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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Councillor Deb Doherty seems eager to cement this council’s already ugly but deserved reputation for being hostile to business. This week she made a motion to re-open the always-contentious sign bylaw, apparently in order to impose draconian restrictions on business signs THAT Council direct Staff to review Sign By-law 2012-110 with respect to sign height and any other revisions or amendments as deemed appropriate by the Chief Building Official; AND FURTHER THAT the report be presented through the Development and Operations Standing Committee not later than August 31, 2015. Sign bylaws are necessary, but always contentious to debate. Municipalities want to limit clutter. Business owners ……… click below for more ↓

Reincarnation as a Consultant or a Psychic?

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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  A wag met Nasrudin. In his pocket he had an egg. “Tell me, Mullah, are you any good at guessing games?” “Not bad,” said Nasrudin. “Very well then: tell me what I have in my pocket.” “Give me a clue, then.” “It is shaped like an egg, it is yellow and white inside, and it looks like an egg.” “Some sort of cake,” said Nasrudin.* Should I have the chance to do my life all over again, I’m not sure which career I would prefer most: a psychic or a consultant. One takes money from people because he is ……… click below for more ↓

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