Disrespect and bad behaviour – Page 4

Yet Another WTF Were They Smoking Decision from Council

Council has decided to close Maple Street to vehicular traffic at the end of this month, to make the street safe for bicycles as a one-month trial. Yes, I’m serious: they’re closing Maple Street, and it’s being done without even the pretense of consulting with the residents. But, in their typical manner of secrecy and deception, council will ask for residents’ feedback on the town’s website starting August 30, only AFTER the street is closed. Not before. The story in CollingwoodToday noted: The pilot project will run until Oct. 1, and will see barriers put up at each intersection from ……… click below for more ↓

Wilson Blames Council for Hospital Debacle, Brushes Off Saunderson

2021-08-20 2021-08-20 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Saunderson's MPP campaignLeave a comment

“I blame somewhat the local council,” said MPP Jim Wilson in this recent interview from the Peak FM about the continuing debacle of the hospital redevelopment. Well, so does most of this town. “We’ve not had a clear expression to Queen’s Park from the community, other than myself and Norah Holder, the President and CEO of the hospital, indicating that we don’t think you can use any of the old building. And that’s what we’ll spend the $15 million dollars on, that the Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, Christine Elliott, announced this week, proving to Queen’s Park that the ……… click below for more ↓

Meng and the SVJI: Parallel Cases?

2021-08-17 2021-08-17 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Financial follies / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

The ongoing case against Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou has an odd parallel in Collingwood. Our own petty, revenge-obsessed council’s threats to sue people who caused no harm nor have ever been charged with a crime has an echo in a comment made during Meng’s recent extradition hearings. Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes said she was “skeptical of the validity of the United States’ claim,” according to the report, and commented something worth quoting. Of course, many local people are also skeptical of Mayor Saunderson’s claims about the events of 2011-2012. Well, about pretty skeptical of all of his claims, but let’s ……… click below for more ↓

I Miss Collingwood’s Elvis Festival

2021-07-26 2021-07-26 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Financial follies / Ineptitude and bungling3 Comments

I miss Collingwood’s Elvis Festival. It was a weekend full of visitors, friends, music, entertainment, dancing, and fun. But it was killed in 2019 by a council that dislikes others having fun. Elvis was too loose, too free, too liberal, too wild for their puritanical tastes. Couldn’t have people dancing and singing in the streets, drinking, laughing, and enjoying themselves, could we? Fun, it seems, can only be something our dour, Soviet-style council mandates, and only under the strictest supervision and oversight. The Elvis Festival was a kitschy delight that drew thousands to the town, gave the community worldwide publicity, ……… click below for more ↓

A Quick Word for the Internet Trolls

2021-07-23 2021-07-23 Collingwood / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Social media & cyberbullying / Social Order & Disorder2 Comments

For the social media trolls and whingers who never take the time to read, or listen, or check facts before spewing out their bile, here are a dozen points to consider before you bloviate further (yes, I realize the chance that the hard-of-thinking will actually read this is slim, but I live in hope): The judicial inquiry (or as it’s known locally, the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry or SVJI) was NOT a criminal investigation. It was an examination of processes. No criminal charges resulted. No one went to jail. Not everyone agrees with the opinions, recommendations, or conclusions presented in ……… click below for more ↓

Harbourview Dump Splash Pad Already Over Budget

2021-07-19 2021-07-19 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water4 Comments

Local residents recently confirmed to me the dump that is under Harbourview Park occupied all the land from the wastewater treatment plant (WTP) on the east, to the Arboretum (Hickory Street) on the west, and all the land north of the rail line (now the Georgian Trail), right to the water’s edge. And that it was never properly decommissioned, merely covered with a thin layer of topsoil. And, they said, the garbage is right below the surface everywhere you dig. Including, I was again told, dead animals. So close to the surface the garbage is, I was told, that when ……… click below for more ↓

Cwood’s Corroding Lampposts

2021-07-02 2021-07-02 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling6 Comments

First Street was so attractive when it was first rebuilt, about 15 years ago: all new and shiny infrastructure. But since then, it has been basically neglected and the inevitable effects of snow, moisture, salt, sand, and pollution have played their role in corroding the once-proud, beautiful lampposts that line our highway through town. Walk along First Street between Hurontario and High Streets. Look at the bases of lampposts on both sides of the street. They are rotting away and will likely collapse unless restored or replaced. And it needs to be done immediately. many of the collars at their ……… click below for more ↓

They’re Paving Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot

2021-06-27 2021-06-28 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Financial follies / Ineptitude and bungling / Utilities: electricity and water11 Comments

By now you’re aware that our council has approved a plan to destroy a large open, public space in Harbourview Park, and replace healthy grass and trees with an asphalt parking lot so that people will drive instead of bicycling or walking to use the $1.55 million splash pad that will also be built there. This is the same council that is hiring a “climate change specialist” for $80,000 a year. You think that this “climate change specialist” would advise them to take a pedestrian-and-family friendly, environmentally-positive greenspace covered with renewable carbon-eating plant life and turn it into a vehicle-intensive ……… click below for more ↓

Council: Disarray, Disunited, Disrespectful

2021-06-27 2021-06-27 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement2 Comments

Chris Pott’s latest blog post, titled “Council in Major Disarray” captures in part the stumbling, bumbling, and fumbling in-fighting that has become endemic in our council and is now on view for the public’s entertainment. Potts writes: Collingwood, when council starts fighting amongst themselves, you know we are in trouble. We already knew we were on the brink of disaster but this now confirms we are heading down a bad path. This dumpster fire has been ongoing for a while, although not as often in public. Those closed doors that our council loves to scurry behind are said to shield ……… click below for more ↓

The Corrupt PC Nomination Process

2021-06-19 2021-06-19 Conflicts of Interest / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Provincial Politics / Saunderson's MPP campaign3 Comments

This week, Stella Ambler, a former candidate for the nomination for the PC party in Simcoe Grey, sent an email that expressed her disappointment over the party’s authoritarian actions: On Monday, Patrick Harris (4th Vice-President, PC Party of Ontario & Chair of the Provincial Nomination Committee for Simcoe-Grey) sent an official reply to my appeal of the decision to cancel the democratic nomination process here in Simcoe-Grey. In short, Mr. Harris informed me that my appeal was unworthy of the party’s consideration and would be neither considered nor voted upon by the Provincial Nomination Committee. Ambler was challenging Collingwood’s mayor, ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson Abandons Collingwood

2021-06-10 2021-06-10 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry2 Comments

In his latest email to PC Party members, Brian Saunderson predictably celebrates his anti-democratic appointment as candidate without having had to actually work for it. Our much-disliked mayor was rescued from likely failure in the nomination process by the intervention of the premier. But at the close of his email Saunderson writes, …it is time to turn our heads to an election in 2022. We know it will take a lot of organization, commitment, and effort. I will continue to keep you posted on the work ahead. I look forward to working with you in the future to build a ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson: An Affront to Democracy

2021-06-05 2021-06-05 Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Provincial Politics / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry8 Comments

PC nominee candidate Stella Ambler reported that her competitor, Brian Saunderson was anointed appointed as the party’s candidate for Simcoe-Grey without allowing the members to decide if they want him. Party members weren’t even given a warning that this was coming: the autocrat premier merely waved his hands and made it happen without regard to the desires of the party’s members. Ambler wrote in a recent email: This is a very disappointing development, and represents an affront to the democratic right of the members of the Simcoe-Grey PC Association to select their candidate. What she didn’t say, but seems obvious, ……… click below for more ↓

As Important as Clean Drinking Water? Part 2

2021-05-26 2021-05-26 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

Remember last December, when the town’s CAO announced that the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) was “equivalent with the top priorities we have, like providing clean drinking water”? Today, that statement would seem to be egg on her face, given more recent events (and the public’s utter lack of interest in the SVJI). Priorities like “clean drinking water” certainly take on a new light, when you consider how long council ignored our drinking water until it suddenly became a “crisis” that required a knee-jerk reaction. Council quickly passed a job-killing, revenue-killing, growth-killing bylaw to deal with it. And ……… click below for more ↓

Developers Bite Back at ICBL

2021-05-23 2021-05-23 Collingwood / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryOne Comment

‘The town created its own emergency’: Collingwood developer says project on hold due to water capacity issues. So reads the headline on a story on Simcoe.com. I laughed and laughed at the risible hypocrisy when I read this line in it: “Addressing the water treatment plant expansion and the water capacity issue is one of the town’s highest priorities,” said Mayor Brian Saunderson. “The town is aggressively pursuing remedies to address the water capacity issue.” The water capacity “crisis” is a self-made debacle created and maintained by the current council. The majority of them knew it was coming back in 2015! ……… click below for more ↓

ICBL Sinks Development and Saunderson’s MPP Dream

2021-04-27 2021-05-03 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry2 Comments

I wonder if our mayor, Brian Saunderson, gave any thought to what last night’s vote to kill construction in Collingwood might do to his dream of becoming our riding’s next MPP? I’d say both went down the tube when the draconian, interim control bylaw to stop providing building permits (the ICBL) was passed. In one meeting, our mayor and his cabal managed to alienate pretty much every developer and builder who was a potential supporter and donor to his campaign. And with them went the local real estate business, whose lifeblood is in the new home industry. Everyone in the ……… click below for more ↓