Category: Disrespect and bad behaviour

The costs of the Block’s conspiracy theory

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

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$6.2 million. That’s how much it cost Mississauga to have a judicial inquiry into its utility Enersource, back in 2011. That inquiry was initially estimated to cost $2 million but the costs more than tripled, according to a story in The Connection. Imagine what The Block’s judicial inquiry is going to cost us in Collingwood. Millions and millions more. They’ve already admitted it will cost taxpayers around $2 million. But none of them have even the slightest idea of what’s involved, who has to be called, who pays what, or what the process is. They just swallowed the bait on ……… click below for more ↓

The Block Bullies

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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Like all schoolyard bullies, The Block use aggressive tactics intended to intimidate and cow anyone who stands up to or disagrees with them. From their phony, trumped-up OPP investigation – which after five years hasn’t produce a single charge, nor have any of the alleged miscreants even been interviewed by police – through the debacle of how they handled the sale of Collus, to bullying the hospital, to their puerile judicial inquiry, The Block are hellbent on their vendettas. This is a group that continues to set the bar lower at every turn. This latest bit of dirty politics shows ……… click below for more ↓

Our treasonous council

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

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If Collingwood Council operated at a higher tier or government – say the federal level – they would be called treasonous and taken to court for their culture of deception, their attacks on our democratic and civic institutions, and for their ongoing betrayal of the public trust. But because they are only a municipal government, they can merely be called despicable while we await the next election. The latest act of desperation in the dungheap of this term is the recent motion to demand a judicial inquiry into the sale of 50% of our electrical utility to PowerStream last term. ……… click below for more ↓

Thoughts on local municipal governance

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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A popular political theory presents two basic and often contradictory models of how elected officials should (or do) behave as representatives. One is as a delegate: solely acting as a representative of the people who elected them. The other is as a trustee, serving (or attempting to serve) everyone under their governance. In practice, these are not absolutely discrete, but are practiced in combination with one another, as situations dictate or according to how vocal the electors are.* How is this practiced here, in Collingwood? Yes, I know, the notion of The Block actually having or understanding a theory of ……… click below for more ↓

Wasaga pulls airport support

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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Another post where I get to say “I told you so.” Wasaga Beach pulled its support for the Collingwood Airport just like Clearview did a little earlier. Told you they would. Why? Simple: because of The Block. Seven of our councillors resolutely stand in the way of growth, business, development, jobs, a better community, our healthcare – everything except their own wellbeing and personal advantage. I warned you that the combination of the roadblocks and the wall of secrecy erected by The Block would drive our regional partners away. And it did. Even before this, I warned you the shoddy, ……… click below for more ↓

Madigan’s motion jeopardizes town

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Staff and administration2 Comments

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On January 15, Councillor Bob Madigan made a motion (seconded, of course, by his puppetmaster, Deputy Mayor Saunderson) to limit the progress of the Indigo/Eden-Oak/McNabb development at the south end of town. Madigan’s motion demanded that, …council provide no further approvals to the Eden Oak/McNabb development until such time as council as a whole has the opportunity to review the concerns expressed by the neighbouring residents and agree upon any mitigation options. (Yes, I wondered who wrote it for him, too… whoever did it wasn’t very bright because he or she failed to identify what those mitigation measures should entail, ……… click below for more ↓

Bullshit and hypocrisy again

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Staff and administration / TaxesLeave a comment

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You have to hand it to our Deputy Mayor: for all his many, many faults, he does do two things remarkably well: hypocrisy and bullshit. Neither does he do in halfway measures. No, when he dons their mantle, he wears the emperor’s new clothes with pride, head to toe. At January 15’s council meeting, Brian took both bullshit and hypocrisy to stratospherically new levels. Astounding levels seldom seen outside today’s White House; truly breathtaking to see it here in our little town. More proof the kakistocracy is alive and well in  Collingwood. At 2:23:04 Brian made a notice of motion for ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s culture of secrecy

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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For the past fifteen months, I have been trying to get a copy of the Request For Proposals (RFP) sent out to potential buyers for the purchase of our public utility. For the past fifteen months, the town has fought me, has refused to hand it over, has challenged my appeals to the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC). The public is not allowed to see it, even though it affects us and our once-public utility. Even though it is in the public’s interest to know what has been going on. Why not? After all, the RFP was released in August, ……… click below for more ↓

What became of Better Together Collingwood?

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Publicity & Communications2 Comments

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Rather amusingly, the Better Together Collingwood website is still online. The latest event noted on the site is a rally for Monday March 25, 2013. Its Facebook page also remains intact, although the most recent post there is dated Jan. 15, 2015. But what are stale-dated entries about non-existent activities of a fake association among friends, eh? Well, it seems the only friends left for BTC are at the council table. It’s amusing because as a group it ceased to be a functional entity the moment the last municipal election was held and Brian Saunderson won his seat as deputy ……… click below for more ↓

Brian suddenly realizes there’s a budget process.

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / TaxesLeave a comment

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Over on BBFFWS (Brian’s BFF’s Web Site) is a sort-of-a story about Collingwood’s 2018 budget. It’s really just some comments about a document this council won’t even get a peek at until sometime in late January, and won’t get through the approval stage until late spring or even early summer. Even though all of our municipal neighbours, the county and indeed most of Ontario, have already approved their 2018 budgets, Collingwood continues to slog along, months behind the process curve. And nary a word of complaint from The Block. Well, to be fair, nary a word they even noticed was ……… click below for more ↓

The Block do it to themselves. Again.

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour2 Comments

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Some readers may be tired of me pointing out how dim-witted The Block on our council are, how little they understand, how little they know, how they dislike reading and learning, how they don’t understand even simple consequences of their actions and how they always blame others for their mistakes and their destructive acts. So this post, let’s let a couple of them do it themselves. In this piece it will be Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson and his lickspittle Councillor Bob Madigan. The headline on the Collingwood Connection piece reads, “Collingwood council wants reason for Clearview’s exit from airport board.” Well  like ……… click below for more ↓

EPCOR and The Block’s Big Lie

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Staff and administration / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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For all their evils and their wrongs, the Soviets did some things very well: propaganda and disinformation. As one writer commented in the Spectator, “Communist ideology dismissed the idea of truth as a bourgeois construct. What mattered was power; and you baptised as truth those doctrines which provided it.” Stalin defined truth as what he said it was. The Soviets were such masters at it from an early stage that George Orwell declared that history stopped in 1936; after that there was only propaganda. So good were they at it that their methods and techniques were copied by other states ……… click below for more ↓

Alectra says no: The Block screwed us again

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes / User fees and costsLeave a comment

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The headline on the media release reads, “Alectra selling its shares in Collus PowerStream to Collingwood.” What it should add is that Collingwood residents and taxpayers were betrayed by members of their own council and administration. After a three-year campaign to screw us, The Block have won a major victory in abhorrent behaviour. They are privatizing our electrical utility and next year will do the same to our water/wastewater utility, to the same corporation. Our publicly-owned utility will be sold to EPCOR, an out-of-province, for-profit corporation that pays a dividend to the city of Edmonton only, and that will raise ……… click below for more ↓

Open vs secret at Collingwood Council part 2

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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In the previous part of this story, I provided dates of meetings and events in the terms of the previous council (on which I sat) and the current council. I documented how last term, the sale of one half the share of our electrical utility (Collus) was sold to the municipally-owned PowerStream (now Alectra) through a very well-documented, open and transparent process. I compared it to the secretive, deceptive process used by The Block on Collingwood Council, and the administration. Last term, residents and stakeholders were engaged and informed. This term we have been ignored, avoided and lied to. Last ……… click below for more ↓

It’s about the process, stupid…

Blog & Blogging / Collingwood / Conspiracy Theories / Council / Critical Thinking / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Personal Reminiscences / Political fads / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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My negative comments on the impending privatization of our electrical utility (and potentially our water utility once the first deal is sealed) drew some online criticism recently. None of those critics refuted any of the facts I offered, or attempted to debunk any of the numerous documents I quoted and linked to. Nor could they. After all, they are easily proven, well-documented facts. But still, they called me a liar and attempted to use other cheap ad hominem tactics to discredit me.* However, regardless of their like or dislike of me, the facts remain, the facts speak for themselves. Facts ……… click below for more ↓

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