Ineptitude and bungling – Page 2

Council Gives a Bad Name to Train Wrecks

In his latest post, fellow blogger Chris Potts opines on our council’s misogynistic bullying of former councillor Tina Comi that resulted in her resignation from the toxic environment in local politics. Potts calls our council a train wreck, noting: …my true opinion of this council and the only thing that comes to mind when I think of them is “Train Wreck”. Over the past months, we continue to watch the same crap day in day out, absolutely no leadership at the top, and to be honest, there really hasn’t been much leadership from the entire group. While he is absolutely … click below for more ↓

Comi-gate Continues to Plague Council

2022-02-10 2022-02-12 Collingwood / Council / COVID-19 responses / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling4 Comments

Mayor Saunderson and his gang of bullies continue to take flack for their hostile, childish behaviour towards the former Councillor Tina Comi, who resigned her seat late last month. The week after she resigned, the town’s integrity commissioner (IC) revealed a complaint against Comi filled by the Gang of Six because her 11-year-old son entered her room during a council training session that should have been held in public. You can read the story about their disgraceful, vengeful act here. And once again, our council lowers the bar when dealing with the public. At the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee (SISC) … click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s Broken Windows

2022-01-09 2022-01-09 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Ineptitude and bunglingLeave a comment

NB. This post was first published on Dec. 9, 2021 If I sometimes seem to complain in a picayune manner, harping on the same signs of scruffiness and neglect that we seem to see more often around town these days, there’s a reason for it. Mostly it’s because I care about my community and it deeply bothers me when others — especially those elected to do so — don’t. But it’s also because I believe that even small signs of neglect reflect a larger problem, not just declining morale and ineptness in townhall. Contrary to the popular saying, the small stuff … click below for more ↓

Yet More Disrespect From Madigan

2022-01-08 2022-01-08 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Ineptitude and bunglingLeave a comment

NB: This is a repost from Dec. 9, 2021. See below. Last year, I wrote about how Councillor Bob “Lapdog” Madigan had behaved in a churlish, misogynistic manner towards female members of council during open council meetings, first in March, 2021, and again in October. But if you thought the boorish Madigan — who, it’s rumoured, plans to run for mayor or deputy mayor next election — could not set the bar any lower in puerile, boorish behaviour, last December he showed his utter disrespect not only to council and staff, but to the entire community he is supposed to represent. … click below for more ↓

Our Council’s Reprehensible Greed

2021-11-03 2021-11-03 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Taxes2 Comments

Our council’s sense of entitlement again came to light this week. A report from a consultant tabled in the Nov.1 meeting of the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee recommends that the mayor receive a 9.5% increase, while councillors get a 5% increase (page five of the report). Nine-point-five percent? Who gets a raise like that these days? Even five percent is over the top. The justification for this egregious salary boost is stated in the report: Remuneration traditionally is intended to provide some form of compensation to recognize the time commitment required to meet the needs of constituents and apply municipal … click below for more ↓

Petitioning Mayor Saunderson to Actually Act Like a Mayor

2021-10-27 2021-10-27 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling5 Comments

There’s a petition being shared online that calls on Mayor Brian Saunderson to actually do his job as head of council and discipline the misbehaving Councillor Madigan. You can read my post about Madigan’s behaviour here, and download a PDF copy of the petition here (or download a Word version here). I doubt he will heed it, but I admire the sentiment. After all, Saunderson has yet to show he actually cares about his role as mayor or even about the community he was elected to lead. And his favourite, Madigan, has been acting puerile for too long to change. … click below for more ↓

Council Considers Possibly Thinking About Maybe Doing Something Important Sometime in the Future

2021-10-07 2021-10-07 Collingwood / Council / COVID-19 responses / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

We’re almost two years into an ongoing pandemic, yet all the lessons learned in jurisdictions worldwide about vaccinations and public safety have apparently simply drifted past our inept and gormless council. People are still getting ill and dying even in our own community, but our council is sort-of thinking about possibly sometime maybe in the future considering the potential to discuss the likelihood of looking at having a municipal vaccination policy. Or not to have one. And maybe they’ll even think about discussing the possibility of the likelihood of perhaps doing it before the pandemic ends. According to a recent … click below for more ↓

Why is Millennium Park so Poorly Maintained?

2021-10-01 2021-10-01 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Local history / TaxesOne Comment

We took a walk along the sidewalk and trail into the inappropriately-named “Millennium” Park* this week and were deeply disappointed by the lack of maintenance there. Aside from seeing a private pickup truck driving on the sidewalk for 100 or more metres before turning onto Waterside Lane (where were the police when you need them?) and the trees along the eastern side of the road that were abandoned to die, it was the poor condition of the trail at the north end, the sinkholes, and the lack of maintenance for the commemorative bricks and benches that we noticed most. I’ve … click below for more ↓

Another Council Facepalm Moment

2021-09-30 2021-09-30 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ineptitude and bungling / Legal issues / Planning & Policies / Wacky WTF ideasLeave a comment

In a story on CollingwoodToday, this week council again discussed their job-growth-and revenue-killing interim control bylaw (ICBL) that has stopped the town from issuing new home building permits for the next four or more years, until a new water treatment plant is built. Of course, none of the developers or the construction industry, or anyone in the water treatment plant business, were consulted about the ICBL before it was passed. Why would council want to set a precedent and actually engage anyone that their dictates affected?

Cwood’s Ship Walk of Shame

2021-09-07 2021-09-07 Collingwood / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Local history4 Comments

Collingwood’s long history of shipbuilding, from the first hull (the Huronic, in 1901), to the last in 1985 (the Paterson, #231) was intended to be proudly captured in bronze plaques embedded in the sidewalks along Heritage Drive and around the boat docks. This was our “walk of history.” The town’s “Discover Collingwood” brochure says: 15. Harbourlands Walk of History Take a walk on the memorial walkway through Shipbuilder’s Park along Heritage Drive. The pathway has over 60 memorial plaques commemorating the ships built in Collingwood. Local residents and companies paid hundreds of dollars each ($400? More? I cannot find a … click below for more ↓

The Sad Neglect of Collingwood’s Terminals

2021-08-28 2021-08-28 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications6 Comments

Whether you want to restore them or tear them down, you would probably like council to do SOMETHING about the decaying, century-old icon*on our waterfront. Anything, in fact. But as usual, council’s approach to actually doing something has been instead to do defer, delay, hire consultants, bloviate, ignore, pretend it doesn’t matter, and then pretend to want public input. The town’s website says: The Town of Collingwood is taking another step forward in determining the future of the Grain Terminals facility. In doing so, the Town seeks to support a healthy, strong, and vibrant community that recognizes the value of … click below for more ↓

Yet Another WTF Were They Smoking Decision from Council

2021-08-21 2021-09-12 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Legal issues / Publicity & Communications / Wacky WTF ideas6 Comments

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 ↓

Another WTF Were They Smoking Moment From Council

2021-08-02 2021-08-04 Collingwood / Council / Financial follies / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies10 Comments

I read this in CollingwoodToday: At Monday night’s council meeting, Coun. Deb Doherty got support from her council colleagues to ask staff to investigate the feasibility of creating a Healing Forest in Collingwood, and report back during 2022 budget deliberations. And my first thought was, WTF are they smoking in council meetings these days? And then I thought, a “healing forest”? WTF is that? Is it the opposite of a “wounding forest”? If I have a broken arm, can I go to the “healing forest” and get it fixed instead of the hospital? Does it dispense bandages and antibiotics? What does … 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 ↓

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 ↓