Ethics and behaviour – Page 11

More council Christmas carols

2016-12-24 2016-12-24 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & SatireLeave a comment

A few preliminary verses for your consideration this holiday season… perhaps my readers might like to offer their contributions or extend the verses below. To the tune of The Holly and the Ivy: The folly of our council, So evident to see Fumble, flail and bumble Of this we all agree. O the rising of our taxes And consultants not a few The lawyers that they hired Block vendettas to see through. To the tune of: We Three Kings of Orient Are: We the Block of Council votes are Conflicts of interest we bring from afar Sell our airport, sell ……… click below for more ↓

Council’s 12 Days of Christmas

2016-12-22 2016-12-22 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & SatireLeave a comment

On the first day of Christmas my council gave to me: An interim CAO. On the second day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Two tax hikes, And an interim CAO. On the third day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Three sole-sourced contracts, two tax hikes, And an interim CAO. On the fourth day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Four integrity investigations, three sole-sourced contracts, two tax hikes, And an interim CAO. On the fifth day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Five insults to the CGMH, four integrity investigations, three sole-sourced contracts, two ……… click below for more ↓

Council’s report card: Year 2, part 1

2016-12-18 2016-12-18 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & Satire / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

As we reach the end of our Council’s second year in office, halfway through its mandate, it is time again to assess the collective performance and list the accomplishments of our elected officials. To avoid accusations of egregious negativity, I will list council’s accomplishments first. And to avoid further accusations of meandering through overly long diatribes (mea culpa, I do ramble a bit…), I will split this post into two pieces. The good (this post) and the bad (a subsequent post). For a historical comparison, you might wish to refer to my analysis of council’s first year prior to reading ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s own Gong Show, part 2

2016-12-17 2016-12-18 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

As promised, here is the second part of the Gong Show analysis from December 12th’s council meeting. Like I said earlier, it’s perhaps more like a Keystone Cops or Abbott and Costello skit than the TV show. As always, you can follow along on the Rogers Community TV broadcast, starting at 2:16:30. Laugh aloud at the zany, misinformed antics of your elected representatives as they fumble and stumble their way through an agenda of items they clearly have no clue about. You should start with part 1 of my review, if you haven’t already read it. And by the end of ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s own Gong Show, part 1

2016-12-15 2016-12-15 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

Has there ever been a more inept, ineffective group at the council table in Collingwood? Certainly not in the 26 years I’ve been here. Not in the dozen years I covered it for the media, not in the 11 years I served on council have I seen anything so comical. Rogers TV really should put a laugh track on their broadcasts of council meetings. They could call it the Gong Show – had that name not already been taken by a more serious TV show. But until then, you should watch the December 12, 2016 meeting. You’ll roar, you’ll chuckle, ……… click below for more ↓

Collus share bid received

2016-12-12 2021-05-15 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

My sources tell me PowerStream submitted a bid to purchase the town’s share of the Collus-PowerStream utility, late on Friday, December 9. While the amount was not stated, I am told it is a “very fair” bid. This is so far going as I predicted in my earlier post. PowerStream paid $8 million cash for half the share in 2012 (with another $6.4 million coming through Collus from notes and recapitalization), but since then The Block and town administration gutted the board (twice), joyfully ruined the shared services agreement, and happily took away the water side thus reducing the utility’s revenue ……… click below for more ↓

Stumbling towards the utility’s demise

2016-12-10 2016-12-10 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

This week, Collingwood Council met in a special meeting to discuss an request from its utility partner, PowerStream, to waive some conditions of the shareholder agreement. This meeting appears to have been called by the interim CAO, which seems to me to usurp the mayor’s authority, but we know the administration – in partnership with The Block – has long been pulling the strings in this town to serve its own ends. Plus the meeting was held mid-day at the fire hall; a time and location that appears intended to deter both public and media presence. Well while the public ……… click below for more ↓

Those pesky costs The Block forgot to mention

2016-12-09 2016-12-09 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

Who sends out your water bills? Collus-PowerStream. It’s all part of the shared services agreement. Yes, that simple little agreement that for 15 productive, cooperative years linked our water and electrical utilities with mutual resources. That same agreement The Block dismantled and handed over to the interim CAO two years ago to rewrite and update. A 30-minute job that still hasn’t been completed. And never will be. Who takes the data from the meters, calculates the charges, prints and folds the bills, inserts them into envelopes and puts them through the postage meter? Collus-PowerStream. Who handles the automatic payments, the ……… click below for more ↓

No, Brian: Elvis isn’t in the CBSP

2016-12-04 2016-12-04 Collingwood / Council / Culture / Ethics and behaviour / Festivals & Events / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

At the Nov. 28 Council meeting (seen here on Rogers TV), Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson blathered on in cliché-rich, lawerly manner (starting 1:14:05) about how much the Elvis Festival means to his “Community-Based Strategic Plan” (1:16:18) – that committee-based wishlist which was neither strategic nor a plan. What does he mean when he claims that a report has “galvanized the question quite nicely”? Galvanized? Does he know what that word means? It’s not what he appears to think it does… it means to “shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action.” A staff report is seldom shocking or exciting, and ……… click below for more ↓

Muzzling the airport board

2016-12-02 2016-12-02 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

The Collingwood Airport Board wants to get its own legal opinion about the Clearview Aviation Business Park request for a non-binding letter of intent to negotiate access to the airport. Seems reasonable for the board charged with oversight of the airport to want to make sure that any decisions made best represent their mandate and the viability of the airport itself. The Block and Collingwood’s administration are opposed to them getting one. Are they afraid of what that opinion would say? That it wouldn’t come from a lawyer already instructed as to what to say? That they couldn’t control the ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption and conflict of interest

2016-11-24 2016-11-24 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications7 Comments

Ever get that uneasy sense of deja vu? That some ugly, undemocratic event you’re watching at council, some autocratic, conniving, secret and self-serving act is something you’ve experienced in the past? That those nasty breaches of ethics, those conflicts of interest, those ignored bylaws and broken trust are things you’ve already seen at the table? That you’re going through another round of corruption and conflict in Collingwood? By this very council? Well, my dear readers, you aren’t alone. On November 14, Collingwood Council once again went in camera and came out with this resolution: BE RESOLVED THAT Council hereby agrees ……… click below for more ↓

Obstructionism killing 1,600+ jobs & growth

2016-11-03 2016-11-03 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies3 Comments

Just when you thought Collingwood Council couldn’t set the bar any lower, they go and move it down another notch. On Monday, Oct. 31, The Block had a chance to save face, rectify their blatant mismanagement of the Collingwood Regional Airport development and save the proposed, $300 million, 260-acre, industrial park that could bring 400 full-time and 1,300 part-time or temporary jobs to the area. They didn’t. No surprises, of course. Barry Burton, the deputy mayor of Clearview Township, made a presentation to our council, Monday*, reiterating his community’s commitment to the development and growth at the airport and asking ……… click below for more ↓

Fulfilling a role? Who are you kidding?

2016-10-26 2016-10-26 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

The bite of irony is in the air when a flimsy piece of blatant Block propaganda masquerading as an official media release is published by the town. It has the misleading headline, “Town fulfilling role in hospital redevelopment process,” but only delusional sycophants won’t read it as a Block screed. When did town media releases shill for a group at the table, not represent the will of council as a whole? Did the mayor approve this dreck before it went out? I suspect not. * It’s ironic that last term’s council was criticized by some of the very people who ……… click below for more ↓

Collus report debunks Block conspiracies

2016-10-10 2016-10-10 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies2 Comments

Every year, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) publishes the scorecard of local distribution companies (LDCs). Across the province, more than 70 LDCs are ranked and rated according to performance, customer service, efficiency, progress and other measurable data for residents to see how their utility is doing. It’s a thing called openness and transparency. As the OEB notes: The scorecard includes traditional metrics for assessing a distributor’s services, such as frequency of power outages, financial performance and costs per customer. In addition, performance results for 2014 and onward will include a number of new metrics that directly reflect the customer experience, ……… click below for more ↓

Promises, promises, promises – all broken

2016-10-09 2016-10-09 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour10 Comments

Two years ago, in a series in the Collingwood Connection on the eve of the last election, 2014, all candidates were asked to make statements about certain issues. I thought it would be good to examine a few of their promises and see how well they have progressed. Whether they have actually kept those promises. Here is what they said about the topic of accountability and to measure their performance to date. First, just what is accountability? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or ……… click below for more ↓