Category: Ethics and behaviour

Striving for Mediocrity

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Local media / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Staff and administration3 Comments

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On a council laden with dunces, deadwood, and dullards, it must be some consolation to our elected representatives, that they can at least claim to be less mediocre than Councillor Steve Berman. We all need someone to measure ourselves against, I suppose, and a low bar is so much easier to rise above. Berman’s first year in office was spent mostly consuming oxygen at the table and saying nothing of consequence. Of so little consequence were his words that even the normally sycophantic local media hardly ever bothered to reprint them. But when the pandemic struck and council retreated into ……… click below for more ↓

Where is Collingwood’s Pandemic Response?

Collingwood / Council / COVID-19 responses / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies2 Comments

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I admit I am stumped. I have been looking online to find something that tells me what Collingwood council has done in response to the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year. I’m looking for real, concrete, measurable steps, things that benefit our community; things that residents and businesses can point to and say “This helped me survive.” I don’t want to read about promises, nor bloviations, nor self-serving proclamations with all the substance of a bad dream. We get enough vapid, banal content from our shambolic council already. Watching a council meeting is like being trapped in an elevator with ……… click below for more ↓

What would $9 Million Buy Our Town?

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Development & Growth / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Financial follies / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryOne Comment

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Back a few years ago, the 2010-14 council led by Mayor Cooper approved building for the community several important structures and buying for public ownership several properties, any of which — indeed, several of which — could have been built for less than the $9 million cost we taxpayers are burdened with paying for the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) this term. For example, the new firehall we commissioned in 2012 cost $4.75 million. For roughly twice that amount, you know what you got from this council? Right: a report. And not just any report: we got a digital report, ……… click below for more ↓

As Important as Clean Drinking Water?

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Financial follies / Planning & Policies / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Staff and administration5 Comments

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I wonder how the people of Walkerton would feel about Collingwood CAO’s statement, reported in Collingwood Today, that implementing the 300-plus recommendations of the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) is “equivalent with the top priorities we have, like providing clean drinking water.” I wonder how many people in our town will be saved from a painful, water-borne illness and possible death if, for example, the town encourages the province to implement recommendation number two: 2 Describing the mayor as both the head of Council and chief executive officer blurs the fact that the mayor is the head of Council and ……… click below for more ↓

The irony, the hypocrisy

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

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There’s a letter on the council consent agenda that will either make you shake your head in wonder at the brash irony of it, or laughing at a writer who plays a fawning Rudy Giuliani to Saunderson’s Trump. It’s from Claire Tucker-Reid, the co-chair of the former Central Park Steering Committee (SPSC; our current mayor was the other), the committee that can be argued to be the cause of this recent and expensive turmoil that led to the town wasting more than $8 million of your money on a vindictive judicial inquiry (or, as some believe, a vendetta). The inquiry ……… click below for more ↓

The Judicial Inquiry and $7+ Million

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry2 Comments

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Was it worth more than $7.7 million of your tax dollars? That’s roughly $8,400 a page (including, yes, the blank pages). That includes $232,866 in town staff salaries and $48,008 in staff travel expenses. Fifty-seven percent of that total went to legal costs, including $1.58 million on the town’s own legal costs. I can’t tell from the article linked above if the total includes the cost of having to rent commercial space downtown for the treasury department during the inquiry. I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t speak to what a Judicial Inquiry is supposed to do, how it is ……… click below for more ↓

My answers to SOS

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / TaxesLeave a comment

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The following questions were sent to all candidates by the local citizen’s group, Save Our Shoreline (SOS). These are my answers, below. I have formatted my response for better online reading. The questions are in italics. 1.) In order of priority how would you rank the top five (5) priorities for the Town of Collingwood over the next 4 years? Financial sustainability. We cannot build, we cannot create, we cannot start new projects if we cannot afford them – and we have to keep the impact on the taxpayers at a minimum and reduce town spending (but not to lower ……… click below for more ↓

Statement for the Judicial Inquiry

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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NB: This is the statement I read aloud at the public meeting for the Judicial Inquiry, Monday, Aug. 13, 2018. It is a much-abbreviated version of a statement I have made in my written submission to the inquiry. Thank you, your honour, for letting me speak tonight. My name is Ian Chadwick. I was a member of the previous council. This inquiry is about two of the many challenges council faced and overcame last term. First was the changing nature of Ontario’s energy sector. Prior to the provincial election, all three political parties vowed to reduce the number of Local ……… click below for more ↓

My responses to residents: 4

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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NB: As a candidate for Deputy Mayor in the upcoming municipal election, I receive questions from residents about my stand on various issues and policies. I will post my responses here for everyone to read. My responses are in italics, below. Please keep your answers short and to the point. The following are my questions: 1.What do you see as the main issues in this upcoming election campaign? Answer: A return to open, accountable and ethical government to regain the trust of the people and staff is the first priority. 2.What experience do you bring to the office of Deputy ……… click below for more ↓

Airport sold after secret deal, no public input

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

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According to the Connection, Collingwood’s airport – owned by the taxpayers – was just sold to a private corporation after almost 20 closed-door council sessions. Not once was the public consulted. Not once was the public told WHY or even if selling the airport was good for the community. Not once did Brian Saunderson or his Block puppets warn the public last election campaign that they planned to sell our public asset.  Not once did Saunderson or the Block or the town administration present a business case in the past four years to show that selling it was good, that ……… click below for more ↓

Running for office, 2018

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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This morning I filed my papers to run for Deputy Mayor in the 2018 municipal election. I want to thank everyone who encouraged me to run, who endorsed my application, and who has promised to help my campaign. Your confidence in my ability to do the job and to provide open, ethical governance and return council to accountability is deeply felt. I promise I will not let you down. I will continue to inform voters of the abuses of power and personal agendas this term, and expose for a larger audience the unacceptable amount of secrecy and deception this council ……… click below for more ↓

You’re being lied to. Again.

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & CommunicationsOne Comment

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On Tuesday, July 17, the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee held a meeting. Its sole purpose was to retreat behind closed doors (as this council does at every opportunity) and discuss the sale of our publicly-owned airport. To date, this council has already held 16 in camera meetings about the airport. And during these secretive meetings, our council not only decided to sell our airport, but not to hold any public consultations about that sale. Not once this term has anyone on council said WHY they wanted to sell a successful, busy, publicly-owned airport. Not once has anyone at the table ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson trolling for votes

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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After four years of deception, secrecy, more closed-door meetings than the previous four councils combined, and avoiding public scrutiny at all costs, Brian Saunderson and his Block minions have suddenly decided that they want to be “accessible”. I know, I know: stop smirking. On the threshold of a municipal election, desperate to sanitize their grubby reputation, they’ve called for live streaming of all meetings – years after moving many committee meetings out of town hall to deter that very public accessibility, and refusing to live stream as early as 2015. Amazing how some politicians can do an about-face when an ……… click below for more ↓

A cop on every corner and in every backyard

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

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Councillor Kathy Jeffrey wants to get tough on crime. Serious crimes like throwing birdseed on your deck, not cutting the grass on the boulevard in front of your house, and riding a bicycle on a sidewalk. I suppose and we’re all at risk from imminent social collapse if they aren’t curtailled and the malfeasants brought to justice right away. And charged. Big, hefty, bankruptcy-threatening fines. Getting tough on crime is always a hot button topic around election time, so there’s little surprise Jeffrey is on that bandwagon now, and was silent about it the previous three-and-a-half years. The Connection reported ……… click below for more ↓

More costs pile onto the SVJI

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

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It seems Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) is eating up taxpayer money rapidly, with a little help from other town departments. It was originally estimated to cost taxpayers between $2 and $6 million – and now it seems that could be much more thanks to this latest farcical chapter. Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry needs space, not just your cash, to conduct its business. Lots of space, it seems. The SVJI crew had set up shop in town hall, and were occupying office real estate therein, but it wasn’t enough: they needed room to expand. With space in the building already ……… click below for more ↓

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