Category: Ethics and behaviour

This man should resign

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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Can a municipality operate effectively with a toxic relationship between the mayor and the CAO? Can staff avoid being involved in the confrontation? Can the public expect the best service and support from its leaders if the two top people are at odds? Clearly not. A story in The Connection reinforced just how bad things have become in town hall between the mayor and the interim CAO. Once you read it, I believe you will agree with me: the interim CAO must go. Now. Right now. He is an embarrassment to everyone. This behaviour is intolerable. It doesn’t matter that he ……… click below for more ↓

More council secrecy, more council scheming

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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On Monday’s council agenda there are again two in-camera topics that reinforce just how much little respect The Block have for process, ethics, the public, legality, openness and transparency. The Block will – again – secretly discuss privatizing our water and wastewater services to the out-of-province, for-profit corporation, EPCOR, and also secretly discuss appointing new directors to the Collus-PowerStream board. Both should be discussed and decided in public. Both should have had public input or consultation. But why should The Block change habits now? The backroom, sole-source EPOCR deal is so shady it could have been a script for The ……… click below for more ↓

Another imaginary roadblock for the hospital

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital5 Comments

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In the April 24 addendum to the agenda there is a report by the interim CAO about the hospital redevelopment you should read. It seems another council hissy fit is in the making. Your first question should be: why is the interim CAO writing and signing a report that ought to come from the planning department? It’s a planning issue – was the planning department reluctant to submit it? Didn’t agree with the conclusions? It’s a political document and written in political language. Perhaps no one in the department felt they should take ownership of it. Planning issues should be ……… click below for more ↓

Collus-PowerStream responds about dividend

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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On the April 24 council agenda is an addendum that includes the response from Collus-PowerStream about The Block’s questions over the lack of a dividend from the utility. I wrote about this last month in Dividends for Dummies. I’m glad to see what I wrote then has been proven correct. The original letter from CPS back in February, stated, “The Board decision was based on the Dividend Policy of the Corporation including consideration of an appropriate capital structure and working capital levels required to continue to operate as a viable business.” Clearly none of The Block had the slightest clue ……… click below for more ↓

Shoulda, coulda, woulda

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

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Two and a half years of calamitous mismanagement. Council motivated by wild conspiracy theories, maliciousness and personal vendettas. A rudderless, ruthless administration flailing and fumbling its way from one catastrophe to another. The town’s reputation ruined. Our municipal partners and neighbours alienated. Secret discussions determine the fate of our assets while the public is excluded from the process. Taxes and costs rising and sole-sourced contracts handed out like party favours. Ethics tossed out the window and the municipal air redolent with the stench of entitlement. And the term is barely half-way through. What a disaster. Any commentary or discussion on ……… click below for more ↓

Why is this man still working for Collingwood? – part 2

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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Almost a year ago, I posed the question: why is the interim CAO still working for Collingwood? After his behaviour and aggressive, disrespectful grilling of the hospital board chair and foundation head, March 27, 2017, that question has even more significance. And, you might ask, why hasn’t council dealt with it? After all, his behaviour reflects on them – and poorly. The interim CAO’s relationship with the mayor is at best strained, at worst abrasive and unproductive. In a recent email she accused him of bullying and suggested he resign. Councillor Lloyd has made similar comments and recently blocked his ……… click below for more ↓

The hospital, the trolley and political ethics

Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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In its decision about the redevelopment of the Collingwood General & Marine Hospital, Collingwood Council is evidently taking the track less travelled, trolleyology-wise. Seen as an ethical issue, our council has chosen to act against the greater good. Trolleyology is the somewhat humourous name given to philosophical intellectual exercises or thought problems about our ethics and ethical choices. As Wikipedia describes it, the basic problem (and there are many, many variants) is simple: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is ……… click below for more ↓

Council continues to attack the hospital

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital6 Comments

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If I had the choice between spending eight hours in a dentist’s chair having oral surgery without anaesthetic and spending two hours in a council meeting listening to the bureaucratic bullshit, the administration’s unfocused mumbling and meandering, the councillors’ self-justifying, self-aggrandizing, self-righteous grandstanding, boasting, empty platitudes, and argumentative whining palaver, after last night, I’ll choose the dentist’s chair any time. It’s less painful. That’s because Monday night I spent two hours in an audience of more than 325 people listening to council trying to justify its war on our hospital, simply to support The Block’s shrunken base of supporters, all ……… click below for more ↓

Dividends for dummies

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water9 Comments

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A dividend, as defined by the Business Dictionary, is “A share of the after-tax profit of a company, distributed to its shareholders…” This is reiterated in the description from the Oxford Dictionary: “A sum of money paid regularly (typically annually) by a company to its shareholders out of its profits (or reserves).” So in order to pay a dividend, you need to make a profit. Otherwise, all your revenue goes to operating expenses, salaries and taxes. And a dividend isn’t paid to just one person or shareholder: if one shareholder gets one, then every shareholder gets one. Dividends are NOT ……… click below for more ↓

The Blame Game

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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Remember The Name Game – that song from the Sixties that had those crazy lyrics: Shirley! Shirley, Shirley/ Bo-ber-ley, bo-na-na fanna/ Fo-fer-ley. fee fi mo-mer-ley, Shirley! Not the most intellectual lyrics of the era, I admit, but not forgotten and clearly suitable for local tastes. In Collingwood town hall, for example, they even sing their own version, The Blame Game: Bloggers! Bloggers! Bloggers! Bo-ba-loggers, bo-na-na fanna Fo-fer-loggers fee fi mo-mer-loggers, Bloggers! And so on. It’s part of the “not my fault” mindset that infuses The Block and the administration this term: blame everyone else for the mess you made yourself. ……… click below for more ↓

The OPP investigation after 48 months

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics2 Comments

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Forty-eight months ago a very small group of disgruntled, angry residents – some with burning ambition to take a seat on council themselves – complained to the OPP, allegedly about decisions made by the previous council. Decisions and people this group didn’t like. Decisions they thought – without any proof – were shady. People they thought – again without any proof – were corrupt. Both conspiracy theories have long since been proved wrong. But they damaged reputations and lives, while others used the fallout to further their own dark goals. All done without the slightest twinge of guilt.  From summer 2013 through the election, ……… click below for more ↓

GIS for CGMH

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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I wanted to give you a graphic comparison for your consideration. It’s one you can do for yourself with very little effort – so little in fact, that even The Block could do it. If, that is, they had any interest in doing something that might challenge their rigid ideology. Or take their attention away from their witch hunts for even a nanosecond. But you, dear reader, are smarter than they are, and I can sense you are already intrigued. So let’s get started. Open your web browser and go over to Simcoe County’s map site at maps.simcoe.ca/public and zoom ……… click below for more ↓

Council in panic mode

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital3 Comments

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Collingwood Council has graduated from inept bumbling and stumbling to fully-fledged, sky-is-falling, Henny Penny panic mode, it seems. A special meeting has been called to try and do damage control over the Monday night fiasco about the hospital. The Block divided the community, alienated their supporters, and fostered division and acrimony. No bandage will heal those self-inflicted wounds. So they panic. The meeting was called today for tomorrow, Saturday, March 4. It is another in-camera meeting – this council LOVES to go behind closed doors to discuss everything and avoid public scrutiny. The agenda says: 4. IN-CAMERA THAT this Council ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson’s disrespectful performance

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital2 Comments

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“Your honour, I object,” shouted Perry Mason as he leapt from his chair and approached the bench. “This line of questioning is simply badgering my client.” “Sustained,” roared the judge, pounding his gavel. Didn’t you just wish someone would have done that Monday night? I certainly did, while watching the embarrassing, disrespectful way that Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson grilled David Finbow, the volunteer delegate from the hospital board. Cross-examined Finbow as if he were a criminal. That is NOT the way we expect our elected representatives to treat delegates. It was embarrassing and, frankly, childish. As I read it, it’s ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson shirks his responsibility to taxpayers

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / TaxesLeave a comment

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The town’s budget is by far the single most important thing elected officials have to manage. It’s complicated, affects everyone in town, reaches into every department, ranges through services, user fees, and ultimately determines the quality of life for everyone here. It is the one thing that demands the full attention, the full concentration,  the fullest effort of our councillors. It demands active participation and open dialogue, full discussion from all of our elected members. So what does our deputy mayor do when others are struggling through the budget? Brian Saunderson leaves the room to go play on the ski ……… click below for more ↓

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