Category: Collingwood

Comments, thoughts and musings about my hometown: Collingwood, Ontario. And some local politics, too, with my comments as a municipal councillor.

Saunderson Abandons Collingwood

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry2 Comments

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In his latest email to PC Party members, Brian Saunderson predictably celebrates his anti-democratic appointment as candidate without having had to actually work for it. Our much-disliked mayor was rescued from likely failure in the nomination process by the intervention of the premier. But at the close of his email Saunderson writes, …it is time to turn our heads to an election in 2022. We know it will take a lot of organization, commitment, and effort. I will continue to keep you posted on the work ahead. I look forward to working with you in the future to build a ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson: An Affront to Democracy

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Provincial Politics / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry8 Comments

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PC nominee candidate Stella Ambler reported that her competitor, Brian Saunderson was anointed appointed as the party’s candidate for Simcoe-Grey without allowing the members to decide if they want him. Party members weren’t even given a warning that this was coming: the autocrat premier merely waved his hands and made it happen without regard to the desires of the party’s members. Ambler wrote in a recent email: This is a very disappointing development, and represents an affront to the democratic right of the members of the Simcoe-Grey PC Association to select their candidate. What she didn’t say, but seems obvious, ……… click below for more ↓

Ignoring the Potential Conflicts of Interest

Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

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A story in CollingwoodToday notes that council will hold a meeting on May 31 to consider exceptions to their job-and-revenue-killing interim control bylaw (ICBL). That bylaw abruptly ended all growth, building, and development because our inept council had failed to pay attention ever since they were elected to the water issue and the pipeline contract, despite staff reports about both. I wrote about this last month, pointing out how in 2015 the previous council killed the negotiations that began in 2014 under an earlier council. Had the negotiations been allowed to continue, we would have had a new contract PLUS ……… click below for more ↓

Council Fails Our Affordable Housing Residents

Collingwood / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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It’s ironic how Mayor Saunderson so loudly acclaimed the “Community-based strategic plan” last term (a document that was neither community-based nor a strategic plan) yet when a major issue arises around something important that was raised in that very “plan” he seems to be awfully silent. I’m talking about the disaster that is the low-rent/affordable housing apartments at the corner of Second and High Streets. According to a recent story in CollingwoodToday, with the understated title: “Residents irate about conditions of affordable housing building”* Tenants of Collingwood affordable housing hub, say they feel like ‘hostages’ in their apartments and are ……… click below for more ↓

As Important as Clean Drinking Water? Part 2

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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Remember last December, when the town’s CAO announced that the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) was “equivalent with the top priorities we have, like providing clean drinking water”? Today, that statement would seem to be egg on her face, given more recent events (and the public’s utter lack of interest in the SVJI). Priorities like “clean drinking water” certainly take on a new light, when you consider how long council ignored our drinking water until it suddenly became a “crisis” that required a knee-jerk reaction. Council quickly passed a job-killing, revenue-killing, growth-killing bylaw to deal with it. And ……… click below for more ↓

Developers Bite Back at ICBL

Collingwood / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryOne Comment

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‘The town created its own emergency’: Collingwood developer says project on hold due to water capacity issues. So reads the headline on a story on Simcoe.com. I laughed and laughed at the risible hypocrisy when I read this line in it: “Addressing the water treatment plant expansion and the water capacity issue is one of the town’s highest priorities,” said Mayor Brian Saunderson. “The town is aggressively pursuing remedies to address the water capacity issue.” The water capacity “crisis” is a self-made debacle created and maintained by the current council. The majority of them knew it was coming back in 2015! ……… click below for more ↓

Musings on Aesop and Local Politics

Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Council / Philosophy / Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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I’ve always liked reading “wisdom tales”; I still read and delight in those Zen Buddhist stories that Paul Reps recounted in his book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which I first encountered in the late 1960s. Not long after that, I discovered the many tales of the Mulla Nasrudin retold by Idries Shah, and the stories of the Wise Men of Chelm, the imaginary city of fools in Jewish folklore. Decades later, I still have most of these books. I suspect, however, little of the implied wisdom in them has rubbed off on me, yet I persist in reading them. Around ……… click below for more ↓

The Irony of Council’s Obsession

Collingwood / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

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Oh, the delicious irony. A council that has been so obsessed with the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) at the expense of everything important in this town is suddenly now all aflutter over traffic calming and street safety. Yeah, right… Since they were first elected, our myopic councillors have done nothing about our streets, about walkability, pedestrian safety, traffic calming, or bicycle lanes — much less fix our decaying pavement and crumbling sidewalks. In fact, since most of them were on the previous council, their egregious inactivity on these issues extends back more than six years. But who’s ……… click below for more ↓

Yet More Secrecy From Council

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / EntitlementOne Comment

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A “special” council meeting has been called for May 19. Now, when this council says ‘special” they almost always mean they scurry behind closed doors to avoid public scrutiny of their machinations. And, yep, they’re at it again: locking themselves away from the public eye, and sending a clear message about the credibility of their promised openness and transparency. The topic of discussion this time? Cultural Awareness Training.” Since when was that something that should be done in secret? That seems the sort of education that everyone in public could benefit from, not just councillors. So either it’s something else ……… click below for more ↓

Musings on Art and Taste

Arts / Collingwood / Culture / Daily life / Philosophy / Pop CultureOne Comment

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Many years ago, I had a lengthy correspondence with a friend in another part of Canada about what constitutes art. His basic argument was that art was not neutral or generic, but was the final product of high achievement: real art was “good” art. That is, art was defined by recognized masters and their works. Mona Lisa was art, Picasso was art, Monet was art — solely because they hung in galleries. It took cultural recognition or at least acceptance to make the change from simply a “work” to being art, according to my friend. You could, according to his ……… click below for more ↓

Water Crisis? What Crisis?

Collingwood / Council / Ineptitude and bungling / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

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You’d think that a town with a supposed water crisis so acute it had to pass a job-killing, revenue-depleting bylaw to stop all new construction for the next two (or four or more) years, would rush to fix a leak that lets treated water run into the storm sewers. But for three weeks, the town has let this leak on Sproule Ave. run away, doing nothing more than placing safety cones around it. You also might wonder why no one on council asked staff if there were ongoing leaks or related problems that needed repair BEFORE the bylaw was passed ……… click below for more ↓

$17,297.48 For One SVJI Meeting!

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry2 Comments

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John Megarry filed a Freedom of Information Act requesting the town provide the costs of having the two lawyers from the town’s inquiry legal team speak online to council for one meeting in February. The amount for that single event seems gobsmackingly high, considering it was done virtually and not in person: $17,297.48!  Just a reminder: the legal team for the inquiry was sole-sourced last term; appointed in violation of both the town’s procurement policy and breaking Brian Saundersons’ earlier election promise of “no exceptions” to tendering any contracts over $25,000. The previous council in which Saunderson was deputy mayor ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson’s Petty Vindictiveness on Display

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

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If you ever doubted our mayor, Brian Saunderson, was engaged in a petty, personal vendetta against people who thwarted him in 2012, you only need to read a recent article in CollingwoodToday, titled, Council to hire lawyer for potential action against parties involved in judicial inquiry. And, as usual, our secretive council scurried behind closed doors to hold their discussions in order to make their decision outside the scrutiny of the public’s eyes: After a closed session discussion this evening (May 3), council returned to public session to pass a motion (6-2) in favour of hiring BLG law firm to ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson Follows Stalin’s Lead

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry4 Comments

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In the 1930s, the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin removed his political rivals and enemies from history. Literally: he had their images brushed out of photographs, their names removed from books. Those he didn’t like simply disappeared from public notice. Kim Jong Un and Mao Tse Tung similarly erased their opponents. And now our own mayor wants to follow the example set by these dictators. But while photos were Stalin’s weapons in his purge, bronze plaques are Saunderson’s. You can read about the latest Stalinist purge in the CAO’s report for the upcoming Strategic Initiatives Committee, May 3. The 20-page report* ……… click below for more ↓

ICBL: Another Reason Saunderson Should Resign

Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryOne Comment

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Mayor Saunderson continues his job-hunting campaign to get out of his mayoral responsibilities and become our riding’s next MPP. Yet this week he also set himself up for more accusations of conflicts of interest, both real and apparent — the sort castigated in his beloved Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) with its 306 mostly irrelevant or redundant recommendations (but ignored by him and his council).* That’s because the town’s new interim control bylaw (ICBL) that kills construction and jobs, has provisions for proponents to beg for exceptions. Developers are going to be lining up to do so because ……… click below for more ↓

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