Collingwood – Page 12

Council Just Waves Its Hands

Council waving its hands. Making ineffective flapping gestures. It sounds like it should be some sort of metaphorical phrase. Something from the Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra episode of Star Trek. But hand-waving is actually a metaphorical term that means failure to deliver the goods. And also trying to deflect attention from your failure. Wikipedia describes it as, … a pejorative label for attempting to be seen as effective — in word, reasoning, or deed — while actually doing nothing effective or substantial. Oh, boy, does that ever describe to a “T” our council with its collective, increasingly desperate, yet ……… click below for more ↓

Quidnuncs on Council

2021-03-21 2021-03-21 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications4 Comments

A quidnunc is “a small-minded person, focused on petty things.” That’s how Gord Hume describes them in chapter five of his book, Taking Back Our Cities (Municipal World, 2011). Hume adds, “We have far too many of them on municipal councils across Canada.” I wonder what he’d say if he learned we had nine of them on ours? Hume continues: It’s the councillor who pops up with odd little motions, or quibbling about a word in a motion, or can’t keep up with the agenda, or has trouble contributing to the debate, or focuses more on the process than the ……… click below for more ↓

Bones of Contention: Saunderson’s Campaign Emails

2021-03-19 2021-03-19 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Saunderson's MPP campaignOne Comment

In his latest email to potential supporters (dated Mar. 18 at 10:12 a.m.), Mayor Brian Saunderson again tries to leverage his role as mayor and Simcoe County councillor to get enough votes that will allow him to leave those roles he had committed in his oaths of office to perform “truly, faithfully and impartially exercise this office to the best of my knowledge and ability.” Yeah, right. But even though he seemingly can’t wait to be free of those responsibilities, he still boasts about his positions as he trawls for supporters: As the Mayor of the Town of Collingwood, I ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s Version of QAnon: the SVJI

2021-03-18 2021-03-27 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry2 Comments

A story in CollingwoodToday titled, Council orders CAO to sift through old COLLUS documents kept by EPCOR shows just how far into the conspiracy pit they have dug themselves. They are so totally obsessed with the events of a decade ago, that they happily continue to waste administrative staff time and more of our tax dollars digging through the old records of emails that were already subpoenaed and sorted through by the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) two years ago. According to Mayor Brian Saunderson, the records could include financial statements and old emails from when the COLLUS ……… click below for more ↓

Why Won’t Council Answer Megarry?

2021-03-17 2021-03-17 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Financial follies / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry8 Comments

Collingwood resident John Megarry is asking of council the tough questions our lackadaisical local media should be asking. But he’s not getting any replies. In fact, he’s being stonewalled. (You can see the video of the latest council meeting here, with Megarry’s deputation starting at 0:15:22).* To date, Megarry has made two deputations to council about the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI), but we hope he makes more. He wants to know how it happened, who had secret meetings about it, why the public wasn’t consulted, and why the public was told by council and staff it would ……… click below for more ↓

Floccinaucinihilipilification in Collingwood

2021-03-15 2021-03-15 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry3 Comments

Floccinaucinihilipilification*, the longest non-technical word in the English language, is when you consider something to be unimportant, worthless, useless, or generally valueless. Basically, it means it’s rubbish. As Robert Heinlein wrote in a 1951 scifi novel: Digby was a floccinaucinihilipilificator at heart—which is an eight-dollar word meaning a joker who does not believe in anything he can’t bite. Robert A. Heinlein, The Puppet Masters (1951). I was thinking of that word as perhaps the most wittily appropriate to describe the report from the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI), the promotion of which our council and staff happily continue to lavish ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson Still Won’t Do the Right Thing

2021-03-09 2021-03-09 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Saunderson's MPP campaignLeave a comment

Mayor Brian Saunderson swore an oath at the council inauguration in 2018 that included the promise to “truly, faithfully and impartially exercise this office to the best of my knowledge and ability.” And yet barely halfway through his term, he announced he wanted to get out of that commitment and leave town for a better-paying job as an MPP in Toronto. What sort of “best” is that for Collingwood?* When someone is actively campaigning to get out of one job and into another, I doubt anyone else would consider they can or will do their current job to the “best ……… click below for more ↓

Let’s Play “Spread the Virus!”

2021-03-03 2021-03-03 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / COVID-19 responses / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Publicity & Communications / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Staff and administration2 Comments

I see Collingwood Council wants the province to end the lockdown, but hasn’t said anything about improving public safety or accelerating the vaccinations if that happens. That suggests to me they are okay if the coronavirus spreads again, and strains our hospital’s already stretched capacity to deal with it. At least, that’s the message I got from the latest facepalm-worthy discussion and motion by council this week. As reported on CollingwoodToday: Collingwood council is demanding an explanation from the province for the local lockdown and asking for the town to be returned to red zone (or lower) restrictions effective immediately. ……… click below for more ↓

Berman’s Cowardly Comment

2021-03-01 2021-03-01 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

Late last month, Collingwood council heard from the town’s inquiry legal team* justifying the cost of the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI), which many residents feel was an exorbitant waste of our tax dollars. The Collingwood Connection reported that Councillor Berman engaged in a to-and-fro with Will McDowell (of Lenzcner Slaght**): Coun. Steve Berman asked if the parties involved had been more forthcoming with information, would the cost have been less. McDowell said there were many opportunities for those involved to lay their cards on the table, but “they didn’t do that. “I don’t think you and I ……… click below for more ↓

The Inquiry Cost $250,000 More? Were We Lied To?

2021-02-27 2021-02-27 Censorship / Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry5 Comments

Hidden costs Former councillor Tim Fryer is back on the agenda this coming week, making another delegation to the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee about the true costs of the judicial inquiry (aka the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry, or SVJI). I admire Tim’s tenacity at trying to get the truth out to the public about this debacle. My respect for him has risen considerably since he’s been off council, but I wish he had been such a bulldog for the truth when he was at the table (I wrote about Fryer’s last appearance in front of the committee here).

At the very end of the agenda, you can read Tim’s letter, starting on page 161* and continuing through page 166. What’s most interesting is that he included a letter from the town to EPCOR, included on pages 163 and 164. That letter shows the town agreed to pay EPCOR’s legal costs over the SVJI of $250,000 or more. Yet those costs do not show up on the town’s most recent official accounting of the costs for the SVJI (read it here) **

For a council eager to ~~censor~~ “fact-check” residents’ comments and letters so they conform to the party line, it seems highly hypocritical to find that the town itself isn’t forthcoming about the facts. Yet we now learn that $250,000 was mysteriously left out of the calculations. As Fryer writes,

I figured if a $4 Walmart or $8 Tim Horton’s expense charge could be included then certainly something like the $250,000 or more of EPCOR’s legal expense coverage, as per the Side Letter Agreement terms established with council after the CJI was initiated, should be too.

Continue Reading“The Inquiry Cost $250,000 More? Were We Lied To?”

Still Can’t Escape the B.S. (Brian Saunderson)

2021-02-25 2021-02-25 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Saunderson's MPP campaign2 Comments

It’s late February as I write this and still our mayor, Brian Saunderson, refuses to do the ethical, the moral, and the RIGHT thing for the town and resign his office while he openly hunts for another, out-of-town, better-paying job.* It’s been more than a month since he admitted he doesn’t want to be our mayor and instead wants to be the riding’s next MPP. Seems to me he desperately wants to be somewhere else, getting more money and out of Collingwood as fast as he can. But he’s still, brazenly taking the mayor’s paycheque while he campaigns for another ……… click below for more ↓

Another Sad Day for Collingwood

2021-02-22 2021-02-22 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry4 Comments

It’s sad to see any council devolve into pettiness and paranoia, but not surprising when this thin-skinned group does. In a story on CollingwoodToday, council voted 4-3* to censor “fact-check” letters or comments from the public. It’s so very Stalinist of them that they need staff to ensure the public’s comments march in step with the party line. What next? Purges? Gulags? Show trials? Oh wait, we already had that with the SVJI. And what qualifications do staff have to read and censor “fact-check” public content? Are they trained for this in any way? Are they educated in journalistic investigative ……… click below for more ↓

Should Children be Recruited in Party Politics?

2021-02-15 2021-02-15 Collingwood / Council / Entitlement / Saunderson's MPP campaignLeave a comment

I found these lines in Brian Saunderson’s latest job-hunting email somewhat tone deaf: It is also interesting that a 14-year-old can purchase a membership and vote in the Nomination process. If you have any family members who live in Simcoe Grey Riding who are interested, it is an opportunity for our youth to get involved in the democratic process. I think it’s a questionable tactic to appeal to underage kids as if politics were a video game with no consequences. It also suggests a certain desperation: perhaps he’s not getting as many adults to back him as he wants, and ……… click below for more ↓

Seven years in politics? But where?

2021-02-14 2021-02-14 Collingwood / deception & secrecy / Entitlement / Saunderson's MPP campaignOne Comment

In his latest email letter asking for support for his job-hunting effort, Mayor Brian Saunderson says, “Having served on Collingwood and Simcoe County Councils for 7 years…” Saunderson was first elected in late 2014, but did not take office in Collingwood until December 1, 2014. The inaugural meeting for the county was also that month: December 9, 2014. That’s six years and two months, not seven years in office. I’m curious where he served the other 10 months in office to make up that seven he’s claiming, because it clearly wasn’t in Collingwood or Simcoe County. He wouldn’t be padding ……… click below for more ↓

The Hypocrisy Goes On

2021-02-11 2021-02-11 Collingwood / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Staff and administration2 Comments

Anyone having supervisory responsibility for the completion of a task will invariably protest that more resources are needed. Hacker’s Law of Personnel, coined by Andrew Hacker in The End of the American Era, Atheneum, 1970. At the end of the Feb. 8 virtual meeting of Collingwood’s “Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee,” under “other business,” Councillor Jeffrey (~2:02:20) worries about the “lack of staff resources” the mayor has at his beck and call. She wants to “make sure he has the benefit of the resources he needs to do his job.” She wants the town to hire or appoint him another assistant. ……… click below for more ↓