Collingwood – Page 14

The irony, the hypocrisy

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 ↓

No Enemies; No Accomplishments

2020-12-01 2020-12-01 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

Have you ever read this poem? I hadn’t, until recently. But now it makes sense. Take a moment… No Enemies You have no enemies, you say? Alas! my friend, the boast is poor; He who has mingled in the fray Of duty, that the brave endure, Must have made foes! If you have none, Small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip, You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip, You’ve never turned the wrong to right, You’ve been a coward in the fight. As Wikipedia tells us, Charles Mackay (27 March 1814 – ……… click below for more ↓

The Judicial Inquiry and $7+ Million

2020-11-05 2020-11-05 Collingwood / Council / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry2 Comments

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 ↓

The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

2020-08-22 2020-08-22 Local media / Media / Politics / Style & usage / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymologyLeave a comment

The title is a phrase I encountered while reading Mark Thompson’s excellent book on political rhetoric, Enough Said: What’s Wrong With the Language of Politics? Thompson’s book is both about the current and historic use of political rhetoric (from Aristotle forward), but also about the role of journalists in covering it. Thompson — a former new editor and executive in the BBC and now with the New York Times — maintains we are in “a crisis of political language” that comes from a combination of modern media, social media use, and also in the changing way politicians speak (“characterised by ……… click below for more ↓

Local media is letting us down

2019-02-01 2019-02-01 Collingwood / Critical Thinking / Financial follies / Health & Medicine / Marketing / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

Rule number one in The Elements of Journalism is: “journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.” Number three is “Its essence is a discipline of verification.” Keep those two in mind as you read this. I recognize that local reporting is not always the same calibre as the investigative journalism we expect from national media, but in my view (and experience as a former reporter and editor), blindly accepting claims about health, wellness or science without questioning, let alone confirming them through a credible source, and then repeating those statements in a story is not responsible reporting. It’s just typing. ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood and cannabis stores

2019-01-17 2019-01-18 Collingwood / Council / Critical Thinking / Local media / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

Credit where credit is due: Collingwood council this week voted unanimously to allow a cannabis store to open here. That came as somewhat of a surprise given earlier negative comments from come councillors, but in the end they all agreed to it. It made sense to say yes, given that pot is now legal in Canada. Saying no would have made the community seem both out-of-touch and fusty, and would have reinforced the resolutely-closed-for-business reputation that last council gave our town. But the staff report also shows that there is still a deep prohibition-era thinking in town hall. Take a ……… click below for more ↓

Council’s financial follies part 1

2018-12-22 2018-12-22 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Financial folliesLeave a comment

This is the first in what I expect will be a long series of posts about the financial follies and shenanigans of our council. Our council begins its term not with a bang but a groan and the shaking of heads. To quote Oliver Hardy, “Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” I’m sure it won’t be the last time I get to say that to this council. To be fair, the debacle is not the responsibility of everyone at the table – that falls squarely on the shoulders of the four re-elected incumbents. However, since most of ……… click below for more ↓

The slow death of media credibility

2018-12-17 2018-12-17 Collingwood / Culture / Local media / Media / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

A story in the recent issue of New Republic opens: “A decade of turmoil has left a weakened press vulnerable to political attacks, forced into ethical compromises, and increasingly outstripped by new forms of digital media.” This points to the continuing erosion of public confidence in traditional media. While this piece refers to national (American) and international media, it applies equally to local media – all types. Traditional media has been disappearing under the waves of digital media for the past two decades. In its fight to stay afloat and retain audience, a lot of media outlets have tried to ……… click below for more ↓

The towering heights of the SVJI

2018-12-13 2018-12-13 Collingwood / Council / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / TaxesLeave a comment

Four hundred and twenty seven thousand, two hundred and sixty five. That’s how many documents have been submitted to the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) to date, according to a story in Collingwood Today.* There is no indication if more are expected after that, but it wasn’t ruled out, either. More than 425,000 documents. The sheer volume is gobsmacking. Let’s take a look at what that might mean. It isn’t specified if these are single or multiple page documents. We have to assume at least some are more than a single page. For the sake of easy calculations, let’s say ……… click below for more ↓

What’s wrong with local media?

2018-11-26 2018-11-30 Collingwood / Media / Media Issues / PoliticsLeave a comment

“It’s about trust. Our relationship with our readers is built on transparency, honesty and integrity.” So opens the front-page piece in this weekend’s Connection, titled in all-caps, “Local News Needs Support ‘Now More Than Ever’”. It echoes the theme of”now more than ever” written for National Newspaper Week, Oct. 1-7. And some of it is eerily similar to what Bob Cox wrote about journalism on Oct. 2. Imitation is the sincerest form, I suppose. Apparently the Connection only climbed on board six weeks later. But I suppose it’s better late than… well, no it’s not. At least during National Newspaper ……… click below for more ↓

SVJI costs continue to skyrocket

2018-11-20 2018-11-20 Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

As I predicted earlier, the costs for Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) are going to climb through the roof. And of course you, the taxpayer, are going to pay for it. Last month local media carried stories that the SVJI – scheduled to begin this month (November) – wasn’t going to meet its deadlines. It was delayed and would not start until the “new year” (apparently not until February, 2019). Bayshore Broadcasting notes in its coverage*: The inquiry team had hoped they would start this fall, but Inquiry Counsel Janet Leiper tells us that won’t be possible and that it ……… click below for more ↓

My answers to residents: 6

2018-10-18 2018-10-18 Collingwood / Council / Election 2018Leave a comment

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 have posted my responses here for everyone to read. My responses are in italics, below. 1. What is your vision for the transportation system here in Collingwood over the next 4 years? Are there any specific projects you would champion around the Council table? What role do you see transit and active transportation playing in Collingwood’s transportation mix moving forward, and how will you work to integrate those into our community over the next ……… click below for more ↓

Small town rules

2018-10-17 2018-10-17 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Election 2018 / Taxes / User fees and costsOne Comment

In their book, Small Town Rules (Pearson Education Inc., USA, 2012), authors Barry Moltz and Becky McCray explain seven rules for businesses that use the model of a small town to offer advice on growing and maintaining a business n the “connected economy.” And while most of their rules are aimed at businesses, I suggest some are equally applicable to small towns like Collingwood. Don’t get me wrong: a municipality is not a business and despite some common functions and shared accounting techniques, a municipality cannot be run in the same manner as a for-profit business. For a start, we ……… click below for more ↓

The arts of politics and baking

2018-10-10 2018-10-10 Bread & Baking / Collingwood / Daily life / Election 2018 / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

In his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, author Robert Prisig wrote about how dealing with the small things of daily life – like fixing his wayward motorcycle – could teach us about the world at large. A sort of microcosm-becomes-macrocosm perspective, with the vagarities of motorcycle repair to colour the learning. What we learn in one we can apply to the other. * Baking bread, too, offers a meta-window into other arts and crafts, in particular (for me), politics. Bakers and thinkers have oft cited bread as a metaphor for life (listen to master baker Peter Reinhart’s comments on ……… click below for more ↓

What about climate change? No. 2

2018-10-08 2018-10-08 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Election 2018 / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

A few of the apocalyptic headlines from the past few days: Final call to save the world from ‘climate catastrophe’ – BBC news Landmark UN climate report warns time quickly running out – Al Jazeera news Scientists Just Laid Out Paths to Solve Climate Change. We Aren’t on Track to Do Any of Them –Time magazine Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn – CNN Earth has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn – ABC news UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning – CBC news Terrifying climate change warning: ……… click below for more ↓