Category: Collingwood

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

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 ↓

Update: closed door meetings in Collingwood

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and water6 Comments

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Last November, I documented the unacceptably high number of closed-door (aka secretive) meetings held by this council since it took office. More than all of the past three councils combined. Back then I documented that by Oct. 2,  2017, council had held: 14 closed-door meetings about our airport 4 closed-door meetings about our hospital redevelopment 37 closed-door meetings about Collus-PowerStream (plus three potential that were vaguely identified in the agendas). And in all that time, the number of comments or editorials in the local media about this abuse of power and egregious secrecy by our council: zero. I thought I’d ……… 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 ↓

Timeline of the original Collus share sale

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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With the pending yet pointlessly vindictive Saunderson judicial inquiry – a punitive, self-serving exercise expected to cost local taxpayers of between $2 and $6 million (and potentially much more!) – I thought it might be useful to reprint in one post the timeline of the sale of half the share of Collus to PowerStream in 2011-12. I’ve posted much of this previously, in separate posts, but I also spent several days combing through online sources and archived documents to ensure I had a comprehensive timeline. There are a few related notes included that underscore the electricity market in flux in ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s Reichstag fire

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / EntitlementLeave a comment

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The Reichstag was the home of the German parliament until 1933, when it burned down just one month after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. The Nazis immediately blamed the fire on the Communists – their main political rivals – and used the event to suppress their opponents, repress opposition and dissent, consolidate power, while deflecting public scrutiny from their more hideous acts. Many historians believe that the Communists weren’t involved, but rather the Nazis set the fire themselves to help promote their own agenda and enable their vendettas. They used propaganda tactics to enrage the public, and consolidate their position. ……… click below for more ↓

The Hate Brigade returns

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

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The dyspeptic Hate Brigade was back in front of town hall last night, stirred into another mindless frenzy by misleading media stories, innuendo, and conspiracy theory. (Okay: they don’t have an official name, but it was that or Brian’s Bullies…) Last term Brian Saunderson and Steve Berman were the Hate Brigade’s leaders; now Saunderson is deputy mayor, so the public aspect of the dirty work falls to the slovenly mooch, Berman.  Saunderson made his cunningly timed appearance, entering the building to the anemic cheering of supporters; none of them apparently aware of how they’ve been duped over and over this term. ……… click below for more ↓

Innuendo, not guilt, in CBC story

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Publicity & Communications4 Comments

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By now I expect you’ve read the scurrilous CBC story written by Dave Seglins or at least one of its local spin-offs. For me, the best line in the CBC piece is the description of Seglins by David O’Connor, a “veteran criminal defence lawyer,” who called Seglins a “… f—— sleazeball.” Eloquently said, and certainly an opinion shared by others in town. I would have added a few other expletives, but I already stand guilty of egregious verbosity, so I’ll let the description stand on its own merit. It’s a story full of allegation and innuendo, but not guilt. The ……… click below for more ↓

Ecclestone’s laughable campaign literature

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018Leave a comment

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When I saw Cam Ecclestone’s self-aggrandizing flyer, I was strongly reminded of the opening of Chapter 24 of the Tao Te Ching, which in my latest translation reads, Blowhards have no standing, The self-promoting are not distinguished, Show-offs do not shine, Braggarts have nothing to show, The self-important are here and gone. (The Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation, trans. Roger Ames & David Hall, Ballantine Books, Jan. 2003)* As the least active member of council, the vain Ecclestone’s main contribution to the process this term has been to make the motion to adjourn at the end of a meeting. ……… click below for more ↓

Really? Another sole-sourced lawyer?

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

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Collingwood hires lawyer for judicial inquiry. That’s the headline on a story in the Connection. Do I understand this story correctly? The same sole-sourced lawyer who encouraged Brian Saunderson and his council puppets to launch a judicial inquiry that may cost taxpayers $6 million or more has been appointed to to be “legal counsel for the judicial inquiry”?* Anyone remember this promise by Brian Saunderson to… Change the purchasing policy to ensure there can be no sole sourcing of any contract for goods or services over $25,000, no exceptions. And yet there was no RFP for a position that could ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption, Saunderson and the CBC

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

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It’s a seven-year old story about the abuse of power, of corruption, of personal ambition thwarted, of an insatiable sense of entitlement, a craving for attention, and a clique of ruthless people determined to exact vengeance for a perceived slight. And it’s still being told today. It began in 2011 after the former council refused to build Brian Saunderson’s proposed $35 million “Taj Mahal” rec centre with public money and give it to the YMCA. Instead, an alternate staff plan was approved: two new, state-of-the-art rec facilities were erected at a fraction of the cost, and kept in public ownership. ……… click below for more ↓

Brian’s new campaign slogan

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & SatireLeave a comment

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Brian Saunderson needs a new campaign slogan, now he’s officially filed papers in his ill-fated race to become mayor against the hard-working, well-liked, ethical, community-minded, former police chief, John Trude. It’s not good enough for Brian to run on his slogans from last election – “I’ll Show ‘Em Who’s Boss!”, “My Way or the Highway!”, “Why Be Open and Accountable When Secrecy and Deception Get My Way So Much Better?” and the local favourite, “I’ll Get Even With All of You!” Last election, he launched his campaign on the coattails of a phony OPP investigation based on innuendo, wildly unfounded ……… click below for more ↓

Plutarch on listening, and The Block

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

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“[W]e observe that… the great majority of persons …practise speaking before they have acquired the habit of listening.” Plutarch wrote that in his essay De Auditu, or On Listening. Reading those words immediately made me think of that group we have on Collingwood Council who never listen to anyone but themselves and frequently speak without any apparent thought behind their comments: The Block. And, no, I don’t expect any of them to heed his words of wisdom or advice on this or any other subject. First, that would require reading, and reading is antithetical to all of them because it ……… click below for more ↓

Airports and opportunities vs. The Block

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Staff and administrationLeave a comment

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Strategic Vision: To become a premier regional commercial airport that stimulates the socioeconomic development of Simcoe County and the City of Barrie by improving connectivity, enhancing the competitiveness of the region and improving the quality of life for its residents. Mission Statement: To drive the region’s economic prosperity, enhance business opportunities, increase the region’s competitive position and support the travel needs of the community through increased connectivity. So opens a report on the opportunities and challenges facing the Simcoe Regional Airport, presented to the county’s Committee of the Whole session, May 22. You can see it here, starting at page ……… click below for more ↓

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