Collingwood – Page 23

The Blame Game

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 ↓

Which do we need more?

2017-03-09 2017-03-10 Collingwood / Council / Critical Thinking / HospitalOne Comment

Think about all the many and varied kinds of equipment a hospital relies on to provide modern, efficient patient care today. It’s the sort of equipment we want – we NEED – our own hospital to have to provide us and our visitors with the best treatment possible, so none of us have to leave the region to get that care. Try to imagine all the types of lifesaving and diagnosis equipment that we should have – not only new items, but replacement devices for when machines need service or repair. You can search online for information about hospital inventories ……… click below for more ↓

The OPP investigation after 48 months

2017-03-07 2017-03-07 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics2 Comments

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

2017-03-05 2017-03-05 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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

2017-03-03 2017-03-03 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital3 Comments

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

2017-03-02 2017-03-03 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital2 Comments

“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

2017-02-25 2017-02-26 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / TaxesLeave a comment

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 ↓

The onerous burden of responsibility

2017-02-24 2017-02-24 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

Imagine you’re in high school one day around the end of the year. It’s warm outside, sunny, and you want out of the stuffy classroom. You’re not paying attention. You’re looking out the window, fidgeting. Daydreaming, miles away. The teacher drones on and on but you don’t hear a single word. Then, the bell rings. Just before the class leaves, you hear the teacher remind everyone that you are responsible for their safety, you are responsible for their wellbeing, for their health. For all the kids in the school. And their parents, too. And if you don’t do everything right, ……… click below for more ↓

The dystopian present

2017-02-23 2017-02-24 Books & Reviews / Council / Scifi and fantasy / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

If there is one good thing to come out of the election of Donald Trump, it has been the renewed interest in a certain genre of literature. Sales of dystopian novels have skyrocketed on Amazon, in particular what might be called “The Big Three” of dystopian tales: George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. From each of these novels, allegorical threads can be woven into some narrative aspect as a metaphor for the Trump administration: 1984’s newspeak, media manipulation and paranoid Big Brother; Brave New World’s elites-vs-savages mentality, exiled intellectuals and its psychological manipulation; ……… click below for more ↓

Budget Bullshit

2017-02-21 2017-02-22 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes2 Comments

The first question you have to ask after following Collingwood Council’s sloppy and inept budget process is “Where did the money go?” Then the second question you have to ask, “Are they really that dense?” Yes, but let’s start with the first question. Back when he promoted dismantling the water utility from its partnership with Collus-PowerStream (CPS) and taking the utility under town control – a process that has proven a disaster for the town – the interim CAO promised we’d see a savings of $750,000 a year. But now the town is trying to privatize those water services by ……… click below for more ↓

Empathy and The Dog Allusion

2017-02-16 2017-02-16 Atheism & Spirituality / Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Ethics and behaviour / Faith / Philosophy / Psychology & Sociology / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Empathy, writes Martin Rowson, is one of the things that make us human, make us civilized, allows us to interact without tearing one another’s throats out. Without it, we’d have no civilization; we’d be like the beasts of the fields. And we’d have no dogs or gods, either. Empathy is what makes us own pets and be religious. That’s one of the thought-provoking ideas Rowson tosses around in his book, The Dog Allusion (Vintage Books, London, 2008). The title, as I’m sure you are aware, is a pun on Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. Rowson has a lot to ……… click below for more ↓

The EPCOR sales pitches

2017-02-09 2017-02-09 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

I’m told the interim CAO is distressed – apoplectic, really – that I am aware of his sales pitch information sessions in which he touts the wonders of EPCOR to town staff. Two sessions that I know of. At the most recent one he brought along EPCOR representatives to schmooze the staff. Apparently he is not winning them over. It might be because, as I have been led to believe, Mr. Brown has few fans. I’m told he is generally disliked by many staff. As he is, I’ve also been told, by our municipal partners, our neighbouring municipalities, the hospital ……… click below for more ↓

EPCOR’s rate hikes create unrest

2017-02-07 2017-02-07 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Taxes / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

It seems EPCOR isn’t the most beloved utility service out there, despite the glowing comments the interim CAO made to staff recently. I was given a recording of his hour-long talk (aka sales pitch) for EPCOR and I can only say I hope no one listening fell for it (I’ll review his talk in another post). Despite his stumbling blandishments, EPCOR’s management style isn’t all that popular. And if you do some searching for unflattering news stories about the corporation, you can find the following online: Global News had this one on Feb. 2, 2017: Tabor took back their water ……… click below for more ↓

Monetizing our public assets

2017-02-04 2017-02-04 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

In the town’s disingenuous press release (really just a sales pitch for EPOCR) about its obsessive drive to privatize our utility services, it has this paragraph: The Town’s RFP process solicited proposals from a wide range of potentially interested parties that could maximize the value of the Town’s remaining investment in Collingwood PowerStream Utility Services Corp. Given the terms of the existing Shareholder’s Agreement with PowerStream entered into by the previous Council, the Town has very limited options regarding how it may monetize its remaining 50% investment in the local electricity distribution company. Monetize a public asset? Since when was ……… click below for more ↓

Committee system still broken, still in use

2017-02-03 2017-02-03 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications2 Comments

“A committee,” wrote Sir Barnett Cocks, former Clerk of the UK’s House of Commons, “is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” How very appropriate those words strike us as we gaze at Collingwood’s ineffective, severely broken standing committee system. The brainchild of the interim CAO, and the very model of his business style, it has been fervently embraced by The Block. Yet to outsiders, the committee system has been a bureaucratic quagmire of redundancy and ineptness since its inception. It was a mistake to continue it after the first meeting, when most observers realized it ……… click below for more ↓