Category: Collingwood

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

Stumbling towards the utility’s demise

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

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This week, Collingwood Council met in a special meeting to discuss an request from its utility partner, PowerStream, to waive some conditions of the shareholder agreement. This meeting appears to have been called by the interim CAO, which seems to me to usurp the mayor’s authority, but we know the administration – in partnership with The Block – has long been pulling the strings in this town to serve its own ends. Plus the meeting was held mid-day at the fire hall; a time and location that appears intended to deter both public and media presence. Well while the public ……… click below for more ↓

Those pesky costs The Block forgot to mention

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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Who sends out your water bills? Collus-PowerStream. It’s all part of the shared services agreement. Yes, that simple little agreement that for 15 productive, cooperative years linked our water and electrical utilities with mutual resources. That same agreement The Block dismantled and handed over to the interim CAO two years ago to rewrite and update. A 30-minute job that still hasn’t been completed. And never will be. Who takes the data from the meters, calculates the charges, prints and folds the bills, inserts them into envelopes and puts them through the postage meter? Collus-PowerStream. Who handles the automatic payments, the ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption, Collingwood & the Collus Board

Collingwood / Council / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

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The Most Secretive Council Ever has comfortably assumed the mantle of The Most Secretive and Corrupt Council Ever. As I warned in a previous post, The Block was going to appoint someone’s friends to the Collus-PowerStream board – and do it both illegally and unethically. And last Monday, they told us they had done it. Fait accompli. But as you have learned this term, laws, procedures, ethics and morals are for others to obey, not for The Block. According to a story in The Connection (apparently the EB couldn’t be bothered to report on it online and I don’t get their print ……… click below for more ↓

No, Brian: Elvis isn’t in the CBSP

Collingwood / Council / Culture / Ethics and behaviour / Festivals & Events / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

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At the Nov. 28 Council meeting (seen here on Rogers TV), Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson blathered on in cliché-rich, lawerly manner (starting 1:14:05) about how much the Elvis Festival means to his “Community-Based Strategic Plan” (1:16:18) – that committee-based wishlist which was neither strategic nor a plan. What does he mean when he claims that a report has “galvanized the question quite nicely”? Galvanized? Does he know what that word means? It’s not what he appears to think it does… it means to “shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action.” A staff report is seldom shocking or exciting, and ……… click below for more ↓

Muzzling the airport board

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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The Collingwood Airport Board wants to get its own legal opinion about the Clearview Aviation Business Park request for a non-binding letter of intent to negotiate access to the airport. Seems reasonable for the board charged with oversight of the airport to want to make sure that any decisions made best represent their mandate and the viability of the airport itself. The Block and Collingwood’s administration are opposed to them getting one. Are they afraid of what that opinion would say? That it wouldn’t come from a lawyer already instructed as to what to say? That they couldn’t control the ……… click below for more ↓

I used to like him; not so much now…

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Municipal Politics / Politics3 Comments

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Back in the ’70s when he ran for mayor and we both lived in Toronto, I voted for John Sewell. And when he won, I was a big supporter of his human-scale policies and planning, and enjoyed his youthful vigour and vision. Now, not so much. Sure, he’s a smart, well-spoken, erudite man with a long list of credentials. But he’s also wrong. At least about one issue: our hospital. Sewell and Collingwood resident Karina Dahlin (former Editor, executive communications, the Hospital for Sick Children, according to LinkedIn) wrote an opinion piece for TVO’s online magazine titled, “Health care gaps: ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption and conflict of interest

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications7 Comments

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Ever get that uneasy sense of deja vu? That some ugly, undemocratic event you’re watching at council, some autocratic, conniving, secret and self-serving act is something you’ve experienced in the past? That those nasty breaches of ethics, those conflicts of interest, those ignored bylaws and broken trust are things you’ve already seen at the table? That you’re going through another round of corruption and conflict in Collingwood? By this very council? Well, my dear readers, you aren’t alone. On November 14, Collingwood Council once again went in camera and came out with this resolution: BE RESOLVED THAT Council hereby agrees ……… click below for more ↓

Obstructionism killing 1,600+ jobs & growth

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies3 Comments

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Just when you thought Collingwood Council couldn’t set the bar any lower, they go and move it down another notch. On Monday, Oct. 31, The Block had a chance to save face, rectify their blatant mismanagement of the Collingwood Regional Airport development and save the proposed, $300 million, 260-acre, industrial park that could bring 400 full-time and 1,300 part-time or temporary jobs to the area. They didn’t. No surprises, of course. Barry Burton, the deputy mayor of Clearview Township, made a presentation to our council, Monday*, reiterating his community’s commitment to the development and growth at the airport and asking ……… click below for more ↓

Fulfilling a role? Who are you kidding?

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

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The bite of irony is in the air when a flimsy piece of blatant Block propaganda masquerading as an official media release is published by the town. It has the misleading headline, “Town fulfilling role in hospital redevelopment process,” but only delusional sycophants won’t read it as a Block screed. When did town media releases shill for a group at the table, not represent the will of council as a whole? Did the mayor approve this dreck before it went out? I suspect not. * It’s ironic that last term’s council was criticized by some of the very people who ……… click below for more ↓

552 kWh? We can do better

Collingwood / Daily life / Personal Reminiscences / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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I received a report in the mail from Collus PowerStream giving me an overview of my electricity usage for the one-month period of August. A hot, humid August that no doubt had us running the air conditioner and ceiling fans more often than we normally do (we actually like it warm most of the time). I really appreciated getting the notice because we care about conservation. I always want to know more about our energy and water use, especially as the utility rates continue to escalate. Anything we can do to keep the bills low is something we examine carefully. ……… click below for more ↓

Collus report debunks Block conspiracies

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies2 Comments

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Every year, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) publishes the scorecard of local distribution companies (LDCs). Across the province, more than 70 LDCs are ranked and rated according to performance, customer service, efficiency, progress and other measurable data for residents to see how their utility is doing. It’s a thing called openness and transparency. As the OEB notes: The scorecard includes traditional metrics for assessing a distributor’s services, such as frequency of power outages, financial performance and costs per customer. In addition, performance results for 2014 and onward will include a number of new metrics that directly reflect the customer experience, ……… click below for more ↓

Promises, promises, promises – all broken

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour10 Comments

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Two years ago, in a series in the Collingwood Connection on the eve of the last election, 2014, all candidates were asked to make statements about certain issues. I thought it would be good to examine a few of their promises and see how well they have progressed. Whether they have actually kept those promises. Here is what they said about the topic of accountability and to measure their performance to date. First, just what is accountability? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or ……… click below for more ↓

13 Ways to Kill Collingwood

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / What I'm Reading Now3 Comments

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I found it! I stumbled across the secret manifesto The Block is using to destroy Collingwood. It’s in a book called “13 Ways to Kill Your Community” (Frontenac House, 2010) by Doug Griffiths and Kelley Clemmer. And pretty much everything in it outlines The Block’s not-so-secret plan to turn this community into rubbish. I know, you’re going to object, “But Ian, you know The Block doesn’t read! How can something as big as a book be their secret manifesto when they won’t even read Municipal World or their own budget?” Because, dear reader, the book was written in 2010, before ……… click below for more ↓

You’re not invited. Again.

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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You, the public, get shut out again. Less openness, less accountability, more secrecy, more Block. The annual general meeting (AGM) of Collus-PowerStream on October 6 – the local electrical utility that you ostensibly own 50% of – is not open to the public. It’s another closed door, secret meeting. Why? Council will send its representative and its (illegally-appointed) pet staff (as board members, one of whom doesn’t even live in town, let alone within the Collus service area). But the public isn’t allowed to attend to hear what the utility plans, what is said by its representatives and what the future ……… click below for more ↓

Another scathing email to council

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour4 Comments

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Here is the next scathing email from local businessman and developer Tom Vincent, sent to council following the debacle of Monday night’s ongoing effort by The Block to sabotage the hospital’s redevelopment. This is not the first time The Block have been severely chastised by the community over this issue. To properly understand the context, you may want to read my previous posts about the Collingwood General & Marine Hospital’s redevelopment plans. But here’s a synopsis: As I’ve written in the past, The Block opposes the planned redevelopment on Poplar Sideroad. The Block look for every opportunity to sabotage the ……… click below for more ↓

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