Collingwood – Page 26

Sabotaging the hospital (again)

Last night at council, The Borg Block again took another step towards sabotaging the Collingwood General & Marine Hospital’s redevelopment plans. Not unexpected: destroying the community is a key plank in their platform, as we’ve seen by their actions against the airport, water utility and Collus PowerStream. Plus, they need to pander to their ever-dwindling group of supporters who want to stop the redevelopment on a site they don’t like (but which 84% of medical staff do). That handful of venomous folk – which includes some former politicians and former VOTE members – hold sway over The Block and thus town ……… click below for more ↓

Your $350,000 wasted

2016-09-26 2016-09-26 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / TaxesOne Comment

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request I filed recently shows a disturbing abuse of your tax dollars. Money was wasted that could have been spent on doing something good, something positive, something useful for Collingwood. Download the report here. In the two-year period between mid-2014 and mid-2016, the town’s administration spent $340,000 of your tax dollars on its efforts to destroy the relationship with our utility partner, Collus-PowerStream. And given the billing trends shown in the document, that amount now tops $350,000 and probably much higher. What’s equally troubling is that this effort appears to have started under the radar in July, 2014. ……… click below for more ↓

Dilbert, Dogbert and Collingwood

2016-09-26 2016-09-26 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & SatireLeave a comment

I’ve often commented that the cartoon strip Dilbert, by Scott Adams, is closer to a documentary than it is to a cartoon. Not just about the quagmire of corporate life: Dilbert applies equally to the sodden bureaucracy of government. And here are some strips to prove my hypothesis, at least on the local level. I culled these strips from around the web, from many, many sites, but the copyright and credit all belongs to Scott Adams. I hope he won’t mind me using his work as an example of how things work in Collingwood. It’s very, very instructive, after all. And ……… click below for more ↓

Dinner at the Bent Taco

2016-09-24 2021-05-15 Alcohol / Collingwood / Food & Drink / Hot Sauces & Spices / MexicoLeave a comment

We had dinner at the Bent Taco on Pine Street last night. Collingwood’s nuevo-Mexican restaurant is not exactly Mexican but influenced by it, and in a good way. Food was excellent. If you haven’t been there, you should go. Very popular place and I wondered why it took so long for us to get there. Don’t go expecting traditional Mexican fare (hint: go to Mexico and get outside your resort for that!) You won’t get huachinango a la Veracruzana or Oaxacan tamales here, but you will get recognizable choices like tacos, burritos and tortas (the latter sadly red meats only, no fish or ……… click below for more ↓

The unstrategic anti-plan returns

2016-09-22 2016-09-22 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications2 Comments

Wednesday’s standing committee heard that the so-called “community-based strategic plan” has risen from the dead – a document that was committee-driven (not community; and a committee of carefully selected buddies, at that…), and was neither strategic nor a plan. See it in the agenda package. A real strategic plan would have been council-driven, based on the vision of our elected representatives. But having none, The Block turned it over to an outsider and their friends to come up with something.* Once The Block approved its creation in 2015, the resulting document, the ‘CBSP,’** became a bureaucratic zombie that never seems to die, ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood is being investigated by OEB

2016-09-21 2016-09-27 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies3 Comments

Collingwood Council and town administration are in trouble. The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) is investigating them and their recent activities with regards to Collus-PowerStream and its board of directors. This is not good news for those at the table or those behind the scenes who guided their hands. A letter was unexpectedly added to the agenda for the Wednesday, Sept. 21 Strategic Initiatives standing committee from the OEB. It reads in part: …the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) is commencing an inspection under the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998 (Act) to review Collus (PowerStream Corp.’s (Collus) compliance with the Affiliate Relationships Code ……… click below for more ↓

Hospital destruction avoided… for now

2016-09-12 2016-09-13 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

Congratulations. Your efforts worked. After getting severe backlash from the community and even from their (former) supporters, The Block was chastised enough to recant their stubborn foolishness long enough to approve the hospital redevelopment after their previous debacle caused such an uproar. That earlier motion blindsided council, the mayor and the hospital board: they had not shared with others before it was read aloud. A blatant show of partisanship and petty personal agendas over the greater good The Block always plays to its supporters, no matter how drastically that group has shrunk over the past two years. And that little group was in the ……… click below for more ↓

Blockheads severely chastised over CG&MH motion

2016-09-09 2016-09-09 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications6 Comments

The following emails were forwarded to me following my recent post on the debacle council made over the hospital redevelopment. That action has certainly upset many in the community and several people have spoken to me to express their disgust at the motion approved last week. More to the point, some residents have severely chastised those behind this scurrilous action. And you, dear reader, should know what is being said to and about our council. I take no credit for them: these are the words of others. The first email was sent to Deputy Mayor Saunderson and Councillor Kathy Jeffrey, by ……… click below for more ↓

Their secret emails, redacted

2016-09-08 2016-09-08 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & CommunicationsOne Comment

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request I recently filed shows just how devious and secretive some of our council and administration are. You can read the entire series here. The cover letter is here (it is instructive…). In late July, Council approved sending out a request for proposals (RFP) to sell our share in our publicly-owned electrical utility (without any public consultation or input, of course). On July 25, the clerk – on behalf of the interim CAO – sent an email to council members asking for input (with, of course, no public discussion or input allowed): Further to the ……… click below for more ↓

Can the mayor fire the interim CAO?

2016-09-07 2016-09-07 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

Does the mayor have the authority to fire someone by herself? The interim CAO, for example? It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot of late by residents. I think so, but it’s not clear to me in the Municipal Act. She is, after all, legally both the head of council and the chief executive officer, and while related, these two roles can be interpreted differently. The mayor doesn’t have any more political power than any other member of council (e.g. she gets one vote). But we are the Corporation of the Town of Collingwood and as such shouldn’t our officers – ……… click below for more ↓

The Wasaga Beach G&M Hospital

2016-09-03 2016-09-04 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour6 Comments

You’d think supporting your local hospital’s redevelopment was a no-brainer for municipal politicians. And since ‘no-brainer’ has been the exemplary style of Collingwood Council this term, they should go hand-in-glove. But apparently for The Block, ‘no-brainer’ means merely thoughtless focus on personal agendas, not the community’s well-being or future. That’s not news, of course; just signs that another disaster is brewing. The Wasaga Beach General and Marine Hospital. Like that name? Get used to it. That is likely what this council’s actions are going to result in. And Wasaga Beach council is as firmly behind making it happen as our ……… click below for more ↓

Another Collus conspiracy debunked

2016-09-02 2016-09-02 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications3 Comments

As a former reporter and editor, I always feel a twinge of satisfaction when I read a well-written story in the local papers that gets all of its facts right. When everything is stated correctly, the English is good, the facts well reported, the reporting unbiased and everything clearly posited. It just makes me beam. Sadly, I haven’t felt that joy for a few years now. I too often feel our local reporters are on cruise control, and don’t work very hard at getting their stories right. They are too quick to swallow the propaganda issuing from town hall or from ……… click below for more ↓

Deputy mayor & interim CAO missing in action?

2016-08-26 2016-08-27 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

The headline in the Connection story reads, “Collingwood meets with provincial ministers about waterfront plan.” Well, that’s incorrect: it wasn’t “Collingwood” – it was Mayor Cooper and two staff members at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference this month. Notably absent from the reporting of these important meetings were the deputy mayor, Brian Saunderson; our interim CAO, John Brown; and senior administrative staff. Why? Saunderson was at the AMO conference. Was he not invited? Or did he simply disdain to attend? I don’t know. I doubt the interim CAO attended AMO. I suspect he was too busy hectoring Collus ……… click below for more ↓

A brief update on Collus-PowerStream

2016-08-23 2021-05-15 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

Just a brief note to give my readers the opportunity to examine two documents related to Collus-PowerStream and our council’s secretive efforts to sabotage our utility. Both are in PDF format, linked below. First is the presentation given by the Electricity Distribution Association (EDA) to AMO delegates earlier this month. I referred to this in a recent post about the opportunities this council has thrown away in their headlong rush to fulfill their petty little vendettas. Collus-PowerStream was mentioned during the presentation (page 14) as one of the leading innovators in LDCs in Ontario. Bet you’ve never heard The Block say anything like ……… click below for more ↓

No consultation with customers or neighbours

2016-08-21 2021-05-15 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

Did you know Collus-PowerStream serves thousands of customers in Stayner, Thornbury and Creemore? More than 4,000 residences, businesses, restaurants, stores, churches, municipal facilities and farms are on the Collus-PowerStream distribution network, along with almost 12,200 in Collingwood. Do you know how many times Collingwood has consulted with the councils of Town of the Blue Mountains and Clearview over its plan to sell our utility to Hydro One that will crucially and negatively affect those customers in their communities? Right: none. The same number of consultations they have had with local customers. It’s all been done furtively: behind closed doors with high-priced, ……… click below for more ↓