Collingwood – Page 41

More construction at Centennial Pool

2013-01-26 2013-01-26 Collingwood / Municipal Politics / PhotographyLeave a comment

Here you can see the additional aluminum supports that have been erected to hold up the fabric covering. Only a small area at the north has had some of the fabric installed (visible at the lower left of the photo). Workers were doing some maintenance jobs, Saturday. You can see how tall the centre of the building is. It will feel spacious and airy, inside. Checking the struts and supports. Nice to see the company working on a weekend. This gives you an idea how … click below for more ↓

What’s this nonsense about mushrooms?

2013-01-19 2013-01-19 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Collingwood / Critical Thinking / Municipal Politics / Science & Technology13 Comments

In the middle of a video parody on YouTube that skewers council on our new rec facilities, there’s a comment about “the mushroom farm debacle.” It then goes on, rather erratically, to rail about “two yanks” and mushrooms growing in manure and “enobe” mushrooms. What debacle? Clearly the video’s creator never actually watched the public presentation made to council a year ago about a possible use for the terminals as an indoor mushroom farm. Or read the stories in both newspapers. Or heard the news … click below for more ↓

Centennial Pool gets covered!

2013-01-17 2013-01-17 Collingwood / Municipal Politics2 Comments

Not sure how much will get done today – it’s a cold, windy winter day. But yesterday, in more clement weather, six frame struts for the Sprung building were erected at Centennial Pool, and I got these photographs: Here’s the frame going up, on January 16.Six frames have gone up – there are another eight to go. You can get an idea of how big and spacious the building will be inside by comparing the height to that of the workers and equipment. One panel … click below for more ↓

The Hidden Costs of Gambling

2013-01-01 2013-01-01 Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Games & Gaming / Municipal Politics / Social Order & Disorder3 Comments

Let’s start 2013 with a sober consideration of the social and economic costs of gambling. Back n 2006, the Canadian Medical Association noted that, “Provincial governments may be glossing over the societal and health costs of problem gambling, including depression and suicide, because of the significant income they gain from gambling, claim several public advocacy and mental health organizations.” Glossing over is a polite way of saying “deceiving.” They’re hiding the facts from the public. The CMA called for a thorough and scientific study of the … click below for more ↓

Happy New Year!

2012-12-31 2012-12-31 Collingwood / Literary pretensions / Personal Reminiscences2 Comments

Happy New Year. 2012 is almost over. 2013 looms a few hours away. I wish you all the best of times in the upcoming year. What a year it’s been. For council, we flailed around in the tar-baby issues of the new rec facilities and then the gambling facility (aka “casino” or “slot barn”). The rec facilities are going to built soon and will be stunning – that issue is, I hope, behind us and I expect everyone in town will enjoy them. The gambling, well, … click below for more ↓

A Council Christmas Carol – Part 2

2012-12-28 2012-12-28 Arts / Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Humour & Satire / Literary pretensions / Municipal Politics / Personal Reminiscences5 Comments

STAVE TWO (continued from Part 1). THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. I awoke in the dark, late Friday night. Winter days are so short that sometimes it seems a mere moment passes between sunrise and sunset. The day had whizzed by, a flurry of phone calls, reading, emails, walking the dog and shovelling the driveway as the snow continued to fall. By the time Susan came home and we had dinner, I was tired and aching from tossing snow. Sleep came quickly that evening, but didn’t … click below for more ↓

The Municipal Machiavelli is online

2012-12-26 2012-12-26 Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Literary pretensions / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

I’ve spent much of the past few days putting online my book in which I assess and rewrite Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous (or infamous) work, The Prince, in a WordPress format. I wrote this book earlier this year, but was unable to find a publisher (I got distracted from my search). Maybe having it online will help. The new site is here: The Municipal Machiavelli The book slightly tops 69,000 words, has more than 400 quotations from The Prince and other works by Machiavelli, as well as from many other authors … click below for more ↓

Explaining Council Expenses

2012-12-24 2012-12-24 Collingwood / Municipal Politics2 Comments

Tip of the hat to Ian Adams for clearing up any misrepresentation of council’s expenses and clarifying some information, in his most recent blog post. The total council expense allotment is well under budget this year. It usually is; we are very cautious in how we use our rather limited allotment. However, Scoop doesn’t explain a couple of things about how the allotment affects us individually. We don’t generally have enough in our council expense accounts to attend more than one event a year – the … click below for more ↓

A Council Christmas Carol – part 1

2012-12-20 2012-12-20 Collingwood / Humour & Satire / Municipal Politics / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

STAVE ONE. It was one of those long winter days. I was back in town late, that Thursday, well after dark, driving down the main street watching the heavy snow cover the road and sidewalks. I’d been out of town almost the whole day, entombed in various meetings. Too much time spent driving to and fro, too much coffee, junk food, and not enough exercise. I was tired, hungry, cranky and not at all in the holiday season spirit. All I wanted to do was get home and get … click below for more ↓

Gambling and the local economy part 2

2012-12-18 2012-12-18 Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Games & Gaming / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

Seventy three dollars. It’s not a large amount if you’re middle class, certainly not if you’re Conrad Black. But for others it can be significant. If you’re on minimum wage, it’s a full day’s wage, before taxes. If you’re a senior on a fixed income, it’s a week’s groceries. It’s also the average amount a typical gambler spends at one time in a gaming facility in Ontario, according to the answers I got from my questions sent months ago to the OLG. The clerk gave me their answers last night, … click below for more ↓

The Known Unknowns

2012-12-06 2012-12-06 Collingwood / Municipal PoliticsLeave a comment

“There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know,” said United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld in a now-famous statement. “There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that, we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.” Monday night, Council was treated to a “known unknown” when we were asked to approve a motion* that condemned a report that at least seven of us had never seen, … click below for more ↓