A story in CollingwoodToday says the latest draft of the town budget puts a 4.25% increase on property taxes for 2024! WTF is council thinking, adding more costs to residents during a period of high inflation? People are already struggling with rising costs for food, electricity (the Saunderson-privatized EPCOR got a 5.23% rate hike this fall*), gas (vehicle and natural), water, clothing, mortgages, transit, lumber, vehicles, and … (more–>)
Let me start with a few basic, uncomfortable truths about housing. It’s a myth that municipal politicians can, without a coordinated and regional approach that includes private developers and upper-tier levels as well as stakeholders and advocates, solve anything related to housing. And even then, it requires the involvement of provincial and sometimes the federal governments (as well as possible funding from them). Affordable housing is … (more–>)
The Continued Arrogance of Brian Saunderson Our gormless backbencher, the CONservative MPP Brian Saunderson, recently exposed his egregious arrogance in a comment to CollingwoodToday about the province again burdening municipalities by downloading more costs onto them. For Collingwood, that means another $615,000 added to our expenses.* He didn’t even bother trying to explain — let alone justify — the downloading, merely shrugged it away. That’s arrogantly … (more–>)
Late last month — less than three months before the next municipal election — council made significant decisions about their own pay and the role of the mayor. Given that four of them have filed to run again (and a fifth is pending), and two of those are vying for the mayor’s role, this was a highly inappropriate decision and of questionable ethics. In the story … (more–>)
Our council’s sense of entitlement again came to light this week. A report from a consultant tabled in the Nov.1 meeting of the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee recommends that the mayor receive a 9.5% increase, while councillors get a 5% increase (page five of the report). Nine-point-five percent? Who gets a raise like that these days? Even five percent is over the top. The justification for … (more–>)
My sources suggest that a local retailer recently bought the Blue Shores house shown on the right, paying more than $100,000 over the asking price, for a total of $1.15 million By my standards, that’s a helluva lot of money. Where would anyone working in retail get the funds to buy and maintain a home that sold for that much? I did some rough calculations. The … (more–>)
We took a walk along the sidewalk and trail into the inappropriately-named “Millennium” Park* this week and were deeply disappointed by the lack of maintenance there. Aside from seeing a private pickup truck driving on the sidewalk for 100 or more metres before turning onto Waterside Lane (where were the police when you need them?) and the trees along the eastern side of the road that … (more–>)
Back in 2014, the USA-based Strong Towns group posted a test to “measure a successful Strong Town.” The ten questions or conditions posed include:
In a story on CollingwoodToday, our mayor, Brian Saunderson, shrugs off the costs of his Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (the SVJI) as being but a drop in the bucket for the town’s annual budget: He noted the town’s annual budget is nearly $100 million, and the inquiry costs amount to less than ten per cent of the yearly budget. Perhaps he was flustered by being challenged over … (more–>)
As I predicted (correctly) late last year, Collingwood Council was given a dumbed-down, $700,000-as-important-as-clean-drinking-water-report-about-the-judicial-inquiry-report. More than 900 pages of the original report reduced to a mere 15 to report on the report. And as I also predicted, it would include pie charts. You can read it here: “STAFF REPORT #CAO2021-02 Phase One – Collingwood Judicial Inquiry Next Steps. You can also look at the PowerPoint presentation … (more–>)
Four hundred and twenty seven thousand, two hundred and sixty five. That’s how many documents have been submitted to the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) to date, according to a story in Collingwood Today.* There is no indication if more are expected after that, but it wasn’t ruled out, either. More than 425,000 documents. The sheer volume is gobsmacking. Let’s take a look at what that … (more–>)
In their book, Small Town Rules (Pearson Education Inc., USA, 2012), authors Barry Moltz and Becky McCray explain seven rules for businesses that use the model of a small town to offer advice on growing and maintaining a business n the “connected economy.” And while most of their rules are aimed at businesses, I suggest some are equally applicable to small towns like Collingwood. Don’t get … (more–>)
I was invited, along with the other candidates for this municipal election, to address residents at Rupert’s Landing this week. Each candidate was provided a list of ten questions and given three minutes to respond to one of them. I will comment on the other nine in a future post, but for now, I wanted to talk about question two, which I chose to answer: There … (more–>)
This is a somewhat edited response to a resident who asked about a splash pad. The resident also commented that, “As nice as Collingwood is, we feel that this town is falling behind the times compared to other towns close by and the advancements they have achieved.” Here’s in part my reply: Yes, we need a splash pad here. The WaterFront Master Plan has a proposal … (more–>)