Utilities: electricity and water – Page 2

Update: closed door meetings in Collingwood

Last November, I documented the unacceptably high number of closed-door (aka secretive) meetings held by this council since it took office. More than all of the past three councils combined. Back then I documented that by Oct. 2, 2017, council had held: 14 closed-door meetings about our airport 4 closed-door meetings about our hospital redevelopment 37 closed-door meetings about Collus-PowerStream (plus three potential that were vaguely identified in the agendas). And in all that time, the number of comments or editorials in the local media … click below for more ↓

Timeline of the original Collus share sale

2018-07-02 2021-05-05 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

With the pending yet pointlessly vindictive Saunderson judicial inquiry – a punitive, self-serving exercise expected to cost local taxpayers of between $2 and $6 million (and potentially much more!) – I thought it might be useful to reprint in one post the timeline of the sale of half the share of Collus to PowerStream in 2011-12. I’ve posted much of this previously, in separate posts, but I also spent several days combing through online sources and archived documents to ensure I had a comprehensive timeline. … click below for more ↓

Show me the documents!

2018-05-17 2018-05-20 Collingwood / Council / Social Order & Disorder / Staff and administration / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

The trolls and troglodytes on social media are whinging again about allegedly missing documents that relate to the 2012 sale of 50% of Collus. They want you to think there was a conspiracy by the utility staff not to release crucial documents. There wasn’t. Period. No matter how many times this gets debunked, no matter how often it gets corrected, it rises again and again amongst the ignorati. This time it was the Block’s bullshit judicial inquiry (aka their campaign platform) that revived this particular … click below for more ↓

Deception, The Block, and EPCOR

2018-05-09 2018-05-10 Collingwood / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) is currently conducting hearings about the proposed sale of our publicly-owned electrical utility, Collus, to the for-profit, out-of-province corporation, EPCOR. Several documents have already been entered into the record and you can read them here. Most of them are fairly technical and steeped in opaque legalese, but download and read this one: EPCOR_IRR_SEC_EPCOR Collingwood MAADs_20180503.pdf. There’s some interesting content here and I think it’s stuff that The Block, the town and maybe even EPCOR don’t want you – the public … click below for more ↓

The hypocrisy, it burns, it burns…

2018-05-01 2018-05-01 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Development & Growth / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

The Block on Collingwood Council can’t seem to go a week without diving into their deep, private lake of hypocrisy. Remember how they whined and snarled about the partnership last council formed with PowerStream to own and operate our electrical utility? How the Jeremiahs at the table lamented that a partnership deal was bad for the town. Now they want one for our airport. Ah, the hypocrisy. Yep. A story in the Connection last week noted, “…the two best options for the municipality would be … click below for more ↓

The costs of the Block’s conspiracy theory

2018-04-19 2018-04-19 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

$6.2 million. That’s how much it cost Mississauga to have a judicial inquiry into its utility Enersource, back in 2011. That inquiry was initially estimated to cost $2 million but the costs more than tripled, according to a story in The Connection. Imagine what The Block’s judicial inquiry is going to cost us in Collingwood. Millions and millions more. They’ve already admitted it will cost taxpayers around $2 million. But none of them have even the slightest idea of what’s involved, who has to be … click below for more ↓

Our treasonous council

2018-02-28 2018-02-28 Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

If Collingwood Council operated at a higher tier or government – say the federal level – they would be called treasonous and taken to court for their culture of deception, their attacks on our democratic and civic institutions, and for their ongoing betrayal of the public trust. But because they are only a municipal government, they can merely be called despicable while we await the next election. The latest act of desperation in the dungheap of this term is the recent motion to demand a … click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s culture of secrecy

2017-12-27 2017-12-27 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

For the past fifteen months, I have been trying to get a copy of the Request For Proposals (RFP) sent out to potential buyers for the purchase of our public utility. For the past fifteen months, the town has fought me, has refused to hand it over, has challenged my appeals to the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC). The public is not allowed to see it, even though it affects us and our once-public utility. Even though it is in the public’s interest to know … click below for more ↓

EPCOR and The Block’s Big Lie

2017-11-27 2022-05-25 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Staff and administration / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

For all their evils and their wrongs, the Soviets did some things very well: propaganda and disinformation. As one writer commented in the Spectator, “Communist ideology dismissed the idea of truth as a bourgeois construct. What mattered was power; and you baptised as truth those doctrines which provided it.” Stalin defined truth as what he said it was. The Soviets were such masters at it from an early stage that George Orwell declared that history stopped in 1936; after that there was only propaganda. So … click below for more ↓

Open vs secret at Collingwood Council part 2

2017-11-09 2017-11-09 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

In the previous part of this story, I provided dates of meetings and events in the terms of the previous council (on which I sat) and the current council. I documented how last term, the sale of one half the share of our electrical utility (Collus) was sold to the municipally-owned PowerStream (now Alectra) through a very well-documented, open and transparent process. I compared it to the secretive, deceptive process used by The Block on Collingwood Council, and the administration. Last term, residents and stakeholders … click below for more ↓

In camera, closed door meetings in Collingwood, 2015-17

2017-11-02 2017-11-02 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and water7 Comments

Using the agendas posted on the town’s website, I tallied up the number of Council’s in-camera meetings for three specific topics this term: Collus-PowerStream (including the share sale, shared services agreement, advice from Mark Rodger and board appointments); the hospital redevelopment, and the airport (including the request for a letter of intent and possible sale of the airport). There are several other items listed for in camera discussion that may be related to one or more of these, but since I could not pair them … click below for more ↓

Open vs secret at Collingwood Council

2017-10-31 2017-11-09 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water4 Comments

How two Collingwood councils handled the utility sale process very differently Last term, Collingwood Council went through a lengthy, open and public process to sell a portion of its electrical utility, Collus. That open process – with full discussion, community involvement, consultation and public input, and local media coverage – resulted in 50% of the utility being sold to PowerStream (an Ontario-based LDC owned by three municipalities, now merged with Alectra). The shared utility is now called Collus-PowerStream. It’s about to be sold to a … click below for more ↓

It’s about the process, stupid…

2017-10-31 2017-10-31 Blog & Blogging / Collingwood / Conspiracy Theories / Council / Critical Thinking / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Personal Reminiscences / Political fads / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

My negative comments on the impending privatization of our electrical utility (and potentially our water utility once the first deal is sealed) drew some online criticism recently. None of those critics refuted any of the facts I offered, or attempted to debunk any of the numerous documents I quoted and linked to. Nor could they. After all, they are easily proven, well-documented facts. But still, they called me a liar and attempted to use other cheap ad hominem tactics to discredit me.* However, regardless of … click below for more ↓

The secrecy and deception behind Collingwood’s utility sale

2017-10-26 2017-10-27 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

Meetings held behind closed doors late into the night. Personal vendettas. Kickbacks. Conspiracy theories. Scams and phony reports. Backroom deals. Unethical politicians conniving. Dubious legality. Shady characters pulling strings from the shadows. Scheming. Minions acting like thugs. Cowardice. Hidden contracts. Lies and deception. A deal they can’t refuse. A financial shell game. The betrayal of public trust. If that sounds like the ingredients for a crime novel, to me it reads like Collingwood Council’s secretive, unethical “process” to sell our public utilities. The public was … click below for more ↓

Collus in purgatory

2017-10-20 2017-10-20 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Staff and administration / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

Purgatory is how a staff person described to me the current situation of our local electrical utility, Collus-PowerStream (CPS). It’s the result of The Block’s and the administration’s incessant interference, manipulations, contrivances and scheming over the past three years. And it was evident, Wednesday, at the meeting where CPS presented its draft Distribution System Plan, a strategic plan for future maintenance and growth. They’re in purgatory because The Block have made the utility’s future uncertain. They cannot accurately craft business plans, strategic plans, cannot make … click below for more ↓