Scripturient

The Bullying Will Continue Until We’re Satisfied

Which of the following words or phrases do you feel best describe Collingwood Council (you may choose more than one): Petty Vindictive Puritanical Hypocritical Vicious Punitive Jealous Envious Mean-spirited Puerile Slavishly loyal to their Great Leader Self-righteous All of the above Imagine this (cue the Twilight Zone soundtrack…): a council member is participating in an in-camera Zoom meeting, this one a training session about the importance of in-camera confidentiality in which NO CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION was shared. It should, of course, have been held IN THE OPEN but because this council is so passionate about operating in the shadows, it was ……… click below for more ↓

Morally and Ethically Bankrupt

2022-01-25 2022-01-25 Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Legal issues8 Comments

It’s official: our council is morally and ethically bankrupt. You may have felt that from their past behaviour, but Monday night they confirmed it for everyone. There is not a shred of decency left to share among them. At the Jan. 24 meeting of council, they voted unanimously to revoke Ed Houghton’s Order of Collingwood award, given in 1998. Rescinding his award was done to punish the former Collus CEO for hurting our mayor’s feelings a decade ago. Not a single member of our diminished council had the courage to stand up against our tyrannical mayor and say that it ……… click below for more ↓

Ecclestone’s New Endeavour

2022-01-24 2022-01-24 Collingwood / Election 2018 / Politics / Provincial PoliticsLeave a comment

I see from emails he has been sending out that former councillor Cam “Sleepy” Ecclestone has decided to run in the upcoming provincial election as a member of the Consensus Party — an unknown, fringe party that hasn’t got the proverbial snowball’s hope in hell of getting a seat, especially not in this riding. That takes guts. Or maybe utter stu… but you have to admire him for putting himself on the firing line like this. The same way you admire drunken people running with the bulls in Pamplona. The results, I suspect, will be similar, albeit less gory. The ……… click below for more ↓

A Bullied Councillor Resigns

2022-01-23 2022-01-23 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour5 Comments

On Friday, Jan. 21, Councillor Tina Comi resigned from council. I am deeply disappointed and troubled. She was the only one at the table not among the slate of slavish sycophants who serve The Great Leader. Her departure leaves us with a dysfunctional council devoid of wisdom, devoid of community spirit, with a black hole of greed at their collective core instead of a conscience. She was the sole independent voice at the table and will be sorely missed. While I have sometimes chastised her for not standing up against the Block and their myopic obsession to empower Saunderson’s vendetta ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson’s Groundhog Day

2022-01-21 2022-01-21 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Legal issues / Saunderson's MPP campaign / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

Mayor Brian Saunderon’s two petty, vindictive, and very personal motions are on the agenda for Monday, Jan. 24. You can read the agenda here, and read my comments on our mayor’s obsessive, Stalinist cancel-culture program here, and the background machinations that led to his motion here. This is nothing more than a personal vendetta using town funds and resources. Saunderson’s first motion — to revoke an award given for former Collus-CEO Ed Houghton’s contributions to the community 24 years ago — starts on page 5 of the agenda and runs on and on and on and on and on like ……… click below for more ↓

Socrates and Saunderson

2022-01-17 2022-01-17 Classics / Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Philosophy / Saunderson's MPP campaignOne Comment

In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, Socrates debates with three sophists — Gorgias the rhetorician and his pupils Polus, and Callicles — about justice, power, morality, and virtue. Socrates also questions the value of oratory and rhetoric — the crafts of the sophists — in contemporary politics and whether they do good for the people. Spoiler alert: he’s not convinced they are for the good. You can read the somewhat stuffy Benjamin Jowett translation here and here, or read David Horan’s more modern translation here. I realize that readers may not be in the habit of reading Plato, or might not see ……… click below for more ↓

Musings on the First Tercet of Dante’s Inferno

2022-01-15 2022-01-31 Books & Reviews / Books about books / Classics / Poetry / Translations & translating / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

Back in December, before Godaddy broke my blog through technical incompetence, I had written a piece about the first stanza in Inferno, the first book of Dante’s trilogy, The Divine Comedy. Since that post seems irretrievably lost, I decided to write another in the same vein. So please bear with me if this seems redundant. It all began innocently enough on Tuesday late last year when I was searching through my bookshelves in search of something I can no longer recall, and instead of what I was hunting (being easily distracted by books), I took down my copy of Mary ……… click below for more ↓

The Dark History Behind Saunderson’s Cancel-Culture Motion

2022-01-14 2022-01-14 Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Wacky WTF ideasLeave a comment

Without any fanfare or media coverage (no surprises there!), last September Collingwood Council approved a significant change to the policy regarding the Order of Collingwood that would pave the way for Mayor Brian Saunderson to launch his cancel-culture attack on someone he despises for hurting his feelings. But the real history goes back to the spring of 2021. It began with a CAO report presented to council in April, 2021. That report included two neo-Stalinist suggestions to erase and revise Collingwood’s history to suit the official narrative developed under Saunderson (aka his cancel culture): Council consider the removal of the ……… click below for more ↓

Should Candidates and Officials Disclose Criminal Records?

2022-01-13 2022-01-13 Canadian Politics / Collingwood / deception & secrecy / Election campaigns / Municipal Politics / Musings / Politics / Provincial Politics5 Comments

Some questions about openness and truth to consider as we start a year in which we have both a provincial and municipal election coming… Should a candidate for office disclose their criminal records when they campaign? Should they disclose it only if they were convicted of an offence or should they disclose charges as well? For full public transparency and accountability, should officeholders disclose any charges and convictions? Should candidates or officeholders disclose when they have been or are being sued and why? Would you vote for a candidate in an election who had a criminal record? Are there some ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood and Copyright Law

2022-01-12 2022-01-12 Collingwood / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Staff and administrationLeave a comment

I was disappointed to learn that, after my exposing our mayor for breaking copyright law on his campaign website (by unauthorized publication of copyright material), that the town itself has probably also done so. I wasn’t surprised that our hypocritical mayor ignored our laws despite being a lawyer himself (look at how often he’s ignored his precious inquiry’s recommendations to avoid apparent conflicts of interest by voting to hire his former employers!), but I was surprised that the town would do so. And that neither of the two lawyers we have on council spotted or questioned it (perhaps they don’t ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson Continues His Cancel-Culture Program

2022-01-11 2022-01-11 Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Wacky WTF ideasOne Comment

On the agenda for the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee (SIC) for Jan. 10, 2022 is a single line under other business that underscores just how petty, puerile, and vindictive our mayor is: Order of Collingwood Revocation and OMWA Membership, Mayor Saunderson As you might expect from a secretive, deceptive mayor, there was no documentation or commentary attached to the agenda package as you would expect in an open, transparent council meeting. It cunningly doesn’t even mention he will present notices of motion. Clearly, he didn’t want to give away too many details of his latest move against his perceived enemies, ……… click below for more ↓

Greed: Council Votes Itself More Money. Again

2022-01-09 2022-01-09 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Wacky WTF ideas3 Comments

NB. This is a repost from Dec. 16, 2021 At its Dec. 13 budget meeting our perpetually greedy, self-serving council voted 5-3 to increase their own individual expense accounts from $4,000 a year to a staggering $5,500. That’s $2,000 more than councillors were allowed for expenses in 2014. That’s a LOT of money for a council that has spent the last two years in virtual meetings, not attending events, conferences or activities in person. It’s not as if they need it for travel. And guess who approves their expenses? Right: the mayor. You really think he’ll turn down his supporters’ ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s Broken Windows

2022-01-09 2022-01-09 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Ineptitude and bunglingLeave a comment

NB. This post was first published on Dec. 9, 2021 If I sometimes seem to complain in a picayune manner, harping on the same signs of scruffiness and neglect that we seem to see more often around town these days, there’s a reason for it. Mostly it’s because I care about my community and it deeply bothers me when others — especially those elected to do so — don’t. But it’s also because I believe that even small signs of neglect reflect a larger problem, not just declining morale and ineptness in townhall. Contrary to the popular saying, the small stuff ……… click below for more ↓

Yet More Disrespect From Madigan

2022-01-08 2022-01-08 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Ineptitude and bunglingLeave a comment

NB: This is a repost from Dec. 9, 2021. See below. Last year, I wrote about how Councillor Bob “Lapdog” Madigan had behaved in a churlish, misogynistic manner towards female members of council during open council meetings, first in March, 2021, and again in October. But if you thought the boorish Madigan — who, it’s rumoured, plans to run for mayor or deputy mayor next election — could not set the bar any lower in puerile, boorish behaviour, last December he showed his utter disrespect not only to council and staff, but to the entire community he is supposed to represent. ……… click below for more ↓