Power Play Behind Council’s Closed Doors

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Saunderson's MPP campaignOne Comment

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This is a repost from a draft of the piece posted on Dec 7, 2021: In the Dec. 7 meeting of the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee, last Tuesday, one of the issues discussed was the replacement of Deputy Mayor Hull during his unexplained absence, as well the “potential” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) “Mayoral Vacancy” (readers will recall that Mayor Saunderson sloughed off his mayoral responsibilities and his oath of office last January to announce he wanted a better-paying job at Queen’s Park, and since then has practiced the art of flaccidity in office). And underneath that discussion broils the political ambitions ……… click below for more ↓

Heritage District Rules Need Repair

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsOne Comment

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A November story in CollingwoodToday about a new homeowner who got caught in the quagmire of our heritage district rules underscores the need for a thorough overhaul of the rules, a review of how the district is managed, and serious improvements in how the town and the heritage committee communicate information about the zone to both new and existing property owners. And how they treat homeowners. According to the story in CollingwoodToday, the new owners of a 1930 house on Fourth Street, renovated and painted the building in violation of the district’s rules, but claim they were not fully informed about the requirements of those ……… click below for more ↓

Toying With Townscaper

Computers & Programming / Games & Gaming / Personal Reminiscences / Software reviews4 Comments

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As a longtime gamer, I am always looking for new forms of computer and online entertainment for my PC. This week I discovered Townscaper and picked it up while it was on sale on Steam for about $6 (tax included, albeit a little more post-sale; also available for Android, Xbox, and iOS platforms). It’s money well spent, methinks, as a fan of city-builder and simulation games. You can try a somewhat limited online version of it to see how it works by clicking the link in this paragraph. Townscaper is not actually a game, but rather a virtual toy or ……… click below for more ↓

Godaddy Broke My Blog 2

Blog & Blogging / Daily life / My Writing5 Comments

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Prelude: For several years, I received emails from Godaddy – the company that hosts my online material — announcing my websites and blogs (then hosted on a Linux server) would be migrated to a newer server with a cPanel administration system. Allegedly this move would prove more efficient and offer faster access to my site (access has long been dismally slow). I wouldn’t have to do anything, just let Godaddy work. However, despite numerous emails promising the migration, nothing was done for those years until overnight on Nov. 18, 2021. On Nov. 19 I received an email saying the site ……… click below for more ↓

Godaddy Broke My Blog 1

Blog & Blogging / My Writing2 Comments

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I apologize to readers who have been wondering what happened to my blog. It seemed to go haywire, with an old, out-of-date theme showing and no posts since Nov. 18. Well, the answer is simple: Godaddy — the company I use to host my blog and websites — broke it. How and why I will explain in a subsequent post, but suffice to say they screwed up and I’ve been waiting for the past week to see if they would fix it. They haven’t. Apparently either they lack the technical competence to do so or the interest in customer service ……… click below for more ↓

Did Our Mayor Violate Copyright Law?

Collingwood / Council / Saunderson's MPP campaignOne Comment

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Did our mayor violate Canadian copyright law? And not just once? His “saundersonformpp” website recently had copies of three separate articles from Municipal World magazine about his vendetta (aka his vindictive judicial inquiry). As of yesterday morning (Nov. 17, 2021), they were all on his site. These pieces were not linked to an authorized site: instead, the text of each piece was typed in on Saunderson’s own web pages (this is usually called “pirating”). There was no indication on any that he had permission from MW to reprint these copyright pieces, that he paid any fee to use them, or ……… click below for more ↓

Corrected post on chord wheel construction

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Revised Chord Wheel – Scripturient (ianchadwick.com) Fixed the broken links, added in the missing images, added a link to the chord-builder wheel as well. Apparently, when moving the old ukulele group files on the server, I must have deleted the source folder with the files. I will have to recover the original text from the backups, but here are the PDFs and you can make the wheels from them. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Utter Disrespect for Local Media and Citizens

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Publicity & CommunicationsOne Comment

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Recently, CollingwoodToday ran a six-part series asking all members of council to express — without editing or Berman’s censorship “fact-checking” — their thoughts on what they had done on council, what they hoped to do, what challenges they faced, what they thought was their “enduring” legacy (stop laughing!) and whether they planned to run again. Our mayor — who is expected to set an example for council, yet ever fails to do so  — showed such disdain for the local media and for the residents who depend on it for local news, that he refused to participate. That’s ironic, given ……… click below for more ↓

An Exercise in Hypocrisy

Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / EntitlementLeave a comment

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A story in CollingwoodToday is titled, Collingwood residents asked to add to council code of conduct. It suggests the town (aka council) is looking for public input into the always-changing, always-ignored Code of Conduct. Yes, I know what you’re thinking when you read that story’s headline. Stop laughing. As if this council would ever pay any attention to public input. Or would heed any rules, codes, protocols, regulations or anything else that crimps their style or gets in the way of their ambition. This has always been a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do council. The story notes without a trace of irony: After the ……… click below for more ↓

Our Council’s Reprehensible Greed

Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Taxes2 Comments

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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 this egregious salary boost is stated in the report: Remuneration traditionally is intended to provide some form of compensation to recognize the time commitment required to meet the needs of constituents and apply municipal ……… click below for more ↓

Mayor and Council: Absque Verecundia

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour2 Comments

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The same year Columbus set sail west for unknown lands, Sir John Kendal received a stern admonition in writing from the council of King Henry VII, of which he was part. The reproof, written in Latin, was for publishing self-serving documents meant to promote his goal to be appointed prior of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in England. He put his own ambitions above his responsibilities to the realm. Sounds like a few local politicians, doesn’t it? The chastising document described Kendal’s behaviour as “absque verecundia” which meant “without shame, shameless, lacking respect.” The word verecundia also means ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 30

Cancer / Daily life / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / ShakespeareOne Comment

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The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together… (Shakespeare: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act IV, Sc II.) Elumbated.* It’s an archaic word meaning “weakened in the loins” according to the OED. It apparently derives from the Latin elumbis “having a dislocated hip (from e out + lumbus loin).” I thought that the word itself might be well resurrected to describe someone who had had a radical prostatectomy. Like me: If the cancer is tangled with the nerves, it may not be possible to maintain the nerve function or structure. Sometimes nerves must be cut ……… click below for more ↓

Petitioning Mayor Saunderson to Actually Act Like a Mayor

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling5 Comments

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There’s a petition being shared online that calls on Mayor Brian Saunderson to actually do his job as head of council and discipline the misbehaving Councillor Madigan. You can read my post about Madigan’s behaviour here, and download a PDF copy of the petition here (or download a Word version here). I doubt he will heed it, but I admire the sentiment. After all, Saunderson has yet to show he actually cares about his role as mayor or even about the community he was elected to lead. And his favourite, Madigan, has been acting puerile for too long to change. ……… click below for more ↓

How Can Anyone Afford a New House Here?

Collingwood / Musings / TaxesOne Comment

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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 minimum down-payment for a house selling at more than $1 million requires a $230,000 (20%) down-payment, plus another $19,000 in land transfer tax, legal fees of around $1,000, plus title insurance of $1,150, you’d ……… click below for more ↓

Why is Our Mayor Being Sued?

Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / deception & secrecy / Entitlement / Saunderson's MPP campaignLeave a comment

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Ontario civil court records found online show our Mayor, Brian Saunderson, is listed as the first defendant in a recent lawsuit, along with his allegedly former employers. The lawsuit is for $150,000 and was filed Sept. 17, 2019. The plaintiff is Grand Mortgage Investment Corporation, which the Financial Services Registry Authority office shows has a local office at 192 First Street, in Collingwood, with John Dopp listed as the mortgage administrator. M. Christopher Diamond, of DiamondPantel LLP, is listed as the company’s legal representative. I have not yet found other details about the lawsuit, or why Saunderson is the only ……… click below for more ↓

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