Are Cwood’s Symbolic Gestures Mere Platitudes?

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Local history / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Staff and administration2 Comments

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I’ve been wondering what the purpose is of the declaration that now starts every council and standing committee meeting. It’s a symbolic gesture, of course, but I cannot fathom what it’s meant to accomplish or who its audience is. The most recent declaration reads: For more than 15,000 years the First Nations walked upon, and cared for, the lands we now call home: Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Ojibwe, and many others who cared for their families and communities, the way we now seek to care for ours. The Town of Collingwood acknowledges the Lake Simcoe-Nottawasaga Treaty of 1818 and respects all of ……… click below for more ↓

Council Wants to Give Away Our Parkland to Strangers

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications4 Comments

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On July 29, 2020, Councillor Jeffrey (the Queen of the Unlimited Expense Account), seconded by Councillor Hamelin made a motion to give away a very large piece of Harbourview Park to a group that few if any had heard of before that date. GIVE AWAY OUR PUBLIC WATERFRONT PROPERTY! There was no public consultation, residents were not asked whether we felt handing our parkland to an out-of-town organization was a good idea, but council approved the motion unanimously.* Council agreed to turn over a vast area of public green space to an outside organization so they could build a two-storey, ……… click below for more ↓

Engineers Disagree With Water “Crisis” Report

Collingwood / Conflicts of Interest / Council / deception & secrecy / Ineptitude and bungling / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial Inquiry / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

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In a letter dated July 2, 2021 to the CAO and the mayor, in response to staff report CAO 2021-10, two of Collingwood’s most respected engineering firms took exception to the town’s claim there was a “water crisis” and offered solutions to the alleged problems. In responding to the report’s recommendations about releasing some capacity for development, the engineers said the recommendations fell “considerably short of what is appropriate.” It adds, Further the report makes little mention to the dialogue and solutions discussed with the industry that have occurred since the ICBL was abruptly put in place on April 26, ……… click below for more ↓

Is Bigger Better? In TVs, Maybe Not.

Daily life / Family history / Personal Reminiscences / Technology & GadgetsLeave a comment

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I read on several websites that for a distance of about 3.6 m (12 ft) from the screen to the viewer, the optimum size of a television should be 85 inches (220 cm, measured on the diagonal). That’s also the distance between someone sitting on our couch and our current (much smaller) TV screen. The mind boggles. A TV set that large (74 by 43 inches, or 190 by 109 cm, or 3,225 sq. in./ 20,710 sq. cm) would occlude our windows! (our house is of modest size, not one of those starter castles that seem to be built in ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 29

Cancer / Daily life / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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I began to write this post on the anniversary of my prostate surgery, July 8. Anniversaries are a time to reflect on the past and look to the future, even for events that are not always the happiest to recall. I took some time for such reflection and contemplation this week, and here are some of my thoughts. Twenty twenty was a tough year for everyone, what with the pandemic spreading, the lockdowns that shut businesses and services often for weeks or even months, the fears, the isolation, and the economic devastation that hit many Canadians. On top of that, ……… click below for more ↓

More on the Harbourview Park Dump

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Financial follies / Ineptitude and bungling / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

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Speaking to some long-time Collingwood residents, I’ve learned a bit more about the dump that lies under the soil at Harbourview Park and is now proposed as the site of a children’s splash pad. As far as I have been able to determine, this is being done without a proper environmental assessment having been done to ensure its safety. An EA is required by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks for former dump sites. The dump was meant for industrial waste but was quickly used for all sorts of garbage, including household and restaurant waste. As one resident told ……… click below for more ↓

A Meeting of the Minds?

Books & Reviews / Philosophy / Political philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Niccolo Machiavelli and Michel de Montaigne never met, nor could they have — Machiavelli died six years before Montaigne was born, and they lived about 1,200 km (800 miles) apart — but imagine the conversations they could have had if they had lived at the same time and close enough to visit one another, to have dinner together. Imagine the hard-nosed philosopher of the body politic and the curious philosopher of inner space, together, discussing humankind, discussing ways of living, ways of governing, discussing the classics, faith, duty, laws, and, of course, their writing. One a middle-class republican, the other ……… click below for more ↓

Cwood’s Corroding Lampposts

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ineptitude and bungling6 Comments

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First Street was so attractive when it was first rebuilt, about 15 years ago: all new and shiny infrastructure. But since then, it has been basically neglected and the inevitable effects of snow, moisture, salt, sand, and pollution have played their role in corroding the once-proud, beautiful lampposts that line our highway through town. Walk along First Street between Hurontario and High Streets. Look at the bases of lampposts on both sides of the street. They are rotting away and will likely collapse unless restored or replaced. And it needs to be done immediately. many of the collars at their ……… click below for more ↓

They’re Paving Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Financial follies / Ineptitude and bungling / Utilities: electricity and water11 Comments

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By now you’re aware that our council has approved a plan to destroy a large open, public space in Harbourview Park, and replace healthy grass and trees with an asphalt parking lot so that people will drive instead of bicycling or walking to use the $1.55 million splash pad that will also be built there.  This is the same council that is hiring a “climate change specialist” for $80,000 a year. You think that this “climate change specialist” would advise them to take a pedestrian-and-family friendly, environmentally-positive greenspace covered with renewable carbon-eating plant life and turn it into a vehicle-intensive ……… click below for more ↓

Council: Disarray, Disunited, Disrespectful

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement2 Comments

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Chris Pott’s latest blog post, titled “Council in Major Disarray” captures in part the stumbling, bumbling, and fumbling in-fighting that has become endemic in our council and is now on view for the public’s entertainment. Potts writes: Collingwood, when council starts fighting amongst themselves, you know we are in trouble. We already knew we were on the brink of disaster but this now confirms we are heading down a bad path. This dumpster fire has been ongoing for a while, although not as often in public. Those closed doors that our council loves to scurry behind are said to shield ……… click below for more ↓

More Council Secrecy, More Lawyers Paid

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Ineptitude and bungling / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryOne Comment

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On Thursday, June 24, our council again scurried behind closed doors to do town business out of the light of public scrutiny. Oh, how they love doing their machinations in the dark! The items on the agenda included: Items for discussion: a) Collingwood Judicial Inquiry Legal Advice; and b) Collingwood Airport Why would the airport be a topic for secrecy? After all, we don’t own it. It was privatized by Saunderson and his cabal last term without any public input (and sold for considerably less than the appraised value). It’s in Clearview, so we have nothing to say about planning, services, ……… click below for more ↓

Failures in Cwood’s Typography and Design

Collingwood / Local media / Publicity & Communications / Staff and administration2 Comments

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Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form. Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks Publishers, 2001) I’m neither a graphic designer nor a typographer, but I spent many, many years working with design and type, as well as designers and typographers, enough to acquire at least a patina of their arts. I’ve read and studied them enough to know the basics, more than enough to see when they have not been applied, and enough to appreciate good and bad style. Looking at the ads on the Town of Collingwood’s pages in ……… click below for more ↓

A Cup of Darjeeling

Daily life / Food & Drink / Personal Reminiscences / Tea & coffeeLeave a comment

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With characteristic brightness frequently likened to newly minted coins, fragrant aromas, and sophisticated, complex flavours — delicate, even flowery (more stem than petal, as one expert blender put it), with hints of apricots and peaches, muscat grapes, and tasty nuts — it’s the world’s premium tea, the “champagne of tea.”… Darjeeling tea is often sold not just by single estate like wines, but also by flush, or harvesting season, a term nearly exclusive to tea from the far northeast of India… While Darjeeling tea’s unique brightness and aromatic flavours set it apart from other similar types of tea, each of ……… click below for more ↓

Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, and Kong

Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Pop Culture3 Comments

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I’m not sure if I should be elated or disappointed after watching Godzilla vs. Kong (GvK), the latest film (2021) in the Legendary/Universal, Godzilla/MonsterVerse saga. That’s Kong, not King Kong, by the way, because of a squabble over licensing rights, but, yes, it’s that Kong in person if not name. The kaiju formerly known as… Almost two hours of Godzilla and the gang onscreen, with tremendous monster fights, should be a delight for any kaiju aficionado (as readers here know I am…), and I always revel in another Godzilla (or Kong) film added to my collection, but I can’t help ……… click below for more ↓

The Corrupt PC Nomination Process

Conflicts of Interest / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Provincial Politics / Saunderson's MPP campaign3 Comments

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This week, Stella Ambler, a former candidate for the nomination for the PC party in Simcoe Grey, sent an email that expressed her disappointment over the party’s authoritarian actions: On Monday, Patrick Harris (4th Vice-President, PC Party of Ontario & Chair of the Provincial Nomination Committee for Simcoe-Grey) sent an official reply to my appeal of the decision to cancel the democratic nomination process here in Simcoe-Grey. In short, Mr. Harris informed me that my appeal was unworthy of the party’s consideration and would be neither considered nor voted upon by the Provincial Nomination Committee. Ambler was challenging Collingwood’s mayor, ……… click below for more ↓

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