My responses to residents: 2

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018 / HospitalLeave a comment

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NB: As a candidate for Deputy Mayor in the upcoming municipal election, I receive questions from residents about my stand on various issues and policies. I will post my responses here for everyone to read. My responses are in italics, below. Hi Ian, Where do you want the hospital to be built ? It’s not where *I* want the hospital built that matters – it’s where the hospital’s staff, consultants, planners and board identified as the best place after many months of surveying, studying and planning. They are the experts, not me, not anyone on council. It’s the site with ……… click below for more ↓

My responses to residents: 1

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018One Comment

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NB: As a candidate for Deputy Mayor in the upcoming municipal election, I receive questions from residents about my stand on various issues and policies. I will post my responses here for everyone to read. My responses are in italics, below. One of my main concerns is development in the area. I do understand that development is important for the economic growth of Collingwood and builds a tax base. My concern is the natural area that makes Collingwood beautiful is shrinking especially with the future housing plans. Is this a priority for you? If yes, what will you do to ……… click below for more ↓

Airport sold after secret deal, no public input

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

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According to the Connection, Collingwood’s airport – owned by the taxpayers – was just sold to a private corporation after almost 20 closed-door council sessions. Not once was the public consulted. Not once was the public told WHY or even if selling the airport was good for the community. Not once did Brian Saunderson or his Block puppets warn the public last election campaign that they planned to sell our public asset.  Not once did Saunderson or the Block or the town administration present a business case in the past four years to show that selling it was good, that ……… click below for more ↓

A response to Don May

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018Leave a comment

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In a recent email, Don May took several shots at me and my integrity. I expected this and similar attacks from Saunderson’s followers – and May is an admitted supporter of Brian Saunderson. I won’t bother to respond to his innuendo or unfounded allegations. However, I want to address one thing May said that is correct: he accused me of having a, …desire to go back to our former governments of the past. Leaving aside the obvious tautology (what else could a former government be but of the past?), he’s right: I do want to see Collingwood council return to ……… click below for more ↓

Channelling John Stuart Mill

Books & Reviews / Ethics & morality / Logic and reason / Philosophy / Political philosophy / Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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In the opening few pages of his essay On Liberty, John Stuart Mill warned about the “tyranny of the prevailing opinion.” Anyone familiar with the mob mentality than can erupt on social media, its potential for divisiveness and the platform’s inherent weakness to be manipulated by outside forces (such as Russia) would consider Mill’s words as topical today.  Mill was writing in this essay about, “…the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual” and how to contain the “tyranny of the majority.”* He was passionate about individuality and the freedom of ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson’s abject desperation

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Entitlement / HospitalLeave a comment

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I’m not sure whether I pity Brian Saunderson most for his lack of principles or for his lack of shame. Or maybe both. Desperation makes people do things that common sense would suggest won’t work. Monday we saw desperation replace both principle and shame when Saunderson made a motion to support the hospital at the end of the meeting. It was an abject, grovelling effort. Embarrassing to watch.* Brian Saunderson is, of course, desperate. He faces not one but two credible candidates for the position of mayor, in a town where he and his five Block minions on council are ……… click below for more ↓

Running for office, 2018

Collingwood / Council / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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This morning I filed my papers to run for Deputy Mayor in the 2018 municipal election. I want to thank everyone who encouraged me to run, who endorsed my application, and who has promised to help my campaign. Your confidence in my ability to do the job and to provide open, ethical governance and return council to accountability is deeply felt. I promise I will not let you down. I will continue to inform voters of the abuses of power and personal agendas this term, and expose for a larger audience the unacceptable amount of secrecy and deception this council ……… click below for more ↓

Tim Fryer’s fictitious candidate

Collingwood / Election 2018Leave a comment

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You have to wonder who is being described on Tim Fryer’s campaign website when you read about claims of: Transparent and Trustworthy Leadership. Responsible and Accountable Creative and Open Minded Socially & Environmentally Conscious Is Fryer advertising for another candidate? One not so deeply joined to Brian Saunderson and his personal agendas? One who actually stood up and fought for open, accountable meetings and public consultation when privatizing our electricity utility instead of shambling into almost 50 closed-door meetings to plot the sale? One who refused to sideline our hospital redevelopment and delay it three to ten years? One who ……… click below for more ↓

You’re being lied to. Again.

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & CommunicationsOne Comment

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On Tuesday, July 17, the Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee held a meeting. Its sole purpose was to retreat behind closed doors (as this council does at every opportunity) and discuss the sale of our publicly-owned airport. To date, this council has already held 16 in camera meetings about the airport. And during these secretive meetings, our council not only decided to sell our airport, but not to hold any public consultations about that sale. Not once this term has anyone on council said WHY they wanted to sell a successful, busy, publicly-owned airport. Not once has anyone at the table ……… click below for more ↓

Update: closed door meetings in Collingwood

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and water6 Comments

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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 about this abuse of power and egregious secrecy by our council: zero. I thought I’d ……… click below for more ↓

Saunderson trolling for votes

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviourLeave a comment

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After four years of deception, secrecy, more closed-door meetings than the previous four councils combined, and avoiding public scrutiny at all costs, Brian Saunderson and his Block minions have suddenly decided that they want to be “accessible”. I know, I know: stop smirking. On the threshold of a municipal election, desperate to sanitize their grubby reputation, they’ve called for live streaming of all meetings – years after moving many committee meetings out of town hall to deter that very public accessibility, and refusing to live stream as early as 2015. Amazing how some politicians can do an about-face when an ……… click below for more ↓

A cop on every corner and in every backyard

Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

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Councillor Kathy Jeffrey wants to get tough on crime. Serious crimes like throwing birdseed on your deck, not cutting the grass on the boulevard in front of your house, and riding a bicycle on a sidewalk. I suppose and we’re all at risk from imminent social collapse if they aren’t curtailled and the malfeasants brought to justice right away. And charged. Big, hefty, bankruptcy-threatening fines. Getting tough on crime is always a hot button topic around election time, so there’s little surprise Jeffrey is on that bandwagon now, and was silent about it the previous three-and-a-half years. The Connection reported ……… click below for more ↓

More costs pile onto the SVJI

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Ethics and behaviour / Saunderson's Vindictive Judicial InquiryLeave a comment

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It seems Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) is eating up taxpayer money rapidly, with a little help from other town departments. It was originally estimated to cost taxpayers between $2 and $6 million – and now it seems that could be much more thanks to this latest farcical chapter. Saunderson’s Vindictive Judicial Inquiry needs space, not just your cash, to conduct its business. Lots of space, it seems. The SVJI crew had set up shop in town hall, and were occupying office real estate therein, but it wasn’t enough: they needed room to expand. With space in the building already ……… click below for more ↓

Timeline of the original Collus share sale

Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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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. There are a few related notes included that underscore the electricity market in flux in ……… click below for more ↓

Relevant poetry

Books & Reviews / Culture / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Poetry & LyricsOne Comment

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I was standing in a bookstore in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back, and opened The Essential Ginsberg, a collection of poems, songs and other writing by the late Allen Ginsberg, he of Howl fame*. I open the book at random and read the opening Ginsberg’s poem, Capital Air, which starts: I don’t like the government where I live I don’t like dictatorship of the Rich I don’t like bureaucrats telling me what to eat I don’t like Police dogs sniffing around my feet Even though Ginsberg wrote it in 1980, it felt like something he would be writing ……… click below for more ↓

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