Council’s 12 Days of Christmas

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & SatireLeave a comment

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On the first day of Christmas my council gave to me: An interim CAO. On the second day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Two tax hikes, And an interim CAO. On the third day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Three sole-sourced contracts, two tax hikes, And an interim CAO. On the fourth day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Four integrity investigations, three sole-sourced contracts, two tax hikes, And an interim CAO. On the fifth day of Christmas, my council gave to me: Five insults to the CGMH, four integrity investigations, three sole-sourced contracts, two ……… click below for more ↓

Godless – The Truth Beyond Belief

Atheism & Spirituality / Christianity / Critical Thinking / Faith / History & Biography / Religious intoleranceOne Comment

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfwuvMpmQJM “Godless – The Truth Beyond Belief” investigates one of the last frontiers in civil liberties and human rights: Atheism. So reads the opening sentence on the website of a new film about atheism and society. It asks, “can you be good without god?” Well, yes, you can. That’s the whole point of secular humanism, philosophy and the entire Buddhist faith. Morality is a choice we make, not a divine command. It also hides another question within its folds: can you be good and still have free will? If you need a god to be good, that suggests you don’t have ……… click below for more ↓

Council’s report card: Year 2, part 1

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & Satire / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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As we reach the end of our Council’s second year in office, halfway through its mandate, it is time again to assess the collective performance and list the accomplishments of our elected officials. To avoid accusations of egregious negativity, I will list council’s accomplishments first. And to avoid further accusations of meandering through overly long diatribes (mea culpa, I do ramble a bit…), I will split this post into two pieces. The good (this post) and the bad (a subsequent post). For a historical comparison, you might wish to refer to my analysis of council’s first year prior to reading ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s own Gong Show, part 2

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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As promised, here is the second part of the Gong Show analysis from December 12th’s council meeting. Like I said earlier, it’s perhaps more like a Keystone Cops or Abbott and Costello skit than the TV show. As always, you can follow along on the Rogers Community TV broadcast, starting at 2:16:30. Laugh aloud at the zany, misinformed antics of your elected representatives as they fumble and stumble their way through an agenda of items they clearly have no clue about. You should start with part 1 of my review, if you haven’t already read it. And by the end of ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s own Gong Show, part 1

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Taxes / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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Has there ever been a more inept, ineffective group at the council table in Collingwood? Certainly not in the 26 years I’ve been here. Not in the dozen years I covered it for the media, not in the 11 years I served on council have I seen anything so comical. Rogers TV really should put a laugh track on their broadcasts of council meetings. They could call it the Gong Show – had that name not already been taken by a more serious TV show. But until then, you should watch the December 12, 2016 meeting. You’ll roar, you’ll chuckle, ……… click below for more ↓

Eheu fugaces, Postume…

Books & Reviews / Classical period / Classics / Culture / History & Biography / Poetry & Lyrics / What I'm Reading Now4 Comments

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Alas, Postumus, the swift years slip away. Those words are one translation of the opening line of the 14th Ode in the second book of Horace’s carminas, or songs: Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume/labuntur anni… * For me, it’s his most moving piece, a bittersweet acceptance of mortality; the inevitability of age and death. Something no one in his or her sixties cannot help but think about. And about which Horace wrote several times. Many of Horace’s poems are moving; very down to earth. His most touching odes read not so much as poetry meant for a wide audience, but rather ……… click below for more ↓

Collus share bid received

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

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My sources tell me PowerStream submitted a bid to purchase the town’s share of the Collus-PowerStream utility, late on Friday, December 9. While the amount was not stated, I am told it is a “very fair” bid. This is so far going as I predicted in my earlier post. PowerStream paid $8 million cash for half the share in 2012 (with another $6.4 million coming through Collus from notes and recapitalization), but since then The Block and town administration gutted the board (twice), joyfully ruined the shared services agreement, and happily took away the water side thus reducing the utility’s revenue ……… click below for more ↓

A Cup of Mao Jian

Food & Drink / History & Biography / Tea & coffeeLeave a comment

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The tea bag is an example of remarkable serendipity; an unexpected, simple invention that changed the world. But it was entirely unintended. Tea, from the camelia sinenis tree, is the most popular beverage in the world after water, and the most popular hot beverage period. Before the tea bag appeared, barely over a century ago, all tea was sold loose. Today more than 90% is sold in bags (if you include tisanes, or herbal “teas” that figure is about 70%*). For what is arguably the most popular drink in the world, that’s quite a change in a few decades. At ……… click below for more ↓

Stumbling towards the utility’s demise

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water2 Comments

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This week, Collingwood Council met in a special meeting to discuss an request from its utility partner, PowerStream, to waive some conditions of the shareholder agreement. This meeting appears to have been called by the interim CAO, which seems to me to usurp the mayor’s authority, but we know the administration – in partnership with The Block – has long been pulling the strings in this town to serve its own ends. Plus the meeting was held mid-day at the fire hall; a time and location that appears intended to deter both public and media presence. Well while the public ……… click below for more ↓

Those pesky costs The Block forgot to mention

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / User fees and costs / Utilities: electricity and waterOne Comment

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Who sends out your water bills? Collus-PowerStream. It’s all part of the shared services agreement. Yes, that simple little agreement that for 15 productive, cooperative years linked our water and electrical utilities with mutual resources. That same agreement The Block dismantled and handed over to the interim CAO two years ago to rewrite and update. A 30-minute job that still hasn’t been completed. And never will be. Who takes the data from the meters, calculates the charges, prints and folds the bills, inserts them into envelopes and puts them through the postage meter? Collus-PowerStream. Who handles the automatic payments, the ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption, Collingwood & the Collus Board

Collingwood / Council / Planning & Policies / Utilities: electricity and water3 Comments

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The Most Secretive Council Ever has comfortably assumed the mantle of The Most Secretive and Corrupt Council Ever. As I warned in a previous post, The Block was going to appoint someone’s friends to the Collus-PowerStream board – and do it both illegally and unethically. And last Monday, they told us they had done it. Fait accompli. But as you have learned this term, laws, procedures, ethics and morals are for others to obey, not for The Block. According to a story in The Connection (apparently the EB couldn’t be bothered to report on it online and I don’t get their print ……… click below for more ↓

No, Brian: Elvis isn’t in the CBSP

Collingwood / Council / Culture / Ethics and behaviour / Festivals & Events / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

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At the Nov. 28 Council meeting (seen here on Rogers TV), Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson blathered on in cliché-rich, lawerly manner (starting 1:14:05) about how much the Elvis Festival means to his “Community-Based Strategic Plan” (1:16:18) – that committee-based wishlist which was neither strategic nor a plan. What does he mean when he claims that a report has “galvanized the question quite nicely”? Galvanized? Does he know what that word means? It’s not what he appears to think it does… it means to “shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action.” A staff report is seldom shocking or exciting, and ……… click below for more ↓

Muzzling the airport board

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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The Collingwood Airport Board wants to get its own legal opinion about the Clearview Aviation Business Park request for a non-binding letter of intent to negotiate access to the airport. Seems reasonable for the board charged with oversight of the airport to want to make sure that any decisions made best represent their mandate and the viability of the airport itself. The Block and Collingwood’s administration are opposed to them getting one. Are they afraid of what that opinion would say? That it wouldn’t come from a lawyer already instructed as to what to say? That they couldn’t control the ……… click below for more ↓

I used to like him; not so much now…

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Municipal Politics / Politics3 Comments

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Back in the ’70s when he ran for mayor and we both lived in Toronto, I voted for John Sewell. And when he won, I was a big supporter of his human-scale policies and planning, and enjoyed his youthful vigour and vision. Now, not so much. Sure, he’s a smart, well-spoken, erudite man with a long list of credentials. But he’s also wrong. At least about one issue: our hospital. Sewell and Collingwood resident Karina Dahlin (former Editor, executive communications, the Hospital for Sick Children, according to LinkedIn) wrote an opinion piece for TVO’s online magazine titled, “Health care gaps: ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption and conflict of interest

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications7 Comments

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Ever get that uneasy sense of deja vu? That some ugly, undemocratic event you’re watching at council, some autocratic, conniving, secret and self-serving act is something you’ve experienced in the past? That those nasty breaches of ethics, those conflicts of interest, those ignored bylaws and broken trust are things you’ve already seen at the table? That you’re going through another round of corruption and conflict in Collingwood? By this very council? Well, my dear readers, you aren’t alone. On November 14, Collingwood Council once again went in camera and came out with this resolution: BE RESOLVED THAT Council hereby agrees ……… click below for more ↓

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