{"id":13740,"date":"2015-12-24T16:20:27","date_gmt":"2015-12-24T21:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=13740"},"modified":"2015-12-24T16:33:16","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T21:33:16","slug":"councils-first-year-reviewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/councils-first-year-reviewed\/","title":{"rendered":"Council’s First Year Reviewed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Dilbert\"<\/a>As we come close to the end of 2015, it’s time to take stock of\u00a0what your Collingwood Council has accomplished in its first year in office<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Let me start by saying it’s up to you<\/em> to decide whether we\u00a0have the best people at the table to represent our needs. Or \u00a0are they gormless, brainless, pursing a political agenda set for them by unelected outsiders, and\/or blindly following the lead of administration staff?\u00a0It is up to you<\/em> to decide whether they have lived up to their election promises or led this town astray.<\/p>\n

First, here’s the complete list of everything\u00a0council has done for you<\/em>:\u00a0for your <\/em>benefit, for the greater good, for the good of the whole community, for the welfare and wellbeing of you<\/em>, the resident and voter. Scroll down to see the full list:<\/p>\n

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\"DilbertNothing!\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ta da<\/em>! You expected that, didn’t you? You already knew what I was going to write, no doubt, because you’ve watched this council (although you’d never get that from biased local media…)<\/p>\n

Well, it’s just the first year.\u00a0Maybe they haven’t got around to actually doing anything for residents yet because they’re still wet behind their collective ears, and still trying to figure out how an agenda works. Or perhaps it’s\u00a0because they still haven’t finished doing things for themselves yet.<\/p>\n

Council should consider the words Shakespeare gives to Mark Antony in his play, Julius Caesar<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The evil that men do lives after them;
\nThe good is oft interred with their bones;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No matter what good council might attempt in future, what lofty goals it aspires to in the coming years, or even whether it actually does anything for the greater good, \u00a0Collingwoodites will always remember \u00a0council for this<\/em> year. First impressions and all that.<\/p>\n

\"Collingwood<\/a>
Collingwood Council, 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe they will\u00a0excuse their inaction by claiming they had to wait for another outside consultant’s report to tell them what to think. After all, they’ve had more consultants’ reports this year than most councils have through their entire term. PLUS they’ve hired more lawyers this year than most councils ever use in a whole term. Ka-ching!<\/em> Our hard-earned money going to outsiders to\u00a0tell us what to do. Who really expected leadership this term, anyway?<\/p>\n

So far, all the many consultants’ reports and even more numerous in-camera meetings have done is help destroy decades-old relationships, make partnerships toxic, mislead the public, destroy staff morale, and fill councillors’\u00a0heads with false information. But they have<\/em> bolstered the administration’s position. And what else are our tax dollars meant for, if not to pursue personal agendas?<\/p>\n

Maybe council is\u00a0planning<\/em> to do something. Or planning to plan to do something. Or proposing to study a possibility of planning to plan. After all, we can’t decide on anything without a plan to plan for the plan… and they need a pre-meeting to prepare to plan for the consultant to tell them what to plan for… It’s like a Dilbert cartoon come to life.<\/p>\n

\"Dilbert\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Planning to do something isn’t the same as\u00a0actually doing it. At least they have their\u00a0committee-based wishlist crafted by their friends from which to cherry pick what they can safely not<\/em> accomplish (and then stick the\u00a0angry blue ant logo on it).<\/p>\n

But the year wasn’t entirely\u00a0<\/em>without activity. Oh no. Council was quite busy feathering its own nest\u00a0and\u00a0fulfilling its ideologies, while\u00a0gleefully making Collingwood into\u00a0the regional bully and\/or laughingstock. Most of which, of course, the local media ignored or whitewashed (but this isn’t a post about the media’s lack of credibility or competency…).<\/p>\n

Here’s what council DID do this term:<\/p>\n

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  1. Council\u00a0raised your property taxes in 2015<\/strong>, most of them voting for the tax increase without even looking at the whole budget. None\u00a0were allowed by admin staff to dare question it;<\/li>\n
  2. Council is contemplating raising your taxes<\/strong> EVEN MORE in 2016!<\/li>\n
  3. Only one councillor\u00a0even bothered to read the whole<\/em> 2015 budget and ask questions about hidden costs before voting on it before being shut down (and then bravely voting against it);<\/li>\n
  4. Council\u00a0ignored the town’s accumulated surplus in 2015 (~$3 million\u00a0-including the\u00a0budgetary excess from policing) that should have meant no<\/em> tax increase this year (and should mean NO tax increase in 2016);<\/li>\n
  5. Council\u00a0raised your water rates<\/strong> to satisfy an administrative staff whim\u00a0that accomplished nothing more than gouging consumers;<\/li>\n
  6. Council\u00a0gave themselves a raise<\/strong> in their first few months (no doubt to cover the tax hike they gave the rest of us…);<\/li>\n
  7. They’re planning to give themselves another<\/em> raise<\/strong> in 2016;<\/li>\n
  8. Council\u00a0gave staff a raise<\/strong> higher than the cost of living in 2015;<\/li>\n
  9. They’re planning to\u00a0give staff\u00a0an equally large salary increase<\/strong> for 2016;<\/li>\n
  10. Council demanded\u00a0the PRC hire a supervisor (desk jockey) instead of the recommended\u00a0lead hand (a worker) to oversee some arena operations;<\/li>\n
  11. Council\u00a0allowed admin staff to promote a plan to allow\u00a0retail opening on statutory holidays – which will seriously affect\u00a0local workers – without getting any<\/em> public input. The town advertised that the BIA and Chamber of Commerce had asked for it, but that was untrue<\/strong>:\u00a0neither<\/em> organization was aware of the proposal when the town advertised it. Plus council’s\u00a0committee\u00a0approved the proposal\u00a0before<\/em> any local organization or worker\u00a0could\u00a0comment on the proposal;<\/li>\n
  12. Council\u00a0extended the contract of an unpopular, interim CAO when they could have improved staff morale and saved taxpayers $50,000 or more by hiring a new, permanent CAO;<\/li>\n
  13. Council\u00a0increased the expense account<\/strong>\u00a0of\u00a0Councillor (aka The Senator<\/em>) Jeffrey by\u00a0$40,000 so she could pursue her own personal political ambitions outside the town; wining and dining her luxurious way across Canada with no benefit to the town or our taxpayers – and never once requested any accountability from Jeffrey for her spending;<\/li>\n
  14. Councillor Jeffrey stayed at the table, spoke during the discussion about engorging her own<\/em> expense account, and even voted to raise her own<\/em>\u00a0expense limit. Ethically and morally she should have stepped away from any discussion that involved her own expenses;<\/li>\n
  15. Council would not\u00a0back the request for funding support by the popular Jazz & Blues Festival as the town had done in previous years (it was, fortunately, saved by private sector individuals who stepped at the last moment);<\/li>\n
  16. Council\u00a0sole-sourced a taxi contract<\/strong> without any tender or RFP, to the company owned by the sister and brother-in-law of Councillor Fryer (who voted for the proposal; he didn’t declare a conflict or step away from the table);<\/li>\n
  17. Council\u00a0sold a piece of town property\u00a0to the company owned by the sister and brother-in-law of Councillor Fryer (who voted for the proposal; he didn’t declare a conflict or step away from the table);<\/li>\n
  18. All but one councillor let staff ignore council’s own direction to provide a budget forecast for 2015 with 1% and 2% increases, and instead passed the\u00a0budget at a much higher rate without having that vital information;<\/li>\n
  19. Council accepted a flawed and controversial consultant’s report<\/strong> on the shared service agreement with Collus\u00a0that created negative publicity and hurt utility staff morale, but would\u00a0not make public the 100-plus pages of\u00a0corrections and\u00a0challenges the participants made to the report;<\/li>\n
  20. Council dissolved the shared-service agreement<\/strong>\u00a0with Collus and left it up to the CAO to rewrite a new one – which still hasn’t been done almost a year later, despite mounting legal and consulting costs;<\/li>\n
  21. This move helped destroy\u00a0the 150-year-old productive\u00a0and friendly relationship between\u00a0the PUC and COLLUS, it grew sour and then\u00a0toxic;<\/li>\n
  22. The provincially-respected and highly competent COO of the water utility couldn’t take the bullshit here and left for another municipality.\u00a0Other senior utility staff have resigned, and staff moral is at an all-time low;<\/li>\n
  23. Council replaced the experienced, competent and long-serving utility board with a selection of their own inexperienced, newcomer councillors, who have no knowledge or understanding of the water service, the legislation, the technology, their responsibilities or the liabilities. Collingwood’s long-held\u00a0100% performance rating for its water system was\u00a0dropped to 96%\u00a0by the Ministry of the Environment in 2015;<\/li>\n
  24. Council\u00a0removed\u00a0the experienced and provincially-respected CEO of COLLUS\u00a0from the PUC board and replaced him with the town’s CAO, who has less (if any) experience and technical expertise in water issues than the CEO;<\/li>\n
  25. Council\u00a0abandoned the downtown by\u00a0refusing to appoint a council representative to the BIA board, and thus prevent\u00a0downtown issues from getting\u00a0public visibility at the council table and has ignored requests for a council rep ever since;<\/li>\n
  26. Council vocally\u00a0supported a resident’s anti-bullying campaign but did not speak up about cyberbullying because many of them continue to be supported by the town’s most vocal cyberbullies;<\/li>\n
  27. Councillors\u00a0have had at least four\u00a0complaints about their conduct to the Integrity Commissioner followed by investigations (that I know of), two\u00a0of which were made public (Doherty and Fryer);<\/li>\n
  28. Council\u00a0has had at least one OPP investigation already (that I know of);<\/li>\n
  29. Council\u00a0has had at least one investigation about leaked personal information by the province’s Information and Privacy Commission (that I know of);<\/li>\n
  30. Council voted to accept a 2014 report from the Integrity Commissioner criticizing\u00a0former DM Lloyd, even though that report had been\u00a0rejected by the previous council because the IC did not follow the town’s bylaw rules for reporting.\u00a0The complaint was\u00a0made by a campaign supporter of now-Deputy Mayor Saunderson. The complainant held a neighbourhood meet-and-greet to introduce\u00a0Saunderson to his neighbourhood\u00a0the day before\u00a0he\u00a0filed the complaint. Saunderson voted to accept the IC’s report but\u00a0never acknowledged the complainant was actively helping and contributed financially to his election campaign;<\/li>\n
  31. The majority of council voted to accept a report from the Integrity Commissioner that criticized Councillor Doherty while\u00a0saying she did no legal wrong.\u00a0This is the same conclusion the IC made when reporting on a complaint against former Deputy Mayor Lloyd. The majority threw\u00a0Coun. Doherty under the political bus in order to justify accepting the above report;<\/li>\n
  32. Council got so fed up with having their behaviour and ethics being investigated\u00a0that\u00a0they fired their own Integrity Commissioner to avoid further scrutiny this term. No longer will their wrongdoings be investigated and exposed to the public;<\/li>\n
  33. The strategic plan we were promised by the deputy mayor within the first 90 days never arrived: instead, nine months later we got a wishy-washy list of things a\u00a0committee of council’s\u00a0friends wanted, many of which are outside council’s jurisdiction. This so-called woo-hoo “plan” came with no measurable actions, budget\u00a0or accountability,\u00a0but\u00a0cost taxpayers at least $50,000 for outside consulting fees;<\/li>\n
  34. Council\u00a0ignored an opportunity for the town to host a Junior B hockey team that would have been funded entirely by the private sector without subsidies, and instead opted for a Junior C league (allegedly being\u00a0promoted by campaign supporters). This league will depend on ice time subsidized by the taxpayer and likely by public funding;<\/li>\n
  35. There were\u00a0behind-the-scenes private\u00a0discussions about extending the interim CAO’s contract and about his salary;<\/li>\n
  36. There were\u00a0behind-the-scenes private discussions about increasing your water rates;<\/li>\n
  37. There were\u00a0behind-the-scenes private discussions to promote\u00a0the subsidized junior C hockey league application over the privately-funded junior B league;<\/li>\n
  38. Councillors\u00a0engaged in numerous closed-door\u00a0meetings about the airport (at least seven in 2015, possibly several more).\u00a0These were\u00a0of dubious legality and certainly were ethically inappropriate;<\/li>\n
  39. Council is probably planning\u00a0to sell\u00a0the airport, even though it has not been declared surplus.\u00a0Council has not\u00a0even attempted to get\u00a0public input on selling one of our largest and most important assets;<\/li>\n
  40. Council refused to grant a non-binding letter of intent to a major industrial park developer to allow access to airport property, putting at risk a $300 million project and 1,400 jobs. Council held the discussions entirely\u00a0in secret, away from\u00a0public scrutiny;<\/li>\n
  41. The refusal to grant the letter of intent flies in the face of three recommendations by the airport service board and similar requests by Clearview Township council and the developer. Regional cooperation has been destroyed\u00a0and our municipal neighbours have expressed their indignation and disrespect for Collingwood publicly and in the media;<\/li>\n
  42. The refusal to grant the letter of intent severely weakens\u00a0the airport’s argument against proposed\u00a0wind turbines\u00a0near the runway;<\/li>\n
  43. Council, with the administration’s help, ruined the town’s reputation with our neighbours, our other staff, our partners, businesses and developers over this and other anti-business initiatives. The general view is that the town is closed for business;<\/li>\n
  44. Instead of actually doing something useful\u00a0about the waterfront, and help bring\u00a0more business\u00a0downtown, council delayed, hesitated, and made loud noises about planning to plan to prepare to plan to for a possible waterfront plan, but not even accomplishing that much;<\/li>\n
  45. Council refused to sell or trade a small piece of undevelopable and unwanted public land (block nine) to a local developer who promised to clean it up, build\u00a0a parking lot and a public parkette on it. The property\u00a0has been unused for 150 years except as a hydro corridor; and it supports a breeding pond for mosquitoes (now cheekily referred to as “Saunderson’s Pond”). The town could have received a six-acre plot of shoreline wetland in exchange, or\u00a0$330,000, but refused\u00a0to because of\u00a0ideology and personal agendas;<\/li>\n
  46. Council refused to extend the harbour’s sidelaunch dock, which would have brought more visitors to the harbour and more business (and customers) downtown;<\/li>\n
  47. Council dropped Collus employees from its\u00a0staff Christmas dinner \u00a0invitations for the last two years; the first time they have been excluded since the dinner has been held, and the only public employees to be thus excluded;<\/li>\n
  48. Council allowed administrative staff to hire numerous outside consultants to give council staff’s opinions in a way to make them appear legitimate. Three consultants’ reports were used in the 2016 budget preparation alone;<\/li>\n
  49. Councillors who attended the 2015 AMO conference in Niagara Falls all had taxpayers pay their expenses. Yet at least one was seen\u00a0asleep during meetings; one allegedly rode a bicycle around the city instead of attending workshops and seminars, and one allegedly visited friends in the area without once attending a single event;<\/li>\n
  50. Councillors\u00a0turned their\u00a0backs on their many (former) supporters in\u00a0Georgian Meadows who were protesting the density and height of a nearby development proposed by a\u00a0company owned by the\u00a0brother-in-law and sister of Councillor Fryer. Council chose the developer’s goals over the residents’ concerns.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And all the while, councillors\u00a0brayed in public over their integrity, openness, accountability and transparency as they did\u00a0the above. It’s up to you<\/em> to decide if they were telling the truth.<\/p>\n

    I’ve heard people sum up council’s first year this term in one word: destructive. Perhaps toxic would be a better choice. Either way, there is a growing number\u00a0who\u00a0believe this is\u00a0easily the worst council ever elected since this town was formed. Are you among them?<\/p>\n

    This Dilbert cartoon says it all in so many ways:
    \n    \"Dilbert<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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    As we come close to the end of 2015, it’s time to take stock of\u00a0what your Collingwood Council has accomplished in its first year in office. Let me start by saying it’s up to you to decide whether we\u00a0have the best people at the table to represent our needs. Or \u00a0are they gormless, brainless, pursing a political agenda set for them by unelected outsiders, and\/or blindly following the lead of administration staff?\u00a0It is up to you to decide whether they have lived up to their election promises or led this town astray. First, here’s the complete list of everything\u00a0council has \u2026…… click below for more \u2193<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,537,546],"tags":[655,618,140,130],"class_list":["post-13740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collingwood","category-council","category-ethics-and-behaviour","tag-annual-review","tag-collingwood","tag-council","tag-ethics"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":6222,"today_views":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13740"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15748,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13740\/revisions\/15748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}