Cobourg’s budget – impressions of!

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Frost_sThis budget is Deputy Mayor Frost’s last  one. It reflects all  of the last three and some of his support of prior ones. On the face of it it is respectable, after all who can carp about budgets that give us more services at a few points above inflation?

The voters can, that’s who! Mr Frost came to the Cobourg Council seven years ago with the tag of “Taxfighter”. Well looking at the history that may be true if you count taxfighting as an activity that doesn’t raise taxes too much. You may think that we are being overly critical in this post, we may be but we will acknowledge that with the help of a super Police Chief – Paul Sweet, he did tame the runaway Police budget. But taxfighting – NO.

This budget is trumpeted now at 2.1% increase, it may go lower before it is adopted for the year. But that is only the final budget after we add in something called ‘increased assessment’. This is the increase in the base value of all of the assessed properties in the Town. In other words when the MPAC assesses all properties the Town gets an increase because values have increased and the tax paid to the Town increases because the ‘valuation factor’ the tax rate stays the same.

This municipal tax grab is something every body should be aware of because the Town will steal this increase and spend it. Real spending next year will not be 2.1% it will 3.2%. So all of the budgets that the Deputy Mayor has ushered in has had this additional spending in them. As the Tories like to say “We do not have a revenue problem we have a spending problem!”

If the “Taxfighter” wanted to leave a legacy he would have raised taxes the level of inflation and used the “increased assessment” to lower the ‘valuation factor’. Or he could have been true to his roots and reviewed programmes and cut a few of them back or even eliminate some. If as John Draper suggests in his examination of the issue he is waiting for the results of the latest organisational review we hope the end result isn’t the same as the last one as a few years back where the status quo was maintained and the Directors and upper management got all the money.

All we are saying is that to trumpet this budget as a favour to the taxpayers of Cobourg is disingenuous because it is a “spending budget” when we want and need a “taxfighting budget.

So how was the weekend?

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022414_cartoonWell Nirvana came and went for those Liberal Canadians. A winning Olympic team – congratulations to all – and what appeared to nonLibs a vacuous convention.

Now would be the time to start the examination of the second coming – Justin Trudeau. And the question would be will his gang be any different from the present gang? From what we see the early signs are in and despite a generational change on the executive the same old stuff is still there. Justin and his gang of forty-something advisors, who just threw their major asset – Lib Senators under the bus, should never forget the adage – “Never forget the treachery of the elderly!”

Political conventions follow ritual – headline speaker – speech from the leader – policy discussion (just enough to let the mouthy delegates spout off at the microphones) – vote on resolutions that get in the policy books but will be ignored by the leadership when in power – drink a lot in the hospitality suites, and go home with hangovers and optimism and faith that the world’s axis has changed after listening to a barnburner (they are always barnburning speeches) from the leader. All went to plan for the Libs this weekend following the ritual with one big exception Justin failed to turn up for the last ritual, the after convention presser – he snuck out the back door to avoid the press which had expected him to follow ritual and talk to them. Bad move for a purportedly open politician.

So the question is – What is different about the Libs and the cons today. Both have leaders that impose their wills in arbitrary fashions, both have leaders that don’t talk to the Press, and one – the Libs, have a leader that hasn’t said what he will do differently from PMSH. In fact by having a Headline Speaker, the ‘esteemed’ Larry Summers, the architect of the recent world wide financial morass, lecture the Libs about modern fiscal policy was enough to make some pundits puke over their TVs as they watched. So the question still is – What would Justin do?

Because if he doesn’t very soon start to enunciate policy, and policy that is different from the Cons then he, and the Libs are susceptible to the Dips charge that there really are two conservative parties. So let’s hear it “What will you overturn in your first term of office Justin?”

But then as all realists understand only the hockey game mattered this weekend because it was only the rich Libs those who could afford to travel to Montreal and participate in the ‘wankfest’ that was a convention designed to appeal to the middle class voters, who cared about the convention. The convention was a non-starter for the others, the middle-class, though; as they wait for the question to be answered. “What will Justin do?”

Poetry In COB{OUR}G Spaces

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I bring to everyone’s attention, a recent project of Poetry {In} COBOURG Spaces, in collaboration with the Downtown  Business Improvement Area. The DBIA called their project FEEL THE LOVE, which blended Family Day weekend with Valentine’s Day. Poetry In COBOURG {Spaces} did “Poets HEART Downtown Cobourg”.

 

Poetry In {COBOURG} Spaces, matches the mandate of Cobourg’s Poet Laureate, currently held by Ted Amsden, to create a legacy project of poetry in collaboration with others.

 

Poetry In COB{OUR}G Spaces put out a call on socmed for love poems. “We are going to plaster downtown Cobourg with love poems,” we said. “…and then a bunch of poets will read them to pedestrians.” That’s all it took. The response via socmed gifted Cobourg with 500 love poems from over 150 poets living all over the world. They were sent to us at the speed of light.

Early Saturday morning poets could be scene adhering the downtown with love poems printed on red paper. Particular emphasis was placed on the windows of vacant stores. They got the P.O.E.M. treatment: Papering Over Emptiness with the Muse.

As the afternoon unfolded, a dozen poets fanned out downtown, inviting pedestrians to listen to them read a love poem. Poets would pull a poem off the window and read it. The poem was handed to the pedestrian as a bouquet of affection. Each page was marked in large font TAKE ME. Pedestrians were invited to take whatever poem they liked. (It also reduced our clean-up time).

 

I invite you over to my YouTube Channel to view some vids of the event. The opening vid has become quite an event, especially on FB, where it has earned 113 shares in three days. It still expands. Poets Laureate from communities across Canada have emailed their delight at the project. So Cobourg became the birthplace of poetry flash mobs.
{Poetry} In COBOURG Spaces’ first event in Cobourg was Poet / Tree Eulogy. Poets gathered in Victoria Park, September 15 last at the site of the last elm that had succumbed to Dutch Elm disease, and read their poems about trees or read the poems of others.

 

The next project was Window Anthology 1,2,& 3. We were given access to the former Garner’s Flower shop at 40 King Street East. Each window was framed in such a manner that provided the opportunity to display 12 poets & 12 poems every month for three months. The participating poets consisted of Richard Green, Governor-General’s Award for Poetry recipient, all three of Cobourg’s Poets Laureate and many others.

 

There are several more projects in the works. This is a tease of one to come.

 

For those who might be curious, this is the vid TEXTUAL ASSAULT PLACARDS displayed at the Visible Verse Festival in Vancouver last September.

 

Dead Man Walking

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WalasThis phrase used to describe the last steps of a person on Death Row, is both apt and punny. The man in question is the Mayor of Brighton. With the release of a devastating report read it here from the Town of Brighton’s integrity Commissioner Mark Walas had better hope that the majority of his voters haven’t read the report.

To add insult to injury, in the face of local democracy, the three offenders involved in the episode that sparked the report, walked out of the Council meeting and refused to listen to the Integrity Commissioner present the report. Obviously an example of political arrogance.

We wonder how the voters in the Fall election will take this or even if the Mayor will realise that in the face of always not having enough allies on Council, that  he is a political lame duck, and decide to go back to where he came from – his Funeral Home business, where instead of being the dead man walking, his clients will be.

Time for a change

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geezer partyBecause of the wonders of this interwebthingy I can still be in the world but not of it. I can keep in touch electronically and still participate no matter where I am in the world so when the Deputy Mayor of Cobourg announces that he will not be a candidate in the next election the news was literally heard around the world.

His opinion was that he would like to see himself replaced by a “Young Professional” who had the time to handle meetings on 250 days of the year. Firstly let’s disavow ourselves of the worship of the “young professional” – very much a rare species and well overdone by reputation but moving on. Think about this – 250 days of meetings is a meeting once a day on every day of the year from Monday to Friday – a full week of days filled with a meeting. Now some meetings may be on the same day so somedays you would have off and Staff don’t like to meet on weekends so you would have that off but what do you call a job where you are on call every day all day – A JOB that’s what you call it – a job that prevents you from doing other things – that’s a FULLTIME job.

But guess what every politician on Council insists that the job of a Councillor is a PART time job – what hypocrites. None of the people who are in local politics calls the job for what it is; a fulltime calling. When people look into running for the position they run – in the other direction. Is it any wonder then we have nobody except retired people governing this Town?

It is not a good thing to have retired people running this Town of Cobourg, or any other Town if you ask me. We need Council to be representative of our Society; Councillors of all ages and gender. Now that Cobourg has one of the highest median aged populations in the Province we may allow ourselves more representation from the retired demographic but not the whole Council. We are doomed we cannot attract any people other than retired people because only retired people have the time to be able to serve on Council because of the time needs.

It is possible for younger people to serve on Council. I was even on Council – for nine years when I was not even forty years old. But to quote Councillor Larry Sherwin you need a three things to be on Council: an understanding spouse, a helpful employer and the time to fit it into your family life. In those days there were very few meetings in the daytime but I did spend, on average three nights a week on Council business. My employer was Ontario Hydro and with thousands of employees it was easy to let one participate in local politics and get social credit for it, and I did get released for daytime meetings two or three times a month to attend County Council meetings. But as they say – “That was then (80s and 90s) and this is now, 2014” The point being made here is that times have changed and now we find ourselves in the position that all the dreaming in the world will not make Council more representative unless we change the rules.

We have to do one of two things. After admitting that the workload is large we can share it and lessen the load by having more people do the job. Having more people do the job is a non-starter in this day and age of living in a world with less politicians, or admit that the job is fulltime and pay it fulltime. Council members already get full benefits from the Town so the only additional cost would be the cost of taking a part-time member to fulltime wages. If one sets the wage at an average of $20 per hour that’s an additional 132k for the six members that are now not fulltime. So for the investment of an extra 132K, in the first year we can be democratic and representative. Set the wage at $17 – the average industrial wage and it will only cost just over 100K. Surely if we can hire a couple of new people each year, as we have been doing then a onetime investment of a hundred thousand dollars isn’t that much to budget for in a budget of over $20 million.

So the question we have before today is simple – does Cobourg Council have to be full of older people, and only older people? Because if it does then keep on going the way it’s going, if we want the vibrancy of youth the experience of middle age and the wisdom of the elderly then we need to change. But it will cost!

That didn’t take long

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hendersonWithin hours of the incumbent Deputy Mayor announcing his decision not to run in the next election Councillor Henderson made it known he wants the job. Nothing wrong with that but the speed of the announcement indicated one of two things. Firstly the incumbent Councillors must have had a conversation about who would take the job or John Henderson said to himself “I’m off to the races and damn the rest!”

When Mr Frost made his announcement about his decision he mused about the need for younger Councillors. With only one Councillor now not eligible for the CPP it is an admirable goal. But the muse ignores total reality. If it is true that Mr Frost attends 250 meetings a year and these meetings are held at all times of the day it is impossible for anybody other than a person who does not have a regular job to be a fully functioning Councillor.

If the DM takes up Councillor Mutton’s suggestion that he look at ways to make it more efficient and participatory. Perhaps he should kill the hypocrisy that surrounds the position and admit the workload is an onerous one and it needs too be fulltime and paid as such. If the job is parttime then the workload has to be shared and that means more Councillors around the table. You can’t have it both ways folks, these Councillors fudge the truth a bit if they still claim it’s parttime then they can’t also complain about the workload, and if the workload is large then tell the truth.

We wish John Henderson well in his quest for the DM’s job but more than that as the coordinator responsible for the General Government of the Council there are some festering sores he has to clean up.

After nearly a full term we still hear Councillors complaining about not knowing what they think they need to know, perhaps it’s the coordinator system John – look at it. Secondly the disgraceful situation of Council failing to be on top of issues because they have delegated too much authority to Staff has to be fixed. Decisions made by Staff recently have led to lack of leadership by Council – that has to be looked into. Fresh eyes may do it but if the person voted in, or acclaimed, to this position follows the Status Quo then look for no change in style in the next term and that would be tragic.

An oxymoronic Bill written by morons

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iwantyounottocare

If there have been many violations of election rules in the past decade, the Government, if it is a responsible one should want to clean the situation up by amending the situation.  So when the ruling party decided to enact new legislation to curb election abuses most people were willing to give the Conservatives the benefit of the doubt. That was until most people read the Bill and read what the experts had to say. To put it bluntly the “Fair Elections Act” is anything but.

We ask that you read the paras in blue, which came from the Ottawa Citizen and then wonder just how the new Bill will stop any more of these occurrences.

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro was recently charged under the Canada Elections Act, accused of overspending his campaign limit in 2008 and of filing a false report. This is only the latest in a long history of clashes between the Conservatives and the laws and institutions charged with keeping our elections free and fair. 

In June, for example, Elections Canada sent a note to the Speaker of the House of Commons asking him to suspend a Conservative MP from Manitoba, Shelly Glover, for failing to file proper documents relating to the 2011 campaign. 

More seriously, in the 2006 election, the Conservative Party of Canada used the “in and out” scheme to take advantage of a loophole in spending rules. 

In the 2011 election, about 7,000 voters in Guelph riding received fraudulent robocalls directing them to the wrong polling station. In a separate case, misdirecting calls in other ridings led to a court challenge asking a Federal Court judge to overturn the election results in six ridings. The judge found that misdirecting calls did take place, found that the most likely source of the voter information behind those calls was the Conservative database.’ 

Surely the biggest expert in the field of Election Reform is the current Elections Canada Commissioner, a Tory appointment. Even he says that a, he wasn’t consulted by the drafters of the Bill and b, that the Bill “Is an affront to democracy” read here.

gary-clement4So we are left with the situation where hyper-partisans draft a bill that doesn’t curb the abuses mentioned in the Citizen article but neuters the Electoral Commission from ever investigating situations like it. They, the moronic Bill drafters, have the brass balls to give it an oxymoronic title and then completely insulting democratic intelligence move to cut off debate about the Bill. We also bet that no opposition amendments will be accepted and this disgusting piece of legislation will be in existence for the next election where we know the Cons will abuse every trick in the book and steal another election. We don’t say that lightly but after the Court case in Etobicoke where the Judge ruled that “widespread fraud” had taken place look for much repetition, especially in close Ridings.

In the meantime all of us in the alternate, and MSM, press can do is to rail at the stupidity and arrogance of the ruling party and ask that everybody look at this Bill and make up their own minds about it.

Oh did we mention that apart from raising contribution limits for wealthy donors the insidious act of voter suppression has been introduced in this bill? To read more click on the image to be taken to another opinion page.

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Advantage CONS

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HarperIf you are a regular reader you will soon learn that we are not big fans of the current Prime Minister or his Government or his MPs. It’s not a personal thing we do not believe that they are governing for the average joe or that he believes in the kind of Society that has been built up by successive governments since WW 2.

We believe that all of the efforts of the Conservative Reformers are designed to deliver the spoils of the Country to them and their believers and Corporate interests. Tom Stoppard once said, echoing Josef Stalin, “It’s not the voting, it’s the counting.”

For a vibrant democracy to exists one must have free and fair elections. In this vein we are commenting today on the latest moves by the HarperCons to reform the election system and its oversight by Elections Canada. Any “reforms” coming coming from this gang of proven election crooks, and we say that without fear of libel, as the HarperCons have been convicted of election fraud: for one – the” in and out” scandal as well as having more than a couple of MPs under investigation or found guilty of offenses they incurred in the last election.

So it is with a healthy dose of cynicism that we at the BR look at the latest effort, by the man who has never had a real job – Pierre Poilievre, to “reform” the election laws. If one considers reforming the system to game the system then PP has been successful, his moves to raise the campaign limits and change the definitions of fundraising are all aimed at advantages to the Cons.  In his efforts to protect MPs from being more protected in the procedure of public knowledge in notices of prosecutions advantage Cons, in his efforts to establish less autonomy for the elections prosecutor advantage Cons.

The way the pundits see this is that the elections prosecutor will have less independence and leeway in laying charges, also the Elections Commissioner has been ‘gagged’ by having legislative  restrictions put upon what he can say in public. Gone are the days of asking the Commissioner ‘Hey what’s hanging dude?” now he can only say what the PMO wants him to say.

All in all any restrictions on the independence and behaviour of the Office charged with running elections is an affront to free elections. This gang of CONvicts has certainly rigged the rules and given the history of the Cons ignoring previous election rules how can we ever believe anything they say about reform. All they have done is rigged the system even more in their favour. The sad thing is that whichever party wins the next election they will never change it back to the way it was, let alone bringing in real reform.

And the last thing to discredit this effort to make election fairer and more accessible is the insidious practice, imported from the TeaParty, is to make the production of government approved ID mandatory before being allowed to vote. Gone is the day of stating who you are, producing a utilities bill with your address on it and voting. Now the use of mandated ID will prevent lower income people and transients from voting. Disgraceful

A wonderful Presentation

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Richard_PopeIt’s not often that when one goes to Council that one finds a presentation riveting enough to listen to and one that makes the Council being addressed wake up and realise that they had better do what the presenter says. Such was the occasion last week when Richard Pope, representing the Willow Beach Field Naturalists (WBFN), spoke about the planned Marina expansions and its impact on the environment.

We were pointed to this presentation, after we flagged the issue last week. Cobourg News and our regular commenter Wally Keeler told us about the presentation and Cobourg News put the video up on their site here.

Watching the video we saw a masterful presentation by an obviously experienced speaker. Looking Richard up on the interwebthingy for a decent pic we learned that he is a retired University Professor. Anybody who can teach Russian Literature to wiseass Uni students can handle this Council, and he did. Being the Pols they are the Council members realised they were in a hole about five minutes into the presentation when they were told that birders spend money and lots of them come to Cobourg to see many varieties of species, some very rare. As it sank in that the engineering work done last year on the headland of the West side of the harbour had decimated the area Councillors appeared to back track from their first position of “how many boats can we cram into the West side” to “Ooops we had better think about what we have done” Good job Richard.

As Richard Pope pointed out the harbour is for everybody and this issue highlights the problem of growth versus universal use. The obvious thing to do about harbour expansion is to firstly question the the economic rationale and look at the real potential growth in the harbour. Can we still attract boaters when the seasonal mooring rates are as high as they are? Will the boaters on the waiting list really come here and just how many are on the list. After all this magical list is the basis for all of the expansion plans. And why do we need a bigger mooring area in the harbour and more importantly for all why does the yacht club need a municipal boat lift and expanded service yard when the status quo is working?

The call for public participation is long overdue but we need more than that we need a working group to study the relationships between all of the plans on hand – the Official Plan, the Parks and Recreational Master Plan and the West Harbour Expansion Plan. We have spent piles of money on each one of these but as yet nobody has pulled them together and produced a vision statement combining all three. Official bureaucratese will say that each plan has to ‘have regard for’ the other but what plan is supreme? For example if the Official Plan says that the headland of the harbour is “an environmental constraint area” and as such is inviolate to development how can the Parks and Rec Plan and the Marina Expansion Plan work into that. On the face of it it cannot but there must be a way.

A study group must be set up now. Councillors on Monday night fell over themselves to point out to the audience that phases 2 and 3 of the Marina Plan haven’t been designed yet so not to panic because ‘you will consulted’, now is the perfect time to have a study group of local experts,we do not need consultants, set up. They should start now before the design is even contemplated, to set out the land use rules. If Council takes up this suggestion it would go along way to counter the criticism that they are autocratic and non-listeners – go for it Mayor Brocanier. Let’s start talking.

Who would want this job?

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coa_thumbIn a stunning move the Township of Hamilton – you know that collection of homes and farms on the top of Cobourg that doesn’t want to raise taxes but still accumulates high price help – new fulltime Fire Chief etc., has decapitated its bureaucracy read about it here. In a series of legally secret meetings the Mayor and Council has fired the CAO. Citing the need to keep taxes down he has fired the guy hired to keep them down!

Remember this guy came in because they fired the last one. That fiasco has just been settled at an unknown cost. But Betty MacIntosh was drawing a couple of year’s full salary before she settled. Now surprise surprise the Mayor says we have to control costs – perhaps not firing Betty would have have been cheaper that settling and then hiring a new guy.

Just another demonstration of life in hooterville.If it isn’t the Deputy Mayor wanting to be Mayor if it isn’t a split Council handcuffing the Mayoe at the County level if it isn’t the Twp not wanting to participate in cost-sharing exercises it is the ridiculous sight of a modern Township trying to run things on the cheap. And if you think the Mayor has time to run the place think twice his ewes are coming into lambing season. So who is going to run the place now -a Soviet style committee of Directors?

We just hope that this experiment works then it might spark a round of cost-savings by other municipalities, imagine that saving a one per cent tax increase by firing the top ‘Crat.

Oh the undercurrents

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birdsReading the Council agenda from afar what sticks out to the astute reader? Certainly not the mass of motions approving development for expansion. No it is the different stuff – stuff one doesn’t see every meeting. Stuff like the letter from the Willow Beach Field Naturalists (WBFN). They have a letter on the agenda click here to see it wherein they express concern with the way that the Town is desecrating the natural area of the Harbour Headlands and East side of the Harbour. As we know the Town is going to spend peepots of money to increase the mooring capacity of the  Cobourg marina. In addition to adding to the existing basin it is intended to put more piers in the inner basin. In order to do that the inner harbour had to be dredged and the sediment was dumped on the natural area, which had been trampled by the use of heavy equipment handling the pipes and excavating the receiving area.

This earthwork has already destroyed some bird nesting areas and the WBFN is naturally concerned and have written to Council expressing these concerns and asking that Public Consultation be initiated. Council in return has signalled, by describing the action to be taken, that the matter be referred to the Marina Manager for consideration during the next phases of construction.

What a supreme insult this action is. In the letter the WBFN has pointed out that the Town has the responsibility to treat this area, which is now subject to the actions of development, as an area of Natural Conservation – not to be developed. The Official Plan designates this area as such and is entitled to be treated as natural. The Town should be obeying its own OP and stop any kind of encroachment into the area. However the problem lies with the reduction of water available to the transient bird population by the introduction of jetties in the inner basin. Surely this clash of philosophies requires Public Participation?

For Council to offload its communications onto a mid level manager is the height of arrogance and disdain. Get both sides talking. The idea that Council can pass motions approving multimillion dollar projects and then allowing Staff to run rampant in their eagerness to finish the job is asinine. Projects that involve many opinions need much public massaging otherwise bad feelings fester and nothing productive is achieved.

At the very least this motion to fob off Council’s responsibility to shepherd sensitive projects should be amended to direct the Marina Manager to initiate a series of open consultation sessions that could produce compromise and compliance with the Official Plan.

For a report of the Activities to date by the Town in their unpublicised efforts to engineer read the last two letters by Clive Goodwin titled “Requiem for a Headland” – very interesting and instructive.

But the point still remains unless Council adopts a more proactive approach instead of a delegative role then all that will happen is that a very influential part of Cobourg Society will be alienated and that’s not good for anyone, especially in an election year.

Any white smoke yet?

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closedInteresting story in today’s MSM about the Ontario Ombudsman’s opinion of “secret” meetings by Municipal Councils. The following quote is from that story and is repeated here as it is a concise explanation of when closed meetings may be held under the Municipal Act of Ontario.

“Municipal governments routinely hold secret meetings as part of regular operations. Closed meetings may be held when the subject being discussed concerns personal matters about an identifiable individual, the security of property, a pending land deal, employee relations, litigation or information subject to solicitor-client privilege.” Toronto Star 14th Jan 2014

So where does that leave us in Cobourg in trying to find out what Council intends to do about their own mess and screw-up about the Legion application. Make no bones about it this Council has screwed up the application and has failed the test of open government. Firstly the application by TVM was not dealt with according to the rules of the day and secondly when Mr Sofer decided to play along he wasn’t put on notice that he was over the time limit and therefore could have been deemed to have waived his rights to appeal.

The definition of “Litigation” has been expanded from the actual mechanics of being either a plaintiff or a defendant in an actual court case to the present case of being one side of a “civil dispute” in a regular government tribunal. There is no doubt that lawyers are needed at the OMB, the most biased tribunal that exists in Ontario. This kangeroo court has been brought to the point of one step below a Star Chamber by the regular appointment of failed Politicians and Party lackeys, all of whom favour developers as opposed to the democratically Councils that are dragged before them by developers seeking judgements from their friends behind the bench. The rules of a Citizens’ Tribunal have been codified to the extreme where it is now almost  impossible for a Citizen to participate in the process. So the cynics are correct in one respect, Mr Sofer has more than a fighting chance to win this avoidable dispute. That brings us back to the public participation in this case.

The present Council (which has been no different from past Councils), with its penchant for the lack of public conversation, has decided to play it safe. Realising that the application from TVM has not been officially resolved, Mr Sofer went to the OMB before the Council had made a final decision, Council now has to play catch-up. But in doing so what cards do they hold that must be kept secret? When will they, the Council, make this decision that  is essential to the OMB? Unless they hold a Special Meeting for that purpose the next possible chance will be at the next Regular Council Meeting in two weeks time. And, when will they reveal the strategy that will maximise political capital and minimise taxpayers dollars? There is no mistake in this Council has dug a big hole for itself by wanting to listen to the screams of outrage from a usually friendly, to them, constituency – the Heritage side – and the developers they think they need to encourage.

Now the question is, because lawyers have been involved how much will this mistake by Staff and Council cost us the Citizens and who will be held accountable? Mr Fairbrother, from Belleville, the Town’s legal advisor is not the young lad he was thirty years ago when he first appeared on behalf of Council, in a new suit and braces on his teeth, he is much more prosperous and famous – his fees will have risen commensurately. So how much are we spending because somebody dragged their feet and overlooked a timeline?

Without a statement from the Chair of the closed meeting – the Mayor the public is still in the dark about what’s next. So stay tuned folks this is an unnecessary and expensive outing and we deserve explanations, whether we will get them is debatable.

Into the backroom we go

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topsecret1For as long as we have been covering Cobourg Council the most contentious issue that emerges every election cycle is the claim from voters that Council holds too many meetings behind closed doors. In response all candidates will vow to be more transparent. In reality nothing will change no matter who is the Mayor or on Council the urge to withhold information is powerful. Councils are allowed to meet behind closed doors to discuss legal matters or personnel matters, but little else.

The question now is why does the Council have to meet behind closed doors just to hear a legal opinion? Admitting that they, the Town, screwed up in the timelines that allowed the applicant behind the Legion application to possibly win his case at the OMB they now need a lawyer to tell them what to do next and how much it will cost us; the taxpayers.

What is secret about that and why shouldn’t Council do this in front of the cameras? As this Council has proved that despite what they say very few members want to say anything to the voters about anything. Three members of Council have stuck their heads up – consistently – but the rest of them will hide behind any excuse to avoid saying what they think. Any subject that can be classified as “Health and Safety” or of a “Legal” nature will be labelled as such and the subject matter will be discussed behind closed doors. As an example how much public debate has taken place over the past three years about the “DogPark” when it has been discussed many times in the backrooms – why is that?

There are many questions that this Council has to answer, whether they will or not will be apparent in the next few weeks, pity for the majority on Council is that it is an election year and will probably come back to bite them.

But the bottom line here is that the discussion about the Town’s mistake, which will now cost us money, is not a contentious legal matter nor of a nature that requires going into the backroom. The only reason to go behind closed doors is to avoid public discussion of a topic that the electorate is extremely interested in. Hopefully the Councillors committed to openness – Mutton, Henderson and Todd will be asking questions in the Regular Council session after the backroom dealings. Ideally one of them will be making a motion to have the Town’s lawyer repeat his advise to the public in an open meeting.

Happy New Year

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CB_Z_MacMillianIt will not be the same – this guy will not be there at the levee to ring in the New Year, we will miss you Tom.

Goodbye 2013 Hello 2014 – surely this year cannot be as bad as last year. Hopefully our political lives will be as free of the bad tastes of the last year as possible. Can we imagine anything worse than the lack of honour shown by some of our leaders -Hey step up Mr Ford and Mr Harper, throw in Mr McGuinty and you have a trio of Pols behaving badly.

But there is hope. Municipally we have a chance to express ourselves. October 27th is the date of the quadrennial election. So folks if you are dissatisfied with what you’ve got now get out and get involved – pick up some nomination papers and get cracking. Talk to your neighbours, friends and everybody else. Start tomorrow and you will have exactly 299 days before the vote.

As part of the public education responsibility here at the BR we surveying our audience, and anybody else who wished to participate in a Poll asking you what your election issues are. Now 300 days is a long time to think about anything but when the average political timespan is about the 30 minutes it takes to vote on the Day surely some stimulation of the event should take place.

So look at the right sidebar, at the top and there is an invitation to participate in a small survey. The results of this survey will be released in March so that gives us all a lot of time to get involved. Perhaps the comments you give us will lead to more commentary on the BR – we hope so. So give it a try.

And Happy New Year  to you all

The devil is in the details, or the law of unintended consequences

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s_frostDeputy-Mayor Stan Frost, after seven years of watching has evolved into a wonderful character study and the end result is not that pretty. First elected in 2006 he ran on the platform of “taxfighter”. This image was reinforced when he appeared to, almost singlehandedly, whip the runaway Police budget into shape. A good job done he then decided he wanted to do the same thing to the Town’s finances and ran unopposed to become the Deputy Mayor, in 2010.  Assuming the position of Town budget Chief and the coordinator of Government Services. Thus he became the most powerful person on Council, the Mayor only has one vote and if Stan decided to defy the Mayor on anything it could be done procedurally.

The problem is now that after being the head honcho of the money and procedures he seems omnipotent and dictatorial. In this term he has displayed some rather bad personality traits – he doesn’t take advice or criticism very well and tends to be overbearing at times even arguing, and shouting at, on occasion fellow Councillors on the floor.

Thus his latest move, to move both sides of the current Legion debate into a reconcilable position, by means of a simple motion to extend the time for a final decision for the approval/disapproval has set off a firestorm. The proponent immediately went to the OMB claiming that the Town had not rendered a decision within the allotted 120 day period, notwithstanding that he had willingly participated in the extended process until he didn’t get what he wanted then ran crying into the arms of the OMB. The Town Staff then independently of Council decided to send all the material pertaining to the application to the OMB all the while not telling anyone on Council, if they did then whomever they told – the Mayor, Deputy Mayor – kept it secret. Incredibly the Coordinator of Planning, the political pointman wasn’t told for six days, and Council still hasn’t met to discuss this issue.

The net result is that Town Staff by its actions acted independently of Council and sent a response to the OMB that has no Council authority or backing. Who makes the decisions around here? Some Staff may make the point that this act was pure Staff work and didn’t need to be ratified by Council, others will claim that it is a sign of a runaway bureaucracy. The questions still remains what and can Council do to recover from this huge faux-pas?

There are two ways to look at this: one is take it at face value and allow Mr Frost to take the role of mediator, he says he made the motion without any advise from the legal or Town Staff and did so to “get a compromise on a Yes decision”. The three month time period was supposed to allow Mr Sofer and his challengers to come to a meeting of the minds. The image of “The myth of Sisyphus” comes to mind on that challenge – an impossible task.

Or more conspiratorially (we at the BR love conspiracy theories) the second scenario is that the Staff and Planning Department favoured this proposal, all the time the approving committees were split on the issue, and decided to give it an inside edge by pushing the application over the time period of 120 days, perhaps to let the OMB decide on the issue and let Council off the hook by not having to make a decision [who thought this one up? - ed]. Unfortunately, as is the norm in these things, opposition grew and emerged at subsequent Council meetings and media reports. The final straw was the rumour that one Councillor was reconsidering his vote at the final Council meeting on December 9th thus the application was going to fail at the last minute. Enter the mediator – Mr Frost, a calculating man with an accountant’s disposition and a confidant of the Mayor, a person who favours development at any cost and who had the chance to deliver to the Legion, a major constituency, a new building. It is hard to believe that Mr Frost just decided at the last minute to make a motion, out of the blue – one that stunned all listening to it, without a lot of thought and doing so completely independently. So the idea of him making this motion,in his own mind, and not realising that the consequence would be that the applicant would pick up his balls and head off to the OMB appears to be implausible.

So we have two motives behind this action, one of a simpleminded but good hearted person who wants keep everybody happy by achieving a compromise or a cold calculating person who knew what he was doing all along. Either way it demonstrates one thing: this Council is completely dysfunctional. Nobody is talking to anybody, nobody knows what is going on with the biggest issue to hit this Council in its present term and that is not only sad but municipally criminal. It is a demonstration of the present Mayor’s lack of leadership skills and teambuilding ability that his leadership is missing and his team is split, it is a demonstration of the rest of Council’s ignorance of the current situation, that allows individual Councillors to head off in their own directions and above all it is a systemic failure of the governing system that has failed to breakdown the ‘silos’ that prevent the free exchange of information and corporate discussion and final decisionmaking. More than that by allowing Mr Frost to make a ‘motion to defer’ and then calling it a ‘motion to table’ the Mayor and the rest of Council demonstrated their total lack of understanding of the rules they govern themselves with.

All we, at the BR can say is – Thank the Lord that is the last year of this Council’s term because if this is any example of what we should expect in the next term, providing all of them decide to keep their jobs, the majority of them don’t deserve to be elected again.

Note:

Tomorrow is the start of the 2014 Municipal election campaign and we urge all those who want to see change go down to the City Hall and ask for nomination papers, so they can run in the next election – after all what is the use of continually harping on the faults of others without offering their own opinions as an alternative.

Here it is, finally

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interviewOn Friday 27th December I had the privilege of being on the Radio at SmallTownRadio. A victim of the icestorm, the station has had its transmitter, mounted on the Cobourg water tower, frozen up. Consequently the airwaves have been silent but not the internet stream. So On behalf of the radio station I apologise for the fact that this stream failed after fifteen minutes. But technology thrives and now we have it. Thanks to John Draper, of “Cobourginternet” for downloading the file and finding it in my mailbox early this morning was a very pleasant  surprise.

To hear the full interview click on the audio controller underneath:

 

 

A big glitch

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Smalltown RadioJust said my piece on the radio, unfortunately the internet feed went down at the beginning of the show and nobody appears to have heard the opinions of John Hill or Ben Burd past the 1215pm point.

It is hoped that the wav, or avi maybe mp3, file that is the podcast  can be emailed over and when it turns up we will place it on our host for all to hear.