Spooner Puts Foot in Mouth Again

One thing about watching Town Council, you can always count on a moment of head smacking astonishment at something said by the esteemed Mayor and/or his Councillors. This week it was perpetual jokester Bob Spooner who provided the occasion with his co-ordinator's report.

He was describing his attendance, along with Councillor Mutton, at the GRCA Sportsmen's Dinner, when he said speaking of meals, he could tell the food was good by the size of the plate-ful Councillor Mutton had, which he said required a side plate too. Not satisfied with that, he elaborated that for a "diminuitive" woman, he didn't know "how anyone could eat all that food but she sure put it away".

After a brief millisecond of shock, nervous laughter erupted from the others, but it was quickly squelched and then Mr. Spooner's illuminating report continued. One can only speculate whether old boy Bob knew what a gaffe he had commited, or had to have it explained to him at home by his wife.

And to Councillor Mutton, who is indeed a svelte and trim woman, may I extend my sympathy for having to endure Mr. Spooner's companionship at that dinner, and my admiration for your patience and endurance in the face of all of it.

A busy weekend for some.

A wonderful weekend, sunny and brisk, but some of us were busy. The Northumberland Citizens Coalition certainly were. Parading in front of Vic Hall and signing petitions. The embedded video is courtesy of Rick Jansen - thanks Rick.

Naturally the road claimed me. Talk radio was the only relief and it was again repetitive and entertaining. Boy those hosts do love to talk about the same things don't they? The Helena Guergis deal and the Polish airliner crash were the biggies. But in the HG affair the original report in the TO Star carried a throwaway line that stuck with me and has been bypassed by all the commentary heard so far. The reporter speculated that the reason that Rahim J got off his cocaine charge might have been because he agreed to roll-over on his dinner-mates for other charges.

In the case of the Polish airliner tragedy the "Spaceman" on AM640, carried on in the vein he always mines - that one-world government and the illuminati are to blame. This time with the backdrop of the "Katyn massacre" tied to Prince Charles's recent visit to ancient heritage sites in Poland and the strange happenings of past events on the same date. fancifull stuff but he does make the hours pass easily!

But back to the local campaign by the Health Coalition folks. Tonight the campaign to educate and encourage goes to Cobourg Council. Local folks will be asking Council to support the efforts to retain services and pass a motion to that effect. Watch it on Channel 10.

Hard truths for candidates

Here is a story written by the King of verbosity, throw in some pomposity and leaven with arrogance and chill with a home-spun tale of humility and we have, tadah - Rex Murphy. However in this opinion he is dead on, it foretells the trials of a candidate. If Kim Rudd thought that having to brown-nose her way into the hearts of the the local Liberal Party was deadly and tedious, wait till she tries to do it with a very cynical and unloving populace.

Two sleeps to go before the Pols get a break.

In the second last meeting before the summer break (a whole three weeks) the Cobourg Council is not courting any controversy. A few normal heritage requests two planning applications to approve, a project manager to hire and a fire engine to dispose of. I hope that the powers that are took notice of the hooh-hah that ocurred in Trent Hills when they decided to dispose of their old truck a few months ago. They refused the results of a tender and then had to go back to the tenderer when subsequent marketing efforts failed. Cobourg has turned down a guaranteed $10,000 and will attempt to sell it on its own.

In Port Hope the agenda is packed. More discussion about the dreaded "flail mower" - you know the one that murders little trees and leaves a scarred landscape behind in its wake. But there is also a meatier item. The murder of prime farming land. A company called Sunbay has optioned the land for a "plasma-gasification" plant to incinerate recycling residue. This should be a controversial topic but it won't be because one man - Carroll Nichols, has made it his life's ambition to locate such a plant in this area. A long-time Wesleyville resident he has evangelically lobbied all governments for years for an incineration plant. He has finally made it, it's coming. However this field in this picture, one that many of us see fully planted year after year, is coming out of agricultural production to accommodate it.
There is a presentation from a group of landowners pleading with the Council to be allowed to exceed the growth levels outlined in the County Growth Study and build more homes in the greenfield, their presentation will be forwarded to the County consultants. And finally of mention is a report from Heritage Port Hope Advisory Committee about the centre pier (probably the building demolition idea) and it's being punted off to the Harbour Commission. With that body being mired in an open/shut meetings policy I guess the ideas that Heritage Port Hope have about the demolition of the buildings on the centre pier may never even see the light of day.

The only way to get rid of the robbers' roost is to burn the f***er down. A good story from a middle-class survivor on how the middle class will survive - unionise!

Money items today

Finally the Provincial Government has canned the head of e-Health Ontario. This agency was established from the ashes of its predecessor agency that that was dismantled after spending over 600 million with no results, this came after another fiasco with computers a few years earlier with computerized land records and another with welfare systems. Anyway the Head of e-health presided over eight months of gravytraining and questionable contracts awarded to buddies and one alleged family member. So what does Sarah Kramer get for her supposed expertise? Nine months salary at $26,500 per month, a bonus of $114K after five months and a severance of $317K to go away and not sue them for breach of contract. A total of $700K for nine months work; nice if you can get it. No wonder the opposition and the news people are all over this, it is salacious. But the scandal here isn't the obscene wages being paid to civil servants to administer outrageous consultants fees but the inability of any government to understand how computers work and the cost of networking lots of them. Because it is technology that most MPs do not even understand they are prepared to pay the ridiculous fees demanded by computer specialists, sad!

Back to the local scene, we now know how much money the local pols pulled in for doing a part time job. Last month the County published its "remuneration report" which details the amounts paid to councillors for being at the County level. Tonight the Cobourg report will be published it is here for those who missed it on the agenda [it never appeared on the agenda, the memos never Are - Ed] it shows all on the Council payroll.
But the big thing for Cobourgers to note is that the Mayor by attending a monthly meeting at the County is able to bump up his $30,272 + expenses of $3,482 ($33,754) by adding his County money - $9588 - for a total of $43,342 but you then have to add in the money he gets from the Local Utility for being a Director of the Company and the money he gets for being a Director of a subsidiary ($4,500 estimated total) and that comes up to a grand total of $47,842. Not bad for a job that could be called full time, if he worked at it constantly.
The sad part of this is that although most people I talk to hold the Council in low esteem for their actions over the past few years and complain about a lack of vision nobody is chomping at the bit to want to be the next mayor, even if it pays a respectable stipend.

A taxing problem

In a story printed today in the NT.com here the announcement of another Seniors complex is trumpeted. 118 units of expensive retirement dwellings has passed the first planning stage. Unfortunately Councillor Bill MacDonald reveals his ignorance of the problem of these units by declaring,:"this kind of facility could have an unexpected spinoff in alleviating a situation at Northumberland Hills Hospital (meaning that he thinks the problem of long term care beds will be relieved by these 118 units)"
Unfortunately what he says is pure fiction designed to allow the units to proceed without much delay. Ever since these facilities have been coming to Cobourg in the late 80s all we see is another burden on the local hospital. Retirement facilities are notorious for not providing health-care, why should they after all all they do is provide small overpriced rooms and three squares a day. Sitting outside of the Health-Care system all they do is aggregate the population of seniors and overload the local hospital. There isn't a day that goes past without me seeing, at about wake-up time at the Seniors residence just up the road from me, an ambulance , with its llights flashing, indicating an emergency, on its way to the NHH. Allowing more seniors to be brought into town to fill these facilities is not good unless we know just what the impact on the NHH is going to be. We have never had a Council commission one of these studies before granting permission to have one built - that is wrong.

Did you feel the pain

Or will you shrug it off as not noticing. A comment made by the Deputy Mayor "The average householder will not notice it (a $49 yearly tax increase)" may come back and haunt him, it may not but what it does demonstrate is a complete lack of sympathy, empathy and condolence with joe taxpayer.
This budget is a lost opportunity to establish contact with the citizens. In this time of crisis we need to know that the rulers understand our pain. Unfortunately the council members, the majority of whom sit on indexed pensions, have felt the need for business as usual. The missed opportunity was the decision not to have a zero tax increase. Cutting $441,605 out of a budget that is $18.400,219 would not appear to be that difficult. Not all programmes are deemed to be life threatening and those are the programmes that we should be funding, others should be pared. But we do not know what programmes were on the chopping block, if any because the public was not informed of the consequences of a zero-based budget. I am sure if you told each councillor that $441,605 had to be taken out of the budget you would have had seven different responses. Ask the taxpayer and you would have had many more. Budgeting is not easy but in the absence of transparency it becomes harder for the public to accept it.
And to slough it off by presuming that the average householder would not notice it is irresponsible and arrogant. Unfortunately by saying it the DM has made himself look that way!