Some images of the future

One of the more interesting parts of public life is being able to see what few people care about. The imagination of the future. For every development plan presented there is a watercolour painting of the concept (you could fill a book with the developers prints of the harbour plans presented during the 80s). Here are the concepts of the Community Centre as presented to the public yesterday.

Peak Construction


















Giffels Construction














Bird Construction













Bondfield Construction








Ball Construction









Now you have until December 3rd to make up your mind and then mail or deliver your preferences to the Mayor. He will then tally them up and tell Council on Monday what the public choice was. Click here, print off the form, fill it out and your done.

Sometimes we win one

Most elections progressives and alternate thinkers do not get their candidates elected. However those of us who do not support the status quo have a little bit to cheer about today and the neo-cons will be driven to distraction by the news that another bogeyman is in Town. The polarising figure in the picture is Sid Ryan, formerly President of the CUPE division of Ontario, now the President of the Ontario Federation of Labour. This fiery charismatic person, one who compels almost instant opinion is now in the twilight of his career as a labour leader and his final hurrah will be to steer the house of labour through turbulent waters. I wish him luck.

A very pertinent guest post

submitted by Martin Partridge

All good things must come to an end so I so suppose the demise of First Night Cobourg was inevitable. I'd like to briefly document the history of First Night Cobourg from my perspective as former chair. Others may wish to augment the record.

Former Councillor Pam Jackson fired up the original First Night Cobourg volunteer group in about 1994. The committee created a small-scale version of Toronto's successful New Year's Eve non-alcoholic street festival, which in turn was modeled on major events in Boston and elsewhere. Local entertainers, performance groups and face painters warmed up clusters of Cobourg families, both inside and outside Cobourg's historic downtown municipal properties (notably the Firehall, Market Building, and of course Victoria Hall). There were horse-drawn hay wagons to ride on, and barrels of burning firewood to keep volunteers warm. At midnight, mainly for the benefit of the remaining hardy volunteers, there was a small fireworks display right in front of Victoria Hall. The cost for the whole evening was $5, free for children.

After three modestly profitable years, the committee responsible for the event ratcheted up the entertainment, running carefully timed hour-long music events for three hours in six locations, for a total of 18 highly professional and diverse shows ending at 9:30 p.m. A people's parade was then led by the Town Crier down to the waterfront for a much larger fireworks display, which had been moved to earlier in the evening for the benefit of the children. The evening ended with a two-hour major show in the Concert Hall. The price was kept at $5 with children free, thanks to ever growing sponsor donations.

This new-style First Night Cobourg, with its tightly formatted entertainment program, culminated in a major millennium event on December 31, 1999. More than 7,000 people thronged the downtown buildings and the waterfront for double-decker bus rides, very high quality children's shows, notable entertainment from across Canada, and a huge fireworks display. There was a cultural exchange, which resulted in a musical group called Middle Tickle travelling from Fogo Island in Newfoundland to perform in Victoria Hall with Aengus Finnan simultaneously travelling to Fogo Island to entertain the residents there. A rudimentary internet camera was set up at each end to allow each side to see what the other was doing. Fireworks were set off here at precisely 10:30 p.m. to coincide with the first Canadian arrival of the year 2000 in Newfoundland. A conference call, initiated in Cobourg, was held among federal, provincial, municipal and European politicians and personages to exchange millennium greetings. Hovering over all this were the Y2K fears, which seem quaint now but were genuine at the time and resulted in a broad scramble for backup generators and had all emergency services on standby.

Cobourg citizens, in part through its automotive dealers, industrial plants, lawyers and other groups, came up with about $30,000 in donations and badge purchases to pay for the big Y2K entertainment, and Council contributed $15,000 for the grand fireworks. The event was such a great success, with tourists writing in to say keep up the good work, that the committee asked Council to endorse a similar approach the following year. Instead, major funding was denied and the event ended up being cancelled altogether. December 31, 2000 was the only "dark" New Year's Eve in downtown Cobourg in the last 15 years.

The event was resurrected a year later thanks to new committee chair Gerry Drage and many long-time devoted committee members including Bert McMillan, Sharron McMann and (eventual chair) Brian Edmiston. The event has been held successfully throughout this decade.

I thought the one saving grace of installing the controversial concrete frink in place of parkland in downtown Cobourg was that it would be used to inject new purpose and vigour into First Night Cobourg. Indeed, the new frink was well used at last year's First Night event.

I'm sad but not surprised that this Council could not see the logic, after blowing off about $1.5 million to install a concrete skating pad in the centre of First Night Cobourg operations, to invest a little more to shore up the one established and well loved winter event that could put it to good use. After all, increasing tourism during the winter months was cited by Council as a prime rationale for the frink decision. Perhaps a refreshed and revived future Council will see things differently.

Finally a politician who speaks his mind

Just when pols of all stripes are in the middle of being muzzled by apparatchiks in leaders' office we find one who is willing to let it all out. Unfortunately he will not be applauded for his efforts A story in the Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca details it all Gerald Keddy, the Conservative MP for South Shore-St. Margarets let out this quote when talking about the use of immigrant workers in Nova Scotia working on Christmas tree farms, "Nova Scotians won’t do it — all those no-good bastards sitting on the sidewalk in Halifax that can’t get work," Mr. Keddy said Monday.The Mayor of Halifax is outraged and newspaper editorials are excoriating the MP for his opinion, bet it goes down well at "Timmies"!

Why this woman is important

This is the face that may change Canadian politics. Who is she and what has she done? Why it's Janine Krieber. Who is she you ask, knowing that only political junkies will know this one? But if it was revealed that she is Stephane Dion's wife most people will roll their eyes and connect her to a loser. Don't do that she has just provoked what could be a game-changing moment in the world of mushy politics.
Mushy politics is the art of trying to be elected by promising not to be the other guy. In the case of present leaders the Libs and Cons have an identity crisis and mushy politics have clashed with identity politics and the result is confusion for the voters and an election would be based on gut reactions to either leader.
When a prominent person starts to speak out one of two things will happen. One is that whatever was said would be treated like the Sermon on the Mount or more dangerously the context of the statement would be written off as the dangerous ramblings of the speaker, who is already a figure of derision.
In the case of Mrs Dion posting a savage critique of the Liberal Party and Michael Ignattief on her facebook page (incidentally doesn't this magnify the power of alternate media?) look at it here, the wrath of the pundits and pols is to shoot the messenger rather looking at the substance of the message.
The substance of the message is really profound: Here we have an intellectual person detailing how in her opinion the Libs have lost it and offers an opinion on the future of the Party if it doesn't change direction. Indicating the example of the UK Libs who have failed to be a force Since Lloyd George and now has morphed into the real mushy middle of the Social Dems. And she suggests, oh the heresy of it, that another party may be willing to accept the progressive voters in the Liberal Party because the Libs have ignored their opinions. Shades of a debate we had here last week in the comment threads of the BurdReport.

A fine day for a fine parade

Port Hope Pipe Band, dressed for Christmas

Traditional Brass Band

Cutest pair in the parade

"They never told me funny hats were in the job description!"

A long way from the North Pole

And here he is the Old Man himself

Housekeeping for the Community Centre Contract

Monday evening will take us further into the CCC project. The Project Managers - mhpm - have submitted a couple of subcontracts for Council's approval. One for a Compliance Consultant, that's the guy that will check to see if what we get ,is what has been promised. Whether they check just the specifications or the costs is not known but it is comforting to know that somebody is going to watchdog the project. But was the choosing of the consultant transparent as the PMs made up a list of firms that should be invited to tender. When only two of the seven invitees responded the PMs reviewed the applications and then made a recommendation. So the guy doing the job gets to pick the guy who is going to watchdog? This is standard management practise after all why would the PM want a company that would be hard to get along with?
The other point that jumped out at me is seen in this extract from the letter to Council from the PM.
If you click on the pic you will read that because the budget for all four phases of the compliance contract was $125K and the successful invitee's bid was $255 - $140K overbudget, the PM recommended that the invitee only be awarded the first two phases for a cost of $107K. So are we overbudget already, and this is only the first subcontract from mhpm?

A second contract is going to be awarded, one for an Accessibility Consultant, presumably to check out the drawings for accessability problems, the BurdReport has been told that this building will be the most accessible building to be built in Ontario when it is finished. According to the report submitted to the Council the Chair of the Accessibility Committee did an exhaustive search and then discovered that very few firms or individuals are capable of all aspects of peer review. Obviously this time consuming process (tracking down a qualified firm and then negotiating a contract) is a difficult job for a committee so it has punted it off to the PM. He has the authority to conduct a search, and sole source the contract. What is not made clear in the paperwork is the fact that although the contract may be sole-sourced from a list of names given to the PM by the committee, the awarding of the contract is still subject to scrutiny by the committee. A good process adopted by the Committee.

Sunday #1 - A fog of confusion

This week's CRTC hearings cap a month's cacophony of attack ads from both sides in the dispute. Cable Companies snatch TV transmissions from the airwaves, package them into incongruous bundles and then peddle them to TV owners who don't have TV towers, or want more TV channels than offered on the airwaves. The TV companies spend great gobs of money on US shows that are supposed to attract plenty of eyeballs, then those eyeball stats are sold to ad buyers who think that huge numbers of people are watching their ads. That was the model up to a few years ago.
Then came the diversity of interests produced by alternate media, and timeshifting with PVRs. Ad revenue started to slip for the TV companies. The TV companies also made boneheaded decisions to get bigger, financed the aquisitions with debt that the operating costs funded by ad revenue had to support and suddenly the once wealthy TV companies were struggling to get by on a couple of hundred million a year. The Cable companies, also ravaged by aquisition fever now found it uneconomical to support both their capital costs of getting bigger by building transmissioin networks and cannibalising themselves and also found themselves in a fight with the TV companies who want to charge the Cable companies for the transmissions that are free.
As a consumer how can you not be confused by the conflicting claims. There is a whole bunch of bad in this issue. Cable companies assembling their retransmissions into "bundles". These bundles are a mess and don't have an affinity of interest and also force the consumer to purchase many bundles just to get the few channels they want, thereby increasing consumer costs. TV companies claiming that unless they get more money local TV stations will be shut down. Oh what a mess.
Then in the middle of this is the regulator - the CRTC. This august body is at its wits end and the Chair has expressed his frustration with both sides often. He doesn't want to make the hard decision of making the consumer pay just because the two sides are intransigent.They have a mandate to protect the consumer and make sure that the players get along. So what's the answer? If I was the regulator this is what I would do.

• Establish that both parties are at fault, because of bad business decisions and tell them their is still enough money in their bottom lines to support themselves.
  
• Tell the Cable companies to stop bundling and establish a price per channel and allow consumers to purchase individual channels.
  
• Acknowledge that there is an obligation for the Cable companies to pay for their channels from the sky and not to pass the fees they will have to pay to consumers.
  
• Mandate a higher level of Canadian content in the TV companies programming so that they would have less airtime to fill with their expensive American shows.

Now this list comes from a not so ignorant consumer, but one who is still confused by the issue, so please comment on this and perhaps we can prepare a consumers' response to the issue.

Municipal Campaign Reform

Campaign Reform is usually spoken about in America where huge money is raised, extorted, solicited and cajoled to and from candidates and donors to political campaigns. A move in Toronto might spark reform all over Ontario but don't bet on it happening here. A major part of the reforms that Toronto is discussing is the banning of donations from Corporations and Unions. Provincial reform now limits donations from those sources to a maximum of $750 to an individual and a total of $5,000 during a campaign to all candidates, from the same donor. If banning corporate/union donations ever took place here no candidate could afford to run. In every municipal election that I have ever seen, every financial report filed six months after the election has been shown that donations from individuals have been as scarce as hen's teeth. Almost all of the candidates declaring donations revealed that the sources were local developers. In fact it was so bad, a few years back, that one particular development company donated substantial sums to incumbents and none to newcomers. It was probably just a coincidence that this particular developer had a planning application before the incumbents which needed to be voted on just before the election took place. The public only found out about it six months later when the incumbents were re-elected and the developer got his planning permission. When asked about the linkage, one incumbent muttered, "It's not illegal to take donations so I did!"
This Cobourg Council, just like every other small town entity will be dragged kicking and screaming into campaig reform, because the status quo is mighty fine for them. Nobody has ever spent the maximum amount allowed and nobody ever queries where the money has come from. After all the donations do not have to be declared until six months after the election.
In fact them only piece of meaningful election reform will never happen here because the move would be too transparent. I refer to the notion of declaring donations within 30 days of receiving them. Imagine going to the election booth knowing just who was bankrolling a candidate, an amazing piece of knowledge. Never happen!

The chickens have come to roost

Port Hope Council really has a problem that has to settled very shortly. The issue of the facilities that house the Port Hope Police will not go away this time nor can it be put off any longer. The PHP need a new building and in the light of potential inadequacy reports from the province need a new home right away. A newly released report quotes a consultant as saying a total cost of $6.21 million, and that doesn't include the cost of any land is needed to build a facility to Provincial standards. Two reports were presented to the PSB: in addition to the facilities report thare was a report that outlined the expenditures for a new communications system - $1.6 million.
So if the PH PSB votes to go ahead with an independent police service renewal program the taxpayers of Port Hope will pay for it when Port Hope Council votes to approve the Police budget. A total of $7.81 million over the next ten years with the majority of that upfront for a building program. Just how long the province will allow the PSB to operate under inadequate standards is another question.

Crunchtime is here. What will Port Hopers do? Especially when the Ward 2 residents have no love for the urban Ward 1 force, they prefer the OPP.

A lively three way debate. The OPP boosters in the former Township (Ward 2) haven't forgotten the loss of the proposed shift to the County OPP, the Port Hope Chauvinists who will not consider anything other than a home-grown solution and the pragmatists who will look at anything that will save money and makes sense (even a collaboration with Cobourg).