I guess that Bob (I'm in charge) Spooner is off the hook!

a snippet from the Council agenda for Tuesday evening,
Recommendation:
"That the tenders for Rotary Waterfront Fountain Rink improvements be rejected and staff be directed to review the tender documents to investigate the feasibility of re-tendering in December 2007/January 2008 with construction in 2008." What a bombshell! It seems that the four dead white guys just won't give up. What do they know that the rest of us don't about the future tenders and just how much can they take out of the specifications to get below the magic number of $1.4 million?

But what does this do to BS's credibility? Whatever cred. he has left will wither on the vine after the next episode. The unfortunate aspect of all of this is that it ties up the provincial grant for a few more months denying real progress on the facility that most citizens will support - the community centre. All we can hope for is that the tories win and take back the wasted provincial money [fat chance of that - ed.]

Any predictions for the election?

Here's mine. The Tories will win - just. The vote will be way down and the base vote will count. The Greens are picking up disaffected liberals thus allowing the tories to squeak in, the NDP are picking up more than the base vote of previous years, thus exacerbating the swing to the tories by means of the liberal lost votes. This riding will defy the liberal swing and go blue, maybe on a recount.

Comments??

The BIG election question!

We are in the last stages of the election and I cannot understand how any thinking voter has not taken the Green party to task for its bizarre fiscal policy. They propose, correct me if I am wrong, to eliminate all progressive taxation and replace it with consumption and pollution taxes. In the case of Ontario I believe that the budget is about 80 Billion dollars, Where in tarnation do they think that there is the potential to tax polluters, without driving the economy into the ground, and enough consumption to raise the money needed to run the province?

If anybody can explain this to me in three sentences please do so now or I will have to describe the policy with many more harsher adjectives than bizarre.

Emails are flying fast and furiously.

The tenders for the "frink" were opened today and the opponents of the scheme are chortling with great glee. One of the emails reads:

Hello All,
The tenders were opened today and GUESS WHAT? The lowest bid is $1,667,300 and the highest is $1,765,327! There were 5 bidders. In addition to these numbers, we have to add such things as $150K to TSH for project management work, the Zamboni itself, the cost of other parts of the project performed by others outside the main tender, and the cost of benches and misc. stuff that the town would place there. I guess the total cost to be in the order of $2.25M.

Now the hottest question of the day is, "What will Bob (I'm in charge) Spooner do as he has stated, rather foolishly and very publicly, that he would not vote for it "If it comes in at more than $1.4 million"?

So who is dragging their feet?

After the appearance of Rod Baker and the ad-hoc citizens committee, that is pushing for the creation of a Multi Use Recreation Facility (MURF), last week, Council said what a wonderful idea, we're in charge and we'll call on you to help. Most of the population thought that common sense had prevailed at last and looked forward to leaving the Frink in it's present state and moving on to the planning of a MURF.

But Council this week proved that last week was then and this is now. When Councilor Frost, this week, rose to make a motion to move the money for the Frink into a community centre plan all hell broke loose. The Mayor accused him of delaying the Frink project, three of the four dead white men stood by and refused to do anything other than say "full speed ahead" and the public is really confused now.

So now the question becomes, "What is so bloody important about a fountain in the park?"

So look at the problem now, we still have an opposition to the fountain, we will spend $1.3 million of the Provinces money and Lord knows how much of our money, and we will still need a MURF. So I still say that the simplest way to do this is to take the $1.3 add in the proposed $2.5 (Seniors Centre) and take out a mortgage on the donated land at the old Tannery site and we can build a MURF in one year. Not all the site will be needed for a MURF sell the residue to pay for the MURF - what's wrong with this idea - apart from the fact that the brains trust on the Council never thought of it first!!

If you want something important done don't let the politicians touch it!

How many times have you heard that? Well last night at Council a bunch of citizens presented themselves and declared that they had formed a committee to bring a Community Centre to Town. This group of sports minded people identified with Hockey and Lacrosse, amongst many, have already had nine formal meetings to prepare the idea. They asked the best frontman since Jeff Rolph, Rod Baker, to make the statement. And just like silk the pols fell into line. The problem is that it should have been the pols leading not following. After Bob (I'm in charge of this) Spooner described the work done to date as "a wonderful start" we can assume that the bureaucrats will now take charge, i.e. hire a consultant to tell us what we already know and produce an inflated budget - big mistake.
I can't believe that after nine meetings this group would be content to allow Council to lead the charge. Leave them alone, appoint them as the steering committee and let them get on with the fundraising. Council should donate the land at the Tannery building site, pass over the 1.3million and the 2.1 million from the seniors' centre budget and say, "Get on with it." If anybody wants to see how to do this job properly travel up the hill to Baltimore and look at their centre. Bloody good job and despite Hamilton Township Council it was achieved.

I'm back and observing

I was in Portugal for the last week and the only TV was news - euro news - and the only two stories to make the waves were the "Madeline McCann mystery: did the parents kill her?" and the more interesting to us, on this side of the Atlantic, - the "Northern Rock (the 5th largest Mortgage Company in the UK) goes bust and causes a bank run". So coming back to the usual stories - "Harbour Front Tenders Deferred" and "A Community Centre is urged" makes me think that I was never away.

So here are the observations:

• Roundabouts (traffic circles) work in Europe very well why can't they work here?
• I couldn't find a Marina in the Algarve that didn't have a commercial first floor and none that weren't people places. It can be done everywhere in the world but Cobourg!
• The election campaign is moribund, except at my house, "What's that sign doing on our lawn" she says. "Working I hope" I say.
• The Referundum is sadly an ignorant issue - lots more work needed here.
• I can't find any report of the dunk tank at the St Mike's Fair. You would have thought an enterprising paparazzi might have taken a pic of Peter D being dunked. What a sycophantic press we have around here!
• It's good to be back

When I returned I looked at all of the links on the left - What I read on the net, and was really impressed by Garth Turner's cross country tour. Not for the content but for the way that he described his internet audience and collaborators on his website actually coming out to put a face to the name at every stop. Very impressive and makes the meaning of the word interactive truly that!

no entries for until Monday 17th

We are away on Vacation, talk to you all when we come back

Continuing the debate

Last week Prof Robert Washburn and me commented on the political fact that we continue to study stuff that goes nowhere. Here is another good example of that problem. Loo (Rinaldi), the local MPP, is trumpeting a funding exercise with the sucker upper of all government funds, the local CFDC, that will study the possibility of local agricultural processing. With so much food coming from offshore, one of the flunkeys at the presser quoted the mantra, "Do you know 35% of our peas come from China", we now have to investigate the possibility of local processing.

I would suggest that the first thing that the highly paid consultant selected by the CFDC does to earn their $45,000 would be to investigate what happened to the last attempt to process locally in Northumberland. There was at one time a very expensive processing plant that sucked up oodles of government dough trying to process local crops locally. I can't remember the name of the place but it was located on Masthead Rd. in Hope Township. Went bellyup in a huge flameout of government money.

Just a suggestion look to history before treading into the future!

I remember when

A favourite email amongst the older set, and I get a few of them, is the one that starts off - "I remember when" and then proceeds to list all kinds of fantasies about how much better life was years ago. Now how about a "remember when" from Cobourg.

I remember when you could take a lunch, after supper ice cream or just a daydream break at the Harbourfront. One would just drive down Division St and sit in one's car and watch. Watch whatever went on at your leisurely pace. Gone! With the open space now occupied by affluent condo owners and the miniscule parking lots taken over by long term parkers, some of whom are condo owners with second cars who cannot park onsite because of the failure of Councils to ensure that developers provide adequate parking, the daydreamers have been moved on. But now they have been completely excluded from the waterfront. Signs have appeared that instruct anyone thinking about parking in the West lot, the last public lot available, not to park unless they are part of another exclusive group - actual lakefaring people - Cobourg Yacht Club members or Marina users. There is a trick to engage in daydreaming these days but you have to understand the secret method, secret because it is not publicised, go to the Marina office and beg for a pass to park.

Let's think about this, if the public lot is now going to used exclusively for Yachters and Marina users when can we expect them to pay for this privilege? If the public cannot use this area why should they pay a penny for the upkeep - shift the tax burden to the users, after all they have exclusivity. If I cannot use it I will not pay for it! And at the same time if there are other tax breaks being given to this group remove them after all they are a private club. The Town cannot cry poor about revenues and then expect the taxpayer to subsidise private clubs,

I write this to point out the law of unintended consequences - you cannot have unfettered public access to diminishing public space if you have inadequate planning policies and subsidies to private areas. I'm just suggesting to Council that on this issue you own up to your mistake and acknowledge that the supposed benefit of creating a community at the lakefront has worked to the detriment of the rest of us.