This week's punditry

Opinions about news items of the week

• The great land sale in Cramahe:
  A story that appeared as a good news story here may actually, with a good investigation, be a story of intrigue and taxpayers' money paying off insiders. the story is simple, a consortium of local entrepreneurs buy low grade agricultural land as an investment because it is adjacent to a municipal industrial park, the land stays on the market because nobody wants low grade agricultural land, the land then is purchased by another local businessman and then flipped within a week to the Municipality for a large profit - because the land is now called "serviced industrial land". The transactions beg many questions, the big one being how and why did a "flipper" insert himself into Council's decision and so quickly? These transactions take time, the flip only took a week. That week was the time it took for the "flipper" to allow the real estate listing to expire and get the property from the sellers, leaving a seething real estate agent frothing at the mouth. Cramahe taxpayers may have been able to save $500,000 if the Mayor had bypassed the "flipper" The sad part about this deal is that in order to fulfill the potential of the land the Township will have to expand the overloaded sewage treatment plant at a cost of an estimated $18,000,000. Where is the Cramahe Ratepayers Group when we need it? Disbanded in a fit of sycophancy, that's where
  
• The Mayor's wrong and Frost is right
  In a puff piece designed to create tension, the CDS wrote about the way the two members of Council see the issues before them in the new year. Both men saw the same issues quite differently, the Mayor sees nothing wrong with this as he says, "All members of Council have the right to express themselves" But the Mayor also has the obligation to listen to the opinions, but obviously he hasn't as its "his way or the highway". My new year's resolution if I was PD would be to listen to Councillor Frost, something he hasn't done for months as he can get his way any night of Council with his band of lackeys. However their prognostications are not what prompted me to comment. The supercilious way that the Mayor talks about "future projects not costing the taxpayers a dime" is more than a little grating. The projects are funded from the investment revenue from the Industrial Park and the municipally owned hydro utility. These are revenues that should go into the bottom line of the budget to reduce taxes not to be used as Council's play money.


• The new guy at the Brighton Indie is wrong
  The Brighton Independent has a new owner - Metroland - and a new editor. Without wanting to put up his hackles let me point out that in his editorial this week where he devotes a great deal of ink to what the County should do; he mentions County policing "The county politicians must decide once and for all if they can put their territorial bickering behind them to settle the long-burning issue of a new county-wide police force. A perfectly well-reasoned plan that could save county taxpayers more than $3 million a year in policing costs, it quickly fell victim to internal discord between municipalities. As always, Cobourg and Port Hope can make the county-wide police force a reality – or sink it forever." Somebody should tell this fellow that Cobourg and Port Hope have no influence whatsoever in this decision. It is the tyranny of the majority that will determine the policing option. To sum up; not only will the county midget municipalities take the increased grant money but vote to take away our police forces. If the County levy was applied in this case nobody would vote for the policing proposal. The midgets have stolen the urbans money and then will stick it to them in the vote. The final revenge of the Rubes!


• More non-fiction for the Cobourg taxpayer - the WalMart application
  Now for the sequel: Walmart has applied for a store expansion. They want to expand the 116,000 sf store to 176,000sf. As part of the details they have to prepare a "Market Impact Study - MIS". These studies are routinely filed if an application greater than 25,000sf is contemplated. These studies, as a former developer told me, "Are exercises in the black arts". I would state pure fiction. Last time around Walmart proved to the community that it had sucked up all the available commercial capacity. Six years later and a population increase of less than a thousand, they are asking for more commercial capacity. I wonder where it will all come from? Last time around a firm called Malone, Given Parsons wrote the study and it was peer reviewed by another company, the name escapes me. Now the MIS has been given to a company called Tate Economic Research and will be peer reviewed by Malone, Given Parsons. Anybody see the irony and incestuousness here?
  

The first day of work

So what are you doing here? You're at work dammit, so get back to it. Seriously glad to have you here, but let me warn you there is little profundity in this post. A very choppy seasonal break left me without ambition or attitude. I did discover James McMurtry, a progressive singer of topical lyrics, check this out (look for the free download tab). A very different "God Bless America.

Forget the New Year's predictions from me how about some from you folks. How about your suggestions for the following categories:

• The big municipal issue for 2008
• next year's percentage tax increase
• Cobourg's emerging personalities, after all we have had enough of the usual suspects haven't we. Let's look for some new people to bring the issues to the fore.
• How long will the new guys last in the face of Council's rigid positions?

So let's hear it for your ideas about the New year.

Now for something completely different. When I want to idle the time away, and the internet is a perfect place for that, I quite often click on the button at the top of the Burdreport that is called "next blog" and am transported into the blogosphere. This blog was the one that made me think the most. I really don't know what to think of it except the writer must be a really creative idler. I wonder what he really thinks?

A tale for the Christmas season

Racy 'Santa' cited for DUI - UPI.com

See you all next week

The snow is coming and I am going to miss it! We are having a well deserved long weekend out of Town, in our favourite place. See you next week
ben

Back to the 20th Century

Where is the imagination in the Mayor's latest brainwave - let's setup a committee and see if they can sell the Kraft site!! The idea of beating the bushes is so 1990's. Not only does it admit that we have a second rate Economic Development department, if it was so good we would have had a buyer lined up already, but it shows that nobody in government is willing to think laterally, or "out of the box" to use that cliche.

One idea that is very good appeared in the comments this week. A person called gh (I know who you are but won't tell) suggests that part of the site be used for community purposes.

To ask a "blue ribbon committee" to beat the bushes is akin to the new car, insurance, furniture salesperson being told to sit down and make up a list of family contacts for selling purposes. This may be a good idea but if this the best the Mayor can do it just shows a lack of imagination.

We need imagination to convert this site and I hope that there are more ideas than just selling it for another industrial site.

The reason some comments never make the light of day

Some of the faithful posters, (howcum they are all called anonymous?) are noticing that comments are sometimes, rarely, not appearing. This is not my doing - I do not censor comments, or ignore them either. All comments, even the ones I disagree with, are posted. But the posting process is simple and it breaks down at times. When one comments the comment is supposed to be emailed to me for approval. However at times Google fails to email the comment and thus I think nobody is commenting. But the comment goes to another page to await moderation, this is where I find them. I then put them up. I will in future try to check the moderation page more often. Keep the comments coming!

Another quiet week

The big news this week, in a quiet week, is that nobody wants to be the Warden of the County. Two of the three legends (in their own minds) of Upper Tier Government don't want the top job. The Warden's job is voted on for a years term each year. And with four year terms for municipal officers the one year term is obviously not worth the bother. "Big Hec" ( a term coined by an adoring and drooling Brighton Independent) says he doesn't want the job again citing the fact that it is a fulltime job and requires a daily drive to Cobourg. Linda Thompson ruled herself out of the running last month. That leaves the midgets to fight it out, although one of the midgets ain't so small in physique. So look for the Mayors of Hamilton and Cramahe Twps to duke it out. After all the pay is no small potatoes. Based on a daily trip to Cobourg and the number of meetings the winner can crank out, it could be a bonus of at least $30,000.

An industrial strategy

A friend of mine asked me what the Town should be doing in the wake of the Kraft closing. So here goes - don't expect much in the way of domestic initiative after all this is the Council that has failed to make Local Economic Development a priority. Rather strange considering that the Mayor, in his first campaign, crucified the opponent with cries that not one job had been created by her. And the Town has yet to hire a new Director of ED instead preferring to run the department with a Manager. So in this atmosphere can we expect anything other than pleas to upper level of governments for help in locating that illusory industrial plant.

But let's look at we have - 53 acres and large industrial buildings, but more than that the site has a mother lode of sewage capacity. It is possible to rezone the area to residential and cover every inch without adding one more cubic inch of sewage capacity to Plant 1 - the nearest processing plant. General Foods, later to become Kraft used to make Rice-a-Roni. This product required more than the average industrial sewage capacity because of the potential to produce product that, if poured down the sewer, would kill the bugs in the sewage plant. Bugs are an integral component of the waste processing process, they eat the solids. A spill at the Kraft plant was deadly, consequently a larger capacity was reserved for Kraft at the plant. That capacity is greater than the norm for an industrial site.

So what we have now is a mother lode of capacity. I bet dollars to donuts that local developers have already started to drool over the prospect of getting that capacity. So in that light the Town should adopt the following process:

• Rezone the area into an industrial holding zone so that greater planning controls can be exerted on the site
• Isolate and control the sewage capacity, do not allow one cubic inch to be siphoned off the site into development applications
  
• Buy the site with the dividends from the Northam Park account
• Take a proactive role in preserving the site and the sewage capacity as a "rainy day fund"
• Realise that we only have one chance at this and don't dribble it away

That's my two cents worth foks

Who says the internet isn't good for you!

Read this and keep the faith Woman Loses 500 Pounds Online

Winter is here - "But it's not winter!"

Yep we are in the grips of a winter freeze, one month early. But the experts cannot agree on the forecasts. Environment Canada says we are going to getting the coldest winter in fifteen years, others say pooh pooh. I would say bring it on it's good for business.

Now for something completely different. Two examples of taxpayers angst: one was the sight of all, I mean all, of the inside lights at the new County building were on at 3am on Friday. The other was seeing two Town ploughs, coming out of John St and passing past my house, on identical tracks, identical plough procedures, identical salt droppings and only one minute apart. There must be good reasons for such behaviour but it sure drives taxpayers buggy.

I saw a big Mea Culpa, from John Miller, of the FARE fame, in the paper the other day. I guess all the nasty comments thrown at him and his wife finally got to him, pity he shouldn't have to grovel publicly to maintain status.

As mentioned last week I witnessed the episode between Pete Vanderveur and John Lee, at Council. Didn't seem like assault, as charged by John Lee, to me but the sight of two seniors going at it like kids in grade 3 sure wasn't very edifying. I guess people only slug each other in the mouth on TV.