Lots of grandparents DownTown this morning and this was a good place to take a rest from the pleas, "can I get my face painted?", "I want to try the jumping castle" as any. The act after Washboard Hank, on the centre stage was this guy - a magician with just enough skills to capture the attention of many kids. Good clean fun and a fine morning to boot. No rain and just enough sunshine for comfort. We enjoyed it.

I couldn't find my tools; are they under the street?,

What's the story here? Three weeks after paving the street someone has dug it up again. Haven't phoned the Town yard to find out the real reason but I'm sure we can come up with lots of speculation: "I had to look for my tools, I couldn't find them after the Havelock St job!"
Seriously though this has to be a major problem for somebody. The street will never be the same, and only after three weeks.

Hamilton Twp pols are POd and they deserve to look beyond that. In fact if any of them had a semblance of political sense they would be scurrying into amalgamation talks as soon as possible. But that would mean that these little gatekeepers would have to give up their fiefdoms. The sooner they realise that you can't be a rural Twp and rely mainly on the urbans for the running costs. the better. If the residents demand to be left alone on their rural manors and demand urban services without any base to a working economy then the governing structure has to change. Despite Cllr Marston's whine about "amalgamation through the back door" it is going to happen. But realistic change will not happen until Pat McCourt becomes Mayor. Growth is not going to come to places that cannot provide jobs. Lower taxes can only be achieved by expanding the tax base, you don't do that with horse farms and weekend hideaways so if Ham Twp wants in on the action there is only one word - amalgamation!

It looks as though the traditionalists lost and the folks pushing for transparency won. This little ad has caused great consternation among the local Libs as they debated the merits of placing it.
Some wanted to demonstrate openness and a new way of doing business and others, mainly the incumbents, took the position that the ad laid them prone to attack by pin-headed fools who would say, "Those guys couldn't find a candidate and they had to advertise for one!". Well I can assure them, the pinheads from the right, that the Libs, because they smell victory by about 1100 votes, have all kinds of people are coming out of the woodwork - sniffing a winner. And, I'll bet the bank on the fact that the candidate doesn't come out of a newspaper ad.


Holy Crap we're getting older, a video of that refrain here on the video page

Sometimes anonymous is good

Campbellford has just made it much harder to squeal on your neighbours. And that may not be such a good idea. In this story the municipality is reported as installing a complaints procedure which depends on written forms. No more telephone finks no more whispers to councillors, if you want to make a complaint you had better be prepared to give your name. In most cases that will mean that complaints will go down - score one for the bureaucrats. What these neanderthals on the Trent fail to realise is that many complaints are valid and very personal and therefore must be reported as an anonymous complaint. a bad move.

Now won't this be a nice piece of objective reporting? The Puffster is to interview SH.., in an industrial setting to boast about the government's record. This TO Star story tells all.

The election drums are beating - but not very loud. Ottawa is gearing up for the next confidence vote, June 23rd, the Cons are rolling out the "Stevie show" (glitzy announcements designed to make us feel good about them mishandling the recession), amid stories like this from Don Martin of the NP, and local Libs are emailing each other with glee about the latest polls in Southern Ontario. Rather like a bunch of Bull Moose banging antlers in the rutting season. Unfortunately the numbers will not be there for a combined vote of non-confidence as the next day is Quebec's National holiday and Bloc members will have left Ottawa to attend the festivities. So we may be able to survive the summer without noisy people asking for our votes. BTW if all our local MP can do for us lately is to try to encourage us, as a Riding, to be more patriotic, as demonstrated by putting fake flags in our windows, we surely are bereft of ideas. As more and more people are slipping off the EI rolls to the deafening roar of the lack of government response, this flag waving effort is a pathetic excuse for local notice. I ripped mine up and have refused to participate. As Samuel Johnson said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel!"

In a debate that we will see repeated in Cobourg Ottawa City Council has voted to reduce development plans on its City boundaries. Preferring developers to build inside the boundary instead of contributing to urban sprawl this vote left some developers very angry. Read this story for details. This issue is the biggie for Cobourg, in the next couple of years and if the trend is to build inside the boundaries instead of outside it, the present mayor's dreams of Cobourg II, (area C and its 16,000 intended inhabitants) could be scuttled.

Give the woman an Oscar

In this story, the woman of the day, in Ottawa, gave a teary apology to assembled journos. I wonder what their cynical response to the waterworks was? My response was less than charitable, especially when I heard the tape. I'm sorry but I don't believe a bloody word these people in Ottawa or Toronto say. This Raitt performance will be viewed as maudlin nonsense.

What an obnoxious fellow

This man is John Baird, much satirized by Rick mercer and a rabid pitbull of a politician. His other claim to fame is that he is a favourite Squire of the PM's wife. When Steve doesn't want to go to artsy-fartsy, airy fairy functions she calls upon the man that "Frank" magazine used to refer to as a "carpetmuncher".
John Baird is now guilty of telling the City of Toronto to "F*** Off". Read about it here. I am sure that the opposition will be asking some questions about it in the House today. be prepared for the rebuttal to be complete with frothing of the mouth and spittle charged invective reaching across the aisle. This man does not take criticism easily.

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.

How to leave a name on your comments

Some people have been unaware of how to sign a comment with your name and have been attracting more attention than they should by posting comments as "anonymous". So if you look at the image to the left you will see that after one has clicked on the radio button "Name/URL" a box drops down. Put your name in this box and you have a comment that has your name on it. Try it and stop annoying those who think that all comments should be signed. Personally I don't care just keep the comments coming in! To make the image larger just click on it.

It will be interesting to see just how many puffed out chests there will be at Council tomorrow evening and who gets to announce the kickoff for the public fundraising campaign for the new Community Centre. As Bob "I raised a pile of money for the Jack Heenan Arena" Spooner told me, he already has pledges from some community groups - keep 'em coming Bob you can do it better than anybody else!

Let the fundraising begin

Went to the Police BBQ, a fundraiser for the Hospital and came away with a bigger story than hotdogs on a bun.

The Stimulus money is coming, the stimulus money is coming! the real fun now starts. Bob"have I got a story for you" Spooner figures that the amount to be raised to keep the taxpayers' money away from this project is about 2.5million, others on Council think it is more but whatever it is Cobourg's contribution, after using the "Playmoney" should be raised and paid for by interested people and future users. Don't expect the taxpayer to put up money for this out of the tax rolls when the majority of taxpayers wait to be convinced of the need. The BR position is simple those that want it should find the money to fill in the blanks. And if they, the users, can't find what amounts to about ten per cent of the cost then they don't deserve a building.

But back to the hot dogs. This BBQ was organised by Deputy chief Dave (Cromlish) - seen on the left, and raised $255 dollars - 51 citizens came out and had a cheap lunch and raised money for the hospital while chowing down with lunchbuddies and had a good time. Well done!

Only in Port Hope, we hope

A snippet from a letter to the paper from John Miller.

One council, two opinions and closed doors
Let me see if I've got this right: Port Hope's councillors, sitting as elected officials, paid two consultants to look into the operations of the Harbour Commission. They concluded that it was a municipal board, not a private corporation, and its meetings should be open to the public.
Those same Port Hope councillors, sitting as appointed members of the Harbour Commission, are now paying a lawyer to see if they can get different advice. Mayor Linda Thompson (who is obviously quite comfortable meeting behind closed doors when she's wearing her nautical hat) is not saying which set of advice her Harbour Commission will act on.
Very interesting set of circumstances and all too common with local Councils, unfortunately they get away with it because of the lack of voter oversight. Where was the crusading press on this one?

Can I have a chicken in my backyard?

Fresh eggs, what kind of image does that evoke? Farmers' wives with their baskets feeling under brooding hens to take the eggs. The noise and smell of the fowl. Take your pick but what are the rules? Raising chickens is about as "back to the country" as you can get. But is it legal in Cobourg? After spending time with helpful people, in Town Hall, such as Susan Beer and Steve Ashton the legal status of a back yard chicken is still not definite. If your chicken does tricks then it is banned under 59-2004 - a bylaw to prohibit wild or exotic animal exhibitions. But if all the chicken does is produce eggs for the kitchen table it may be legal. Residential zoning bans agricultural uses and the Zoning Bylaw (ZB) allows "general farming". "General farming", the only agricultural reference in the ZBL , is not allowed in residential areas. The legal argument is - "What is general farming" (GF)? How many chickens do you have to have to fall into GF? Can you build a coop that is legal? The answer to that one is easy; keep it under 100 square feet and you don't need a permit. But the general consensus is that if you get on with your neighbours and don't keep too many chickens and house them in a coop less than 100 sf you will probably be allowed to do it. But don't boast about it and don't have a rooster!

If there ever is a "black hole" for policing costs it comes under the heading "Communications". Over the years the amount of money devoted to this subject, Cobourg and Port Hope, has been LARGE. Now a consultant is recommending that PH spend even more. How much will Cobourg spend? Why is it that parochial pols still abound where Policing costs occur? The latest report of the Port Hope Police Services Board exposes some of this thinking. Pull the prisoners out of the Cobourg police station and put them at the OPP station, just to save cents - what shortsighted thinking. How's this for an idea - amalgamate and share the costs!

A linkage between the GM fiasco and Wall St and guess who gets to keep their money? This story links Obama and his car czar to a scheme whereby GM's pensioners will lose their fund to 2 Wall St banks who, in the end, will never share the pain of everybody else in the bankruptcy. In addition the proposal is illegal but being done in the name of Obama and his Wall St buds.

Words of wisdom from our MP. Mr Norlock musing about the prospect of an early election

(snip) Norlock, who was re elected last fall, says canadians clearly don't want another costly election so soon.
He says an early election call would amount to crass political opportunism to try to take advantage of economic hardship in order to win public favour. (snip)

So the question to RN is this - "What about the crass political ministerial responsibility crap that SH , is putting out to sack a Quebec male "swordsman" and to keep his "pet" over identical mistakes. Read Don Martin's comments about the incident here.