A couple of sad notes

A sad day for democracy
Today the McGuinty fiberals slammed another nail in the coffin of local democracy by legislating four year terms for municipal office. The current three-year period is bad enough when you have a Council that deserves to be turfed, but four years will be inexorable.

This new measure, introduced by the obscene act of tacking it to another bill, was brought in after a measure of consultation with all concerned. Presumably the leaders of AMO (the Association of Municipalities of Ontario) phoned Dalton one day and said we have a great idea – keep us in power for another year. At the AMO convention it was voted upon and passed closely, certainly not enough of a margin to warrant sneaky legislation. The public was allowed to comment in a five hour period over one day last week. But the public session demonstrated little public support, but the legislation passed anyway. So the question is “What is the pro quid pro?”

A sad day for local policing
A funeral was held for the President of the local Police Association, Don Thompson, yesterday. Described as a quiet strong man Don died quickly and too soon. If any good can come out of this it should be the awareness that little things, like stepping on a rusty nail, will kill you.

A bite in the bum by pesky gnats

The gnats of Council bit again last night, this time the bugmen were feeling the nips. A proposed bylaw to control the use of pesticides was before Council and a record number of delegations came to speak. As usual they were listened to very quietly and then released without so much as a follow up question - the usual Council insult. One telling omen of who had the ear of Council, the Environmentalists or the Business sector, was in the receiving of correspondence of the many letters about the pros and cons of the topic only the one letter supporting the bylaw was read in full. The others were just received without reading or comment, hmmm!

The interesting thing was that one homeowner, saying she represented 41 others, gave a presentation full of indignant homeowners rights and the usual bluster about democracy. Wonder if she is cranking up a run for Council? She came across very well as a one issue candidate might. On the other hand she just might be the best friend the Pest Industry has at the moment.

Interesting rumours

Ole Huff and Puff, even he has adopted this moniker, David Craig, started his two minutes of local wisdom this morning by dismissing rumours. But then he launched into a whole host of them, and revealed that he was speculating about local pols intentions, in the upcoming election, because they weren't. Trying to make the case that nomination day should be earlier than it is because we, the electorate, do not have enough time between nomination day and election to get to know the candidates.

One of his rumours was one about DM Bob Spooner going up against the real Mayor Peter Delanty, this is still a bit of a stretch for me to believe as Bob has always believed in sure things. Perhaps he knows that Gil Brocanier wants his job and figures that the easiest opponent is the Mayor. He might be right, the Mayor has always had a split following. The problem is that Bob is not the shooin that he thinks he is. My money is on finding out what Brocanier is up to and then watching the pieces fall into place.

Why don't we just let George Bush run our country?

TheStar.com - Media barred from return of soldiers' remains Another example of the rapid Americanization of our culture, didn't Harper long did it?

More Police follies

More of the same nonsence! Port Hope has announced that it wants to build a new police station, what for? To hold the artifacts from a municipal force that will be out of existence in a couple of years! Build a new station; they'll be building a museum.

The only way small urban forces will survive is to get bigger, not much bigger but still bigger. That means a new department within the County strategy must emerge. That means both Provincial grants and local autonomy will prevail. That also means that "King Jeff" (lees) must get of his high horse and start to accept reality and look at alternatives to the status quo. Otherwise he might as well take his chair and sit a the banks of the "Ganny" and play Canute.

An explanation

You may have noticed that a recent letter in the Cobourg Daily Star was published as mine. It was not. A mixup at the CDS made it look that way. What really happened was that I submitted a letter, which has yet to be published, and then followed up with a reference to this website. The editor of the CDS replied that the site was not legible in her monitor. So I sent her a copy of the anonymous posting and it was picked up by another editor as a letter to the editor. The result was that a letter I did not write was published under my name. I have checked with the anonymous poster and have been told that it was OK to let things stand as it is. So I concur with the sentiments and language in the letter but wanted to tell the world that the letter was not written by me but will accept the peculiar consequences as the intent was the same.

Would the OPP have done this?

A tale of municipal help is circulating the rounds and goes like this. An older lady, in obvious distress, phoned the local police department, presumably because they were the help of last resort, and asked for asistance. There was something wrong with her house. One of the younger oficers jumped into the car and went to investigate. When he got there he quickly found the source of concern - a blocked toilet. He fixed it and made the older lady very happy. Now that's local service!

Council fixes the pests!

Finally Cobourg Council has figured out how to business in public while meeting in semi-secret, free from from the public that want to say something - ban delegations, but not really banning them! The system is easy and was probably designed by the person who had recently signed out the latest edition of "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller from the public library. It works like this - anyone wanting to speak to Council must provide a copy of the presentation being made to the Town Hall by the end of business on Wednesday of the week preceding the council meeting. One big problem; if one suspects that the item that you wish to talk about is on the agenda you cannot find out until 2.30pm the next day.

What a delicious touch of bureaucracy, the only problem is that it is probably illegal and a violation of the Charter of Rights, but who has any money to test that piece of paper. The first person to be caught in this paper maze is Keith Oliver. Wanting to file a response about the report that replied to his public submission about the application to build a Home Depot, he was told by a member of the Town's staff that he must file his presentation before being allowed to be put on the agenda. Not having time to respond or even having a copy of the report because the agenda had not been published he will not be submitting a rebuttal. But he sure is vexed!

Of course this rule can easily be got around - just file a presentation in point form and elaborate at Council, but that would mean that Council members would have to read the agenda to find out what was going on, some hope of that!

It looks like the fix is in

From media reports about the discussion at County Council about the Policing Report it looks as though the nod will go to a County-wide OPP system. West Northumberland has little chance of influencing the outcome now that Mayor Forrest Rowden has pooh poohed the idea of a W-N concept. This will be the out that Mayor Delanty is looking for - get rid of a troublesome Town department that he has little interest in cleaning up and then blame it on the County pols. The losers will be the citizens of Cobourg in losing service levels.

However there is a chance for the masses to do something. Put a question on the ballot on November - "Do want Cobourg to be policed by the OPP", Yes or No.

The process of putting a question on the ballot needs swift action as time is running out for the process to kick in. Section 28 of the Municipal Act says that a question may be put on the ballot but a by-law has to be passed 180 days before the voting day. That means that the process must be started at least a month before that to allow a public meeting and a bylaw to be passed. Effectively that means that because 180 days is May 10th the process must start immediately as 10 days notice for the bylaw is required. So hop to it and get it done! If a request to Council is not received by April 24th forget it and we will lose the local police.

Ouch - Lou Rinaldi gets a 2*4 across the head

Check this out - a story from the The Independent Online