Now why didn't they ask Him in the first place?

Now the Parliament has egg on its face, perhaps they should have asked the old guy if he wanted to participate!
First World War vet declines state funeral

Cracked it! Veerrry Scarrry stuff!

Cracked it! Here is a long story about a couple of techies who hacked the code for biometric passports and the Governments of the world want to make us all carry these things.

Some musing about figures

The mayor's race attracted 6995 voters, the DM's race 6689 and the councillor's race produced an average of 5905 per available place. That means a number of people, 1090, did not vote for all of the Council candidates. Just imagine in a race that saw the places 5 - 9 only 500 votes apart where those missing votes were thrown back in the mix. The moral of this speculation is that all votes should be used but not for the people that you do not want to win.

One day after - Thank You

What is left to say? The winners will say they won and the losers will be picking over the chicken's entrails for hints. Manfred will be wondering where he lost the 250 people he needed to win and the "three musketeers - the returning incumbents" won't care much: they won! Meanwhile Miriam and Stan better enjoy their five minutes of fame for topping the polls, it is all hard slogging from here just to make oneself heard. My advice would be to "pick your fights"

In another vein, thanks go to COGECO for having the strength to ask me to appear on the election show. I enjoyed it and managed to ask a couple of questions of the candidates that I am sure they didn't expect. I am not sure if I will be asked back, but thanks anyway.

The writing on this site will of a sporadic nature from now on, due to all of us having other lives. As the saying goes it's been great and I thank you for the feedback.

Ben

Only in Cobourg - more details later

Only in Cobourg can a smug electorate claim to have created change by voting two new faces the top two vote getters. Only in Cobourg can the last placed councillor claim a resounding electoral success when it is pointed out to him the the opposition only lost by 500 votes in the top two races and the incumbent councillors were relegated to the bottom of the pecking order. Only in Cobourg can we claim change when the nothing changes - the two new faces may have topped the polls but they are powerless.

The other shoe will drop when it becomes apparent just how entrenched the cronyism is when the council responsibilities are doled out. My prediction - the newcomers will get low level assignments.

As you can see by the tone of these comments I am not impressed. Nor dare I say are 45% of the voters. The perspective is simple Mayor Delanty only won by 500 votes over his combined opposition. To claim a resounding victory when he is only supported by a slim margin is disingenuous. For this Council to assume that it is business as usual is dangerously arrogant. They should be chastened but listening to the deaf person speak - Mr MacCaughey - they haven't learnt that just under half of the folks voted against this team.

More to come

Zero Vote Tally Off - by 1

This is the only story I could find about the voting machines and their ability to mess up here

Howard Dean is going to be a busy boy

Howard Dean was reported in todays papers to headed to the Liberal convention to give them tips on how to beat the other side, now this

More thoughts on my election strategy

Having been challenged by an e-mailer who thought that my picks were more hypothetical than strategic let's look at the choices of strategy. One would be to use all the votes allowed and make choices based on rationale, the other would be to "Plump" - only vote for your essential choices.

"Plumping" works on the theory that as you only vote for a fewer number of candidates their chances become stronger because you are denying the others your vote. As an aside I have heard that some people will not be voting for the position of Deputy Mayor as not only do they not want Mr Brocanier to win they don't think much of Mr Schumann. The idea that by only voting for one person in a five person race is that the vote cast is five times stronger because of the missing four votes.

However in my case where I have voted for five people and none for the people who I wish to see deposed, what's the difference. In fact I have made five peoples votes stronger because I have denied the others my vote.

Plumping will only work when you do not have enough of your selections to fill out the allowed ballot.

A response to the previous

Some response to the election edition

Hi, Ben:Well,
I'm very disappointed.I wish you had used your influence to help elect an actual council, rather than promote a hypothetical one. In particular, you are suggesting that people fritter away their precious five councillor votes by selecting some candidates who do not have a real chance to get in. This is one municipal election in a generation where (by electing three new councillors rather than just two) we have a chance to break the hold of the old guard in Cobourg. I expected that you, with your excellent historical grasp of the situation, would have been more, er, strategic.
Certainly merit should normally guide us. I know and like Rob, and I have met and was impressed by Melissa, and at first I thought Howie might be the right person to have the swing vote on council. But none of them has much of a chance this time, and there's a grave danger that MacDonald will slip back in because of lack of voter focus.
You could have helped with this. A few votes put in the right place could make all the difference. For four years.

And the response:

In my case I stand by the picks, I just cannot abide any more of what we have had for the past six years. Even three of the old guard would have been too much - MacCaughey in planning for 4 more years to give us more of the same - what the developers want in the name of pragmatism and cooperative development, MacDonald too bloody idle to speak up except to say "give me what Mr Peacock wants" and Spooner to say whatever he thinks you want to hear and then he can tell his Dutch Oven buddies what he told us,
No. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to be on Council and all of the people who stood can think for themselves and produce a reasonable consensus guided by the facts from the Staff to be able.
Three new councillors will not break the old guard there will still be a majority of them and none of the three will have the stomach not to be coopted in the next four years in the face of always being on the wrong side or being accused of lack of knowledge.
If the only criteria for a vote is to go by who you or anybody else thinks "will get in" then I suggest that you don't need an independent voter just a sheep with its finger in the wind trying to guess what others will pick.
Call me naive but if we don't start doing what we want then we will be stuck with what we have now.

BTW the sane one in the house (the love of my life) is also ragging me for this approach!

My choices for the vote!

In making these choices I made two assumptions. One: none of the incumbents deserved to be re-elected, their offenses against the Official plan were of the hanging variety and their inability to listen to the electorate are the main reasons for me. Councillor Brocanier boasts about having listened to 45 delegations in the last year, well Gil listening and Listening are two different things. Sitting in one's chair like Buddha and then having the Mayor say, "Thank you for coming" is not meaningful listening.

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be on Council, just an independent mind and the guts to state your opinion

So here they are:

• Mayor: Lloyd Williams, despite the bizarre campaign tactic of admitting that he will not win he succeeded in getting the issues out. He gets my vote because he has pledged to reform the "coordinator system", I hope he destroys it!
  
  
• Deputy Mayor: Manfred Schumann, despite a rather flat public performance he has put forward a platform of thought and substance. His opponent has only said that he plans to use a "line by line" budget review as his tax cutting tool. Sorry Gil but you used that last year and the year before that and the year before that and taxes never went down but spending spiraled upward.
  
  
• Councillor: Stan Frost, he has the biggest vested interest in reducing taxes - he pays the most, so get to it Stan cut taxes!
  
  
• Councillor: Howie McCourt, he is the most straightforward of the list, I like him, I have worked with him and I trust him. Besides he understands the Official Plan.
  
  
• Councillor: Miriam Mutton, Miriam knows the issues, she understands the damage that the developers have wreaked on this Town, I like her and trust her.
  
  
• Councillor Rob Harper, Rob is down to earth, knows what it is to be like to live on less than a Teachers' Pension all the time and still keeps his sense of humour. Besides the ONLY new idea that came from any of the candidates came from him, he's original and I like that.
  

• Councillor: Melissa Marshall, Melissa is the youngest and at 34 brings a perspective that might offend some of the "dead white male thinking" that prevails around the Council Chamber

Now in making this slate I realise that most of it will never come to pass (shades of Lloyd Williams - ed) but one can only hope and perhaps the list and the reasons behind each choice may give others the thought too.