A thought that will not go away

In the aftermath of the G20 debacle all sides are struggling to either setup a public enquiry or pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Polls show that the public view of what went on is mixed but few people wish to be overly critical of the State or its role in the operation of the Police. Toronto Council passed a motion thanking the Police and its Chief and they hope that all is now well.

But, is it? We have the Provincial Government and the Police telling us that the special conditions of the Publlic something act that allowed the searches and detainment of anybody within 5metres of the fence didn't exist. We had the fact that anybody who was deemed by the Police to be worthy of stopping was. Random search and forced self-identification was the norm and anybody in the area was forced to comply.

So how was this made possible? The Police now tell us that they have the power to search  anybody and anything "if they suspect a possible breach of the peace". So the searches are not random (that would be a Charter contravention) but lawfully executed whenever  the Police suspect something. The sooner these guys are hauled off to the the Supreme Court for a ruling the better.

Here is a video from"TRNN' The Real News Network an independent news organisation with international credibility that explains the background and issues of this problem - rights and freedoms

 Another  TRNN video with a 'rightwinger' from the "National Post" defending the actions of the situation, interesting comments and questions from the interviewer. here

Playing withthe taxpayers' money

It happens all the time, those without a lot of money become spendthrifts once they have their hands on the public till. Cobourg has the Frink and the Community Centre, both imposssible projects on their own but throw in public money and we watched the green stuff fly.

Port Hope is a very good example of "our eyes are bigger than our stomachs" syndrome. This small municipality already charges its homeowners a large sum of money to live there, some say the highest taxes are in PH, but with MPAC calculations comparitive tax rates are had to figure out. But high taxes don't seem to faze the good burghers and we have the image of a cashflow problem with the taxpayers paying for an 8million overdraft carrying charges. An (un)expected 9million over-run on the sewage treatment plant, a controversial buy of agricultural land for a business park and now the prospect of untold millions in future liability if the harbour is purchased for the 'bargain price' of $300K. Oh I forgot - if you add in the full implementation of the Police Services Board report on bringing the Service up to Provincial standards another 6million.

Yet not one word of this financial puzzle from either the incumbents or the candidates for this Fall's election. Can we presume that the citizens of PH either don't know or don't care? This we do know is that at least one member of Council is in favour of the harbour purchase even going so far as to suggest that PH buy its own dredger instead of using Cobourg's (They hate to pay for anything that comes from Cobourg!).

So with only the 'usual suspects' decrying the financial goings-on the BurdReport wonders what it will take to have a debate about this.

A very good question

As Blogspot continues to screw up the Blogosphere, despite being owned by Google and its multi-billions (you would have thought they might support some of their endeavours but I guess counting money is too important a task to split away from), a comment popped up that required more attention than it would get being buried in the comments log.

The gist of it was, "Ben can you tell us when the coordinator system came in and what was used prior to it?"  Good question.

The coordinator system came into being in 1985, when the Angus Read era came to Town. Major Angus Read, a retired Army Officer had settled in Cobourg after commanding the now closed Ordnance Depot on D'Arcy St. Fitting right into the social milieau of the cocktail set and the Rotary Club he, or others, decided that the then Mayor (who has recently died) Mac Lees was past it and needed to be replaced. In a move that I have never got to the bottom of Mac announced his retirement as Mayor after a couple of decades of public service and the Major won the election on a promise of bringing the Town into the 20th Century.

One of the first things he did, as he had a majority of new members, was to implant his style of top-down management. Making the clerk subordinate was easy, Bryan Baxter was the consummate civil servant and they produced a plan to eliminate the system of 'standing committees'. Cobourg Council used to meet every two weeks and in the other two weeks three standing committees used to meet. I can't remember the names of them but I do know that the incumbent councillors of the day used to proclaim, in their campaign literature, that they were the "Chairs" of this committee or that committee. Anyway all councillors had to be kept occupied as there more then than now. 

Back to Angus's 'efficiency drive' he had determined that items of business, usually planning and development pieces were taking too long in committees and slowing down the business of Council. A matrix was produced and it laid out who could talk to whom, who reported to whom and a councillor was given a 'portfolio' of responsibilities. Hence the coordinator system. All coordinators reported to Council about their activities to the committee of the whole, which was created to replace one of the regular Council meetings. An informal protocol was created, and it still exists today, where knowledge of each portfolio was hoarded by the coordinator and if questions were asked by another councillor it seemed to be resented by the portfolio holder and interpreted as interference. This attitude still persists today. Consequently when one approached one councillor for an answer to a general problem one would be directed to the guardian of the information. This also leads to a system of cronyism as most councillors want to achieve something, usually a staff item of little importance, votes must be cultivated so all councillors 'go along to get along'.

So the result is an atmosphere of a club of narrowly informed coordinators as a opposed to a group of well informed concillors. That's my version of the past folks please correct me if I am faulty in my institutional memory. all I know is that the present system is systemically disfunctional as far as democratic engagement goes but probably very efficient in policy delivery. But that's why we have pols and bureaucrats and never the twain should meet but as we see it has for many years as members of Council appear to be bureaucrats not politicians.

Blogger is screwing up

Readers will have trouble with comments today the google setup is not performing, i guess all they want to do is make money not a decent interface.

Sometimes it works other times not but I will try to publish them all one way or another

ben

This topic has been a nagging itch

After the G20 furore one would think that everyone would forget what happened. Unfortunately not for the dozen or so people still held in prison or the conspiracy theorists trying to expose the state's involvement in the riots . We do know that as well infiltrating the 'Black Bloc' the Police had inside plants some of them may have been 'agents-provocateurs' as they were in the Montreal riots a few years back. The investigators need help in identifying one such person.

By collecting video like this



Many questions are raised especially about the identity of the fellow allowed, by Police inaction, to jump all over the police car. This man was dressed in a snazzy flak jacket, not your normal Black Bloc issue tee-shirt and disappeared too easily into the crowd after his performance. Why wasn't he snatched up?

Anyway a blogger called "Pushed to the left and Loving it" has chronicled these problems and asks for help in identifying the man in black. Check out her website here for the story but be sure to click on her home link to get some great stuff.

Here is another horror story: let you be the judge of this one. Shouldn't have been there or wayward police?



OK here's a workaround the comment problem:
Merklin Muffley has left a new comment on your post "This topic has been a nagging itch":

|A blogger looking for answers, eh Ben. Kinda like after-the-fact citizen journalism. I wonder what a real journalist with real bona fides and a real hate on for anyone encroaching on their turf would think of that?

Maybe Christie Blatchford could let fly once again and in her own self-discrediting, ass-kissing way let us poor dummies in on what's REALLY going on out there.

(Ah....whadda I care. I'm enjoying the entirely agreeable climate of beautiful Victoria at the moment -on my way to Courtney for the VanIsle Music Fest this weekend. Nothing like a cold pint of Granville Island lager at The Bent Mast to straighten me out. Got to Victoria from Van by way of a DeHavilland Twin Otter piloted by some 19-year old kid from Glasgow with an accent so thick you couldn't understand a word he said -and my relatives are all in Paisley for chrissakes. Cheers all!)

Just what is going on here?

The local Hospice Associations are sending mixed messages, probably to the detriment of its volunteers. In a letter published in the NorthumberlandNews here, the Chair of the Campbellford Hospice extols the virtues of the organisation. Now we have a letter, sent to all the Staff and volunteers of the Hospice Associations see here on the LHIN website, proclaiming the process of "voluntary integration" of amalgamating the two Hospice Associations with the County's Community Care organisation.
Interestingly enough, on that webpage we have an announcement that 1% of the LHIN's funding will be devoted to 'community funded health providers'. so the other shoe drops and it's another Biron masterpiece. Shut down the hospital clinics - score a brownie point for an 'integration process' and attach the palliative care to the ongoing moves to the amalgamation of hospice care - score another one for an 'integration process' and now you have two big brownie points for extra hospital funds by outsourcing, closing and connecting.

Can we have it both ways?

A mighty fine comment:
"This site is packed top to bottom with complaints about Council, yet now it is discussing giving Council a pay raise."
This comment appeared as #25 in response to the post of yesterday wherein the BurdReport argued for some truth in the matter of Cobourg Council's workload and the attendant plea from Councillor Mutton to pay the council more money.
This site has faithfully chronicled the failings of the current Council and its members, as well as congratulating them from time to time on good stuff. But perhaps the last post, about the plea for more money failed to show one of the underlying complaints about the issue, the way that incumbents whine about those who consider the job should be paid more and self servingly play to ignorant electors. Jeff Lees in Port Hope did it this week by suggesting a pay freeze for Council, causing Councillor Turck to wryly observe, "It must be an election year!".
Another commenter made the point that perhaps, because all those who tell the public that they are serving the public want us to believe that then there should be no honorarium - let them serve for nothing. Another commenter made the point that because there are people on Council of independent financial means the pay should be set at $50,000 and then all other income be deducted from that - innovative.
The BurdReport's position is very clear - both the system of governing; the coordinator system, and the composition of Council is faulty. So here is the plan:

• Council should be restructured into committees of the whole for three of the four weeks in a four week cycle. Planning, Financial and Operating committees should meet weekly and feed all the issues into a Council meeting that meets every four weeks.
• The Councillors should be paid at the rate of $30.00 per hour for every hour spent on Cobourg council business. This is meant to compensate councillors giving up their evenings.
  
• The meetings should take place in the evenings to allow the public to attend, This comment was emailed to me, by a sitting member of Council, and is very telling,"Consider that to reduce staff overtime, advisory committee meetings are more and more being moved to day time or reduced in number. This directly impacts the ability of citizens to participate." Perhaps less staff should be assigned to meetings then the public and council could make their own decisions, after all aren't they supposed to set policy rather than take direction?
• The Mayor should be actively seeking new members of the public to sit on Council, most incumbents see newcomers as a threat to their existence.
• Term limits must be imposed, A successful councillor needs to regenerate, and I will promise you if the unseated councillor is introspective they will look back and see their faults.
• The Council term must be reduced to two terms of four years
  
• Elect half of the members of Council each election
• Elections must be held every other year

These suggestions may not satisfy those readers who complain that all everybody does is bitch and fail to make constructive criticism but they are a start!


The latest comments that Blogspot will not accept:

Wally Keeler has left a new comment on your post "Can we have it both ways?":
Wally Keeler disses the Northumberland News Report Card on Cobourg's town councillors.

More G20 opinion

Last week, on a CBC radio show it was revealed, by a protestor from Montreal, that she and many others were photographed by undercover police at the Toronto Bus Station as they dismounted. These mugshots were then used by snatch squads to pull suspects from the crowd by the police.
In a related story here, details of Police surveillance by the authorites in the UK are outlined and decried. It appears that the Police all over the world are using the same script and as such we must be aware of them, just as they must be aware that their efforts can be curbed. The County of Kent, again in the UK, has just been ordered by the courts to pay three protestors damages for unauthorised bag searches. It can be done here but first of all a reliable and impartial Inquiry must be convened. Bill Blair's kangeroo court will not suffice.

A wail from the inside

Councillor Mutton raised a legitimate concern on Monday evening and after a smidgeon of discussion was ruled out of order. She may have been out of order but the topic wasn't. Filed under the category of "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys" MM wanted to talk about a pay raise for Council. Noticing that the rest of her colleagues were earning fat pensions or married to a rich spouse she rightly asked, "What about a raise?" (paraphrased).

Ploughing old round is always tough and the last people you want to debate the topic of Council pay is the Council, for as we know each one of them will tell the public, "I don't want a raise - I would do it for nothing after all I am serving the public!" - Bollocks, each one of them is pandering to an ego or is one of the 10% of the population that likes going to meetings and opining, knowing that their opinion is being heard - they like the sound of their own voices. It is exhilerating to know that what you say is considered as important.

The problem with the present system is that there is a preponderence of the same kind of people sitting on council - retired white men who are superannuated. There are exceptions councillor Macdonald for instance was a househusband and in the past working people have served John Lindsay of the School Board and myself, who had an understanding employer. Working people are, and have been, few and far between when one looks at Council composition. One past Mayor told me that it cost her $26,000 a year just to replace her in her business when she was on Council business.

As a result this job is considered by ignorant people and the incumbents to be a part-time job. It may be, but part-time should still pay. Council members tell me that they can spend up to 20 hours a week in council duties, it should be noted that the Council meetings are only a small part of the job. Throw in dog-catching committees, police service boards and conservation authority meetings and it soon adds up.

So when the electorate looks at the elected Council after the election and mutters, "Is that all there is?' just remember there is one simple reason for this - good people want to be compensated.

Celebrating Canada Day

A Canada day rant!
Today's the day we collectively celebrate the country we live in. And as we chose it by default or purpose we must all like it here? Well I do but am perturbed by a couple of things that the Country has allowed to develop. These same concerns would be voiced if I lived in other western countries so Canada is not unique in these developments.
First of all let me define my version of Freedom. Simply put Freedom is the ability to live anywhere, behave within the bounds of decency and decorum, assemble anywhere on public property, not be subject to demands from authority to justify why I am where I am, not have to produce ID on demand and to be free from demands to open bags and be subject to search and seizure. Gee I guess I have just rambled on about the value of the Charter of Freedoms. What a wonderful document!
So why do we complain so much about these values? Because they are being eroded bit by bit and every time one of them gets chipped away the next one is at risk.
After three full days of a cacophony from the air waves about the behaviour of the Toronto Police at the G20 demos there are a couple of conclusions. One is that Proactive Policing should be examined. In other words can we allow the Police to charge into a crowd to 'snatch' suspects or do we allow the 'suspects' to put themselves into a position that proves conclusively that they are in fact perpetrators and them arest them. The other is to define just what basic rights we have. Are the bags we carry subject to random search or not. Can this basic freedom be abrogated by 'special conditions'? The classic example is that when we voluntarily go to concerts and ball games we offer our bags for search. But we also choose to be there in the first place. Walking on the sidewalk is no activity for a search or to submit to an ID check. Anecdotally I have been told, many times, that the local Police, when they stop young people at the dead of night that they are told to "empty your pockets" what justification is there for that? I am sure that the officer who demands it knows that the demand may be illegal but does it anyway knowing that few people will complain.
In this excellent essay, Murray Dobbin, writes that these events are part of a larger problem and that the Police activities are part of an effort to control the public not to contain them. In conclusion, without being dramatic all I can do is to quote Niemolle: "THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.........." - you know the rest!
So my message is be watchful and don't be afraid to speak against perceived injustice as you see it, we are allowed to do it - just don't be afraid to do it!

A postscript from another commentator here, it's about the orders, confusion and mayhem in Toronto.