What, you may ask, is meant by the term “Economic Vitality” – the third objective in our town’s strategic-plan-in-the-works? Apparently it’s one of those motherhood statements people make on soapboxes and campaign platforms that have little grist in them to mill into actuality. Sure, we all want a town that
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Scripturient: Strat Plan Part 3: The Waterfront
The waterfront. It defines us geographically, historically and culturally. What could be more important to Collingwood than its waterfront that covers the entire northern border of this sleepy, lakeside town? Well, pretty much anything else it seems, if you you’re on Collingwood Council. Pick the most irrelevant, pointless, self-aggrandizing effort
Continue readingScripturient: Strat Plan Part 2: The Shuffle Game
In the second part of my critique of Collingwood’s woo-hoo strategic plan, I will look at the shuffle game. This is where consultants give contestants – I mean participants – a limited series of options and ask them to shuffle these around in order of their perceived priority. Then the
Continue readingScripturient: Strategic Planning, Part One: The Woo-Hoo Factor
There are, in general, two kinds of municipal strategic plans. One is pragmatic and practical. It tells you what you need to build, fix or replace, when you need to do it, how much it will cost, and where the money will come from. This is the stuff a council grounded
Continue readingScripturient: Reincarnation as a Consultant or a Psychic?
A wag met Nasrudin. In his pocket he had an egg. “Tell me, Mullah, are you any good at guessing games?” “Not bad,” said Nasrudin. “Very well then: tell me what I have in my pocket.” “Give me a clue, then.” “It is shaped like an egg, it is
Continue readingScripturient: The Antis at Sunset Point
There are always those who don’t want change. Any change upsets them. Anything that’s new, different, exciting, challenging or just unusual bothers them and want it stopped. They want a steady state, where nothing happens, nothing changes, nothing is new. Stop growth, stop development, stop change. Some of them are
Continue readingScripturient: It’s Official: Collingwood is Closed for Business
As I predicted, Collingwood Council officially closed the town to business, growth and development, last Monday night. And just for good measure, council sprinkled the ground with the salt of malice, just to further deter a particular developer from building here. Which sends a message to everyone about how this town
Continue readingScripturient: Collingwood Turns a Blind Eye to Hydro One Sale
It would seem that much of Ontario, and many of its stronger municipal councils, are voicing opposition to the province’s ill-advised plan to sell Hydro One to a private, for-profit group, and are writing to the premier to protest.* The popular sentiment is that selling an essential utility like hydro
Continue readingScripturient: Connection Got It Wrong
The story in this weekend’s Connection about Block 9 underground parking incorrectly suggests council is doing something right when it was actually trying to do something wrong. But they tried to take credit for doing good when their efforts at malice failed. I expect mistakes like this from the Enterprise-Bulletin because
Continue readingScripturient: Block Nine Revisited
I went down to the harbour today to take a couple of photographs of the piece of town land known as “Block 9.” I wanted to show my readers just how little a piece it is and what condition it’s in now. The aerial photo above shows the property outlined in
Continue readingScripturient: Creating a New Citizens’ Group
Recently, I’ve been told that what this town needs is a new citizen’s action group. I imagine it will be a group of residents concerned that the precedents set by the last council might spread to this one. That’s clearly a worrisome trend to some folks. Like progress, good ideas must be nipped in the bud. What
Continue readingScripturient: Sit on Your Hands
Sit on your hands and don’t do anything. That’s in essence the advice in the editorial of the Enterprise-Bulletin, June 3. It’s a strongly anti-business message: telling the business community, the municipality, developers, and everyone around us that Collingwood is, once again, closed for business. Which coincides with the anti-business attitude of
Continue readingScripturient: Waterfront No-Brainer
Two terms ago, the public and media often referred to council as “the gong show” – no doubt from the number of inane comments and witless questions made at the table. One wonders if that nickname should not be revisited for this term. This week’s gong for inanity goes to
Continue readingScripturient: Killing Our Culture
Collingwood has killed Jazz & Blues at the Station – a popular, long-running, local cultural event second in audience only to the Elvis Festival. It brought some of Ontario’s top jazz and blues talent to play at the Museum. The hundreds of people assembled every Wednesday for the free concert
Continue readingScripturient: Good News for the Rec Facilities
A story in this week’s Collingwood Connection vindicates the decision to build the two new rec facilities last term. According to the story, usage of the two facilities – the new arena at Central Park and the renovated Centennial Pool – is soaring. Plus as an added benefit, Centennial pool
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Signs – of the Apocalypse?
Councillor Cam Ecclestone made a comment at council earlier this month that he had been contacted by several residents concerned about the new sign on the Rexall Drug store on Huron Street, its size and colours. Coun. Doherty chimed in about it with similar comments. Aside from the question why anyone
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Rethinking Parking
Parking in Collingwood – especially downtown – has been a contentious issue since at least the mid-1980s. Numerous studies have been done advocating a variety of answers, none of them entirely satisfactory to everyone. The factions of free versus paid parking have been warring as long as I can recall.
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Turning Positives into Negatives
Once upon a time, when George Cerny was the publisher, the Enterprise-Bulletin newspaper was an avid and active local promoter: the indefatigable cheerleader for the town; for its events, activities, clubs and organizations. It was the proud voice of Collingwood. No so, today. The paper seems to have lost that community passion. Today it
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Gated Communities
I’m not a big fan of gated communities, but even if I don’t personally want to live in one myself, I understand the reason for them, and sympathize with homeowners in those zones. Apartments are basically gated towers that restrict access to residents or keyholders and no one complains that they
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Why Elvis Matters to Collingwood
There are some things that are pointless to argue, it seems. Creationism with a fundamentalist. Anti-vaccination with a New Age wingnut. Reason and logic with local bloggers. The value of the Elvis Festival to Collingwood with a closed-minded resident. I recently heard complaints about the cost of the 2014 festival:
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