In a recent story in CollingwoodToday, Councillor Jeffrey is reported shitting on the democratic process. Rather than respecting a previous decision of council as policy requires, she chose to bring back a vote to add another staff person to our already overstaffed townhall. In doing so, I am confident she
Continue readingTag: Staff and administration
Scripturient: The Subservience of Council
Late last month, council was presented with a revised, six-page council-staff relations policy, which, according to the story in CollingwoodToday, “seeks to formalize how council and staff should interact with each other.” The story notes the first draft of the policy, a 14-page document, was presented to council in mid-September,
Continue readingScripturient: The Municipal Voting Debacle
On voting day, Oct. 24, Collingwood’s online voting system suffered serious problems that prevented residents from voting. This happened not once, but twice in the same day. Voting had been open online and via paper ballot (at the library) since Oct. 3, but apparently many people decided to wait until
Continue readingScripturient: Our Troubled Urban Forest
On August 8, Collingwood council will “consider” a proposal to spend “up to $100,000 to retain a consultant to inform the next council on how Collingwood can better protect [our] tree canopy,” according to a story in CollingwoodToday. The article says, “With Collingwood’s population rapidly increasing, the town is behind
Continue readingScripturient: Council Misses the Bus. Again.
Council’s latest plan will make life harder for low-income and senior residents by making our public transit less accessible, less affordable, and then replacing the schedule with random access buses just to confound riders. All because a well-paid consultant said it was a good idea and well-paid staff agreed. Another
Continue readingScripturient: Collingwood and Copyright Law
I was disappointed to learn that, after my exposing our mayor for breaking copyright law on his campaign website (by unauthorized publication of copyright material), that the town itself has probably also done so. I wasn’t surprised that our hypocritical mayor ignored our laws despite being a lawyer himself (look
Continue readingScripturient: Collingwood’s “Broken Windows”
If I sometimes seem to complain in a picayune manner, harping on the same signs of scruffiness and neglect that we see more often around town these days, there’s a reason for it. Mostly it’s because I care about my community and it deeply bothers me when others — especially
Continue readingScripturient: Fixing the Broken Committee System
Some days, the irony just pours from council news. In a story on CollingwoodToday, we learned that council, …will be considering changes to their procedural bylaw, which will include making a recommendation whether they will continue with the existing committee structure, or move to a committee of the whole structure.
Continue readingScripturient: Can Collingwood Pass the Strong Towns’ Test?
Back in 2014, the USA-based Strong Towns group posted a test to “measure a successful Strong Town.” The ten questions or conditions posed include: Take a photo of your main street at midday. Does the picture show more people than cars? If there were a revolution in your town, would
Continue readingScripturient: Our Scruffy, Run-Down Town
There’s a gravel trail that runs along the waterfront, north of the Shipyards development, that’s been blocked by barricades since the spring. It’s been that way at least six months, perhaps longer. The path suffered erosion and some holes opened up along it. These were marked by barricades. Sort of.
Continue readingScripturient: Are Cwood’s Symbolic Gestures Mere Platitudes?
I understand symbolic gestures: they’re what we do when we cannot change a situation, but want to express our anger, passion, compassion, outrage, sadness, support, angst, or other emotions. From bumper stickers to flags at half-mast, rainbow-painted crosswalks, and lawn signs with supportive messages for causes: we all make them,
Continue readingScripturient: Failures in Cwood’s Typography and Design
Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form. Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks Publishers, 2001) I’m neither a graphic designer nor a typographer, but I spent many, many years working with design and type, as well as designers and typographers,
Continue readingScripturient: Chris Potts Nails It
Nailed it! In his latest blog post, former Town of Collingwood employee, Chris Potts writes about our council’s ill-conceived plan to hire a “climate change specialist” to add to the already egregiously expensive and bloated town payroll that taxpayers are burdened with: The Town of Collingwood seems to just hire
Continue readingScripturient: Let’s Play “Spread the Virus!”
I see Collingwood Council wants the province to end the lockdown, but hasn’t said anything about improving public safety if that happens. That suggests to me they are okay if the coronavirus spreads again, and strains our hospital’s already stretched capacity to deal with it. At least, that’s the message
Continue readingScripturient: The Hypocrisy Goes On
Anyone having supervisory responsibility for the completion of a task will invariably protest that more resources are needed. Hacker’s Law of Personnel, coined by Andrew Hacker in The End of the American Era, Atheneum, 1970. At the end of the Feb. 8 virtual meeting of Collingwood’s “Strategic Initiatives Standing Committee,”
Continue readingScripturient: Will Madigan Pay for Inquiry Costs?
In a recent story on CollingwoodToday about the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI), Councillor Bob “Lapdog” Madigan commented that he wanted, “…those who are responsible for this need to be held accountable.” Since neither the inquiry nor the OPP found anything illegal or criminal in the proceedings (no charges have
Continue readingScripturient: My Report About the Report About the Report
As I predicted (correctly) late last year, Collingwood Council was given a dumbed-down, $700,000-as-important-as-clean-drinking-water-report-about-the-judicial-inquiry-report. More than 900 pages of the original report reduced to a mere 15 to report on the report. And as I also predicted, it would include pie charts. You can read it here: “STAFF REPORT #CAO2021-02
Continue readingScripturient: A Municipal Challenge to Democracy?
Collingwood has joined other local municipalities asking the province to revamp its Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA; a guide from the Information and Privacy Commissioner to the Act is also available here) to make the process more restrictive and less open. While some of those
Continue readingScripturient: An Honourable Mayor?
Mayor Brian Saunderson has announced he is running for nomination to the provincial Progressive Conservative party in our riding to be able to stand as the candidate for MPP. According to a story in Collingwood Today, he is not stepping down from his role as mayor, and will not do
Continue readingScripturient: Striving for Mediocrity
On a council laden with dunces, deadwood, and dullards, it must be some consolation to our elected representatives, that they can at least claim to be less mediocre than Councillor Steve Berman. We all need someone to measure ourselves against, I suppose, and a low bar is so much easier
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