Musings on The Tempest and Council
It was a dark and stormy night… Shakespeare’s last solo-authored play, The Tempest, opens with a storm (the eponymous tempest) in which a group of elite passengers (a king, a…
Council
Why Are Council’s Conflicts of Interest Being Ignored?
While local media focuses on our revenge-obsessed council’s myopic intent to punish people who committed no crimes, merely thwarted their Great Leader’s personal ambitions in 2012, they blithely overlook the…
Council Votes to Waste More Tax Dollars on Personal Vendetta
Just when you thought our council could not get any more petty or puerile, they lower the bar again. Last night, in a 7-2 vote, our punishment-obsessed council voted to…
Harbourview Dump Splash Pad Already Over Budget
Local residents recently confirmed to me the dump that is under Harbourview Park occupied all the land from the wastewater treatment plant (WTP) on the east, to the Arboretum (Hickory…
More Lawyers, More Costs, More Secrecy
Monday night, council will once again scurry behind closed doors like cockroaches to avoid the light of public scrutiny to hear yet another virtual presentation from lawyers about the Saunderson…
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…
Council Wants to Give Away Our Parkland to Strangers
On July 29, 2020, Councillor Jeffrey (the Queen of the Unlimited Expense Account), seconded by Councillor Hamelin made a motion to give away a very large piece of Harbourview Park…
Engineers Disagree With Water “Crisis” Report
In a letter dated July 2, 2021 to the CAO and the mayor, in response to staff report CAO 2021-10, two of Collingwood’s most respected engineering firms took exception to…
More on the Harbourview Park Dump
Speaking to some long-time Collingwood residents, I’ve learned a bit more about the dump that lies under the soil at Harbourview Park and is now proposed as the site of…
Cwood’s Corroding Lampposts
First Street was so attractive when it was first rebuilt, about 15 years ago: all new and shiny infrastructure. But since then, it has been basically neglected and the inevitable…
They’re Paving Paradise to Put Up a Parking Lot
By now you’re aware that our council has approved a plan to destroy a large open, public space in Harbourview Park, and replace healthy grass and trees with an asphalt…
Council: Disarray, Disunited, Disrespectful
Chris Pott’s latest blog post, titled “Council in Major Disarray” captures in part the stumbling, bumbling, and fumbling in-fighting that has become endemic in our council and is now on…
More Council Secrecy, More Lawyers Paid
On Thursday, June 24, our council again scurried behind closed doors to do town business out of the light of public scrutiny. Oh, how they love doing their machinations in…
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…
More Secrecy, More Deception, More Conflicts
Once again our council scurried behind closed doors to discuss town business that should have been discussed in the open. But openness was never a watchword for this council. However,…
Saunderson Abandons Collingwood
In his latest email to PC Party members, Brian Saunderson predictably celebrates his anti-democratic appointment as candidate without having had to actually work for it. Our much-disliked mayor was rescued…
Saunderson: An Affront to Democracy
PC nominee candidate Stella Ambler reported that her competitor, Brian Saunderson was anointed appointed as the party’s candidate for Simcoe-Grey without allowing the members to decide if they want him.…
Ignoring the Potential Conflicts of Interest
A story in CollingwoodToday notes that council will hold a meeting on May 31 to consider exceptions to their job-and-revenue-killing interim control bylaw (ICBL). That bylaw abruptly ended all growth,…
Council Fails Our Affordable Housing Residents
It’s ironic how Mayor Saunderson so loudly acclaimed the “Community-based strategic plan” last term (a document that was neither community-based nor a strategic plan) yet when a major issue arises…
As Important as Clean Drinking Water? Part 2
Remember last December, when the town’s CAO announced that the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) was “equivalent with the top priorities we have, like providing clean drinking water”?…