Another WTF Were They Smoking Moment From Council
I read this in CollingwoodToday: At Monday night’s council meeting, Coun. Deb Doherty got support from her council colleagues to ask staff to investigate the feasibility of creating a Healing Forest…
Planning & Policies
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
Developers Bite Back at ICBL
‘The town created its own emergency’: Collingwood developer says project on hold due to water capacity issues. So reads the headline on a story on Simcoe.com. I laughed and laughed at…
The Irony of Council’s Obsession
Oh, the delicious irony. A council that has been so obsessed with the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) at the expense of everything important in this town is…
Saunderson’s Job-Killing ICBL Continued
James Madison, one of the US’s Founding Fathers said that a government “…without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a tragedy or a…
Fixing Collingwood’s Streets
While our council has been obsessed with the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (aka the SVJI) and lavishing all our tax dollars and their time promoting its often redundant or irrelevant…
Quidnuncs on Council
A quidnunc is “a small-minded person, focused on petty things.” That’s how Gord Hume describes them in chapter five of his book, Taking Back Our Cities (Municipal World, 2011). Hume…
Saunderson to Flog his SVJI at the County
On the County of Simcoe agenda for Feb. 9 is a motion from our mayor for the rest of the county to support the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) and…
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…
Saunderson’s Role in Blocking the Hospital Redevelopment
During the previous council’s four years (2014-18), I documented the aggressive efforts to stall the local hospital’s desperately-needed redevelopment by a group of those on council (aka The Block*). Every…
Where is Collingwood’s Pandemic Response?
I admit I am stumped. I have been looking online to find something that tells me what Collingwood council has done in response to the COVID-19 pandemic over the past…
The $9 Million Dollar Mayor
More than eight million of your dollars have been spent to date on the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI), and it may top $9 million if you add in the…
As Important as Clean Drinking Water?
I wonder how the people of Walkerton would feel about Collingwood CAO’s statement, reported in Collingwood Today, that implementing the 300-plus recommendations of the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry (SVJI) is…
Collingwood and cannabis stores
Credit where credit is due: Collingwood council this week voted unanimously to allow a cannabis store to open here. That came as somewhat of a surprise given earlier negative comments…