More Bad Ideas
Arguably the worst decision ever made by a Collingwood Council in my memory was to rescind the heritage permits from the Admiral Collingwood development, back in 2007. The results of…
Planning & Policies
That WTF Moment
WTF. Those three letters crudely but superbly sum up the two-page response made to the two members of council who recently sent out an inappropriate media release, pretending it came…
Lessons from the paper
There’s a story on page B2 of the January 1 Enterprise Bulletin (not online yet*) that offers us three lessons. Two lessons on how the local media fails us, one…
Consultants Run Amok
As the old saw says, a consultant is someone who comes in to solve a problem and stays around long enough to become part of it. So how many consultants’…
Screw the Taxpayer
Sitting down? Good. You might want a drink, too. A strong one. Ready? Get a grip on your chair. Here goes: Collingwood is looking at a 3.9% tax hike for…
The End of Integrity
Collingwood Council has apparently decided it is better to be viewed as hypocritical than as unethical. Following a year of investigations of council behaviour by the Integrity Commissioner, Robert Swayze,…
The Airport Mystery
What’s happening at Collingwood Airport? Or better yet: what’s NOT happening? And why isn’t it? Once touted as the role model for regional cooperation, and having the best potential for…
Our Know-It-Alls
Collingwood Council obviously knows more than anyone else in municipal governance. More, in fact, than anyone else in the entire country. In fact, they may all be geniuses in local…
Climate Change and Collingwood
Climate change is arguably the single most pressing, most important, most challenging issue to affect governments at this time. Our world is suffering and weather is getting extreme in many…
Misunderstanding Local Government
A recent editorial in the Collingwood Connection underscores the need to have writers who understand the actual process of government, and not simply comment on politics from an ideological perspective.…
Feathers A-Flying in Collingwood
Chickengate: despite urban chickens being outre among the trendy these days; a fad long abandoned by hip who are now pursing some new form of glitzy hobby, some folks in…
The high cost of affordability
Affordable housing is crucial to the economic and social vitality of every municipality. Without it, people cannot afford to live here, which means they will look for jobs in places…
Apps are making us criminals
Almost every week you read in the news about another taxi driver protest against Uber and its drivers. Taxi drivers go on strike, some rage against Uber and attack the…
The Hidden Agenda in the Strategic Plan
My final comment for the next while on the town’s committee-based wishlist (the so-called community-based strategic plan, of which it is neither) has to do with biased and partisan comments…
Trivial Pursuits
Now that the draft version of the so-called “community-based strategic plan” has been presented to council, I felt it appropriate to comment on this latest version. I have already posted…
17 Pages of Blather
Zero point zero zero zero three eight. That’s the percentage of the population of Collingwood who made the effort to comment on council’s much-touted, revised, 17-page code of conduct before…
Fortuna: Why Plans Fail
Niccolo Machiavelli used two words in his book, The Prince, to describe the factors that influenced events. In English these are virtue or character (virtu), fortune or chance (fortuna). Only…
Tourism and Collingwood
Tourism is the world’s fifth fastest-growing industry and growing at five percent per year. A recent story on CBC Radio this week suggests growth has been even higher for Canada,…
Strat Plan Wrap Up: Addintional Comments
Yes, the web page really does call for “Addintional Comments.” Well, I suppose consultants aren’t hired for their spelling or grammar. Otherwise there wouldn’t be all that bizarre capitalization or…
Strat Plan Part 6: Culture and the Arts
The fifth and final objective in Collingwood’s developing strategic plan (the woo-hoo plan) is culture and the arts. For something so important to the community, with such a huge potential,…