Dairy up to January 31st 2001
Sunday 27th January 2001
Mediaeval connections come back to haunt Cobourg
In my journalistic endeavours this week, I came across a situation that is usually associated with middle English history or the "deep south". I mean the arbitrary manner that new political administrations stamp their imprints on the country they want to rule.
    Last week, as I mentioned below, two members of LACAC were not reappointed. Discovering that it was done on Mr MacCaughey's recommendation I decided to ask him why. He said, when asked if he would tell the public the reasons for the dismissal (even though one guy: Halewood was the Chair of the committee), "I'm not going to tell the public because it was done in a closed session!". So my antennae went up: do we have a story here? What were the real reasons for the dismissal?. Mr MacCaughey was vague when I asked him if he was going to inform the people involved as to why, "I hadn't thought about it but probably will." Whilst talking to MacCaughey I mentioned the process to being similar to the "Star Chamber", he got quite shirty. "Come on ben you know better than that!" Well I said look at it, "Dismissal, no trial and no reasons what does it look like to you?"
    Deciding to contact Halewood and Hancock, on Tuesday, I called. Halewood knew about it as he had been told by Rick Stinson not to bother with calling a special meeting of LACAC (as chair) "Because you haven't been reappointed to LACAC and don't have standing anymore!", on the Friday previous, Hancock heard the news on his answering machine when I called. Both had not heard from MacCaughey.
   I arranged to meet the Mayor on Friday afternoon, for as chair of closed meetings only he could issue statements about the proceedings of closed sessions. At this meeting I asked if he as the Chair could say anything, he confirmed the circumstances and then said, "I can't speak for Councilor MacCaughey but there could have been many reasons, it is his committee and he may want people he can work with, he may have wanted a clean slate or anything else." He did agree to talk to McC and tell him to tell Halewood and Hancock why they were not reappointed and he did say that MacC would make a statement about it.
    Now to the interesting stuff! I spoke to Bill Halewood on Sunday morning to discover that MacCaughey had phoned him the afternoon before (Saturday) and Halewood had been informed that he had been dismissed because "The  LACAC was a fractious committee and he wants things to get done. He had heard it was [a fractious committee] before he attended the first committee meeting and that meeting proved that it was [to him] by the committee's activities. Those activities were the questions raised by the Chair (Halewood) about the approval of an illegal and already erected sign in the downtown. This sign had been approved by a sub-committee of the LACAC (the Heritage committee). ALthough it was normal practice that these approvals be rubber-stamped by Council and LACAC Halewood felt that in the future non-conforming requests (illegal activity and those applications that breached the bylaw) should be dealt with by all of LACAC. This produced a dispute between the chair of the sub-committee (Bud Barr) and Halewood. As an aside Halewood mentioned to me that he had heard from Hancock (he had also just been told the reasons for his non-appointment by MacCaughey) who had passed the comment that "we tend to be imagined as a troublesome pair!"

So here are my comments:
If Advisory Boards and Committees are to be the privilege of the coordinators, to guide and meld to their own images, why do we ask for independent people to sit on them, and if these committee are there to work with the coordinators just how much real advice will be given by the committee members knowing that they can be dismissed at a whim by a coordinator that doesn't like their views. Somehow I always thought that committees were there to offer advice to Council, allowing coordinators to turn it around surely makes a mockery of that. The comparison to the Star Chamber in these circumstances is something that I will not change, or apologise for.

Star Chamber: a definition
An English court of law active in the Tudor and early Stuart periods, abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641. An outgrowth of the royal council, it was made up of privy councilors as well as judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters. Initially well regarded because of its speed and flexibility, Star Chamber became unpopular as the Stuart kings used it with increasing arbitrariness to enforce the royal prerogative. Its name thus became synonymous with secret, irresponsible court proceedings. (Academic American Encyclopedia)

In a sidebar whilst I was talking to MacCaughey at one point he did say that he didn't know what to say to me, although I had prefaced my remarks with the caution, "I am writing a freelance story", "Because you wear too many hats!" "Until you have press credentials, I am not going to talk to you" When questioning him about the kind of press credentials I needed to possess he explained, "bona fide journalists don't file OMB objections!" That comment may go with the thread established with the unseating of Halewood and Hancock. At one point near the end of the interview with the Mayor he asked me, "Why do you think they were not reappointed?" The obvious answer was given, "If you look at what these people have in common that would got them dismissed is simple. If they were not incompetent, one was even the Chair, the fact that they are public opponents of the Walmart application is what I think did them in." I think Mr MacCaughey is betraying his Tory tendencies ("If you're not with me you must be a'gin me!!")

Wednesday 24th January....column 9 is up: see the list on the left
A funny thing happened on the way to the committee seats. Council approved the reappointment of ten citizens to six local committees and then advertised for more members in yesterday's papers. Bill Halewood and Greg Hancock, both stalwarts of the LACAC, were not reappointed although being work horses and very interested in local heritage. Sources indicate they will probably re-apply to fill the now two vacant positions, lets see if they make the list. Even more interesting what is it about Bill and Greg that has offended Dean MacCaughey? Town staff tell me that it is entirely a coordinators prerogative about appointments and Mr MacCaughey was alone in tossing people off their committees.

So Bryan Baxter has an end-date. May 31st will be the end of 41 years working for the Town. Was this decision mutual? It has been rumoured that Bryan was not an employee anymore but working under a contract. Who pulled the contract, the Mayor's new broom or Bryan's desire to go RVing?

Sunday 21st January 2001
I guess opinions about the hiring of the nine officers for the Cobourg Police Service won't go away. In this Saturday's Cobourg Star, the resident columnist, Bill (I used to work at Macleans and I have to mention it every week) Johnstone has an opinion -- great -- everybody should be expounding their opinion. I disagree with what he said but that's our right. He did come from a side that I talk about in Column # 8. I sum it up "How the Dead White Rich Guys killed opportunity for the minorities" Language played a great part in it, read about it.

So you don't think we live in a Police State, read this, a copy from EYE magazine. about undercover cops infiltrating poverty activists in Toronto. Its a PDF file and might load slowly, be warned.

The literary feud between me and Ron Dabor, that flared up in the Cobourg Star over the last couple of weeks, is over simply because I can't be bothered to engage in a contest that has degenerated into what a friend of mine sometime ago referred to as 'an exercise in picking flyshit out of pepper' He argues from a base of fact that he considers to be inviolate and I ask him to validate them and even to stop criticising others who commit the same literary sins as he does and then rails against them. So we have a standoff, although I do thank his wife for the nice comments she made about me but Ron will have to continue ranting without me. If he does it often enough he will recognised for what he is!! By the way Ron, I am proud to defend Rob Washburn and Norm Abbott because I am sure that although they would like to defend themselves they have far to much class and less time to do so. Besides, I agree with them!

The cause for CAUSE becomes greater now that the composition of the committee has been announced. Only two citizens have been allotted seats on the steering committee, out of a total of 9. The other seven are going to representatives from designated groups (Parks and Rec, LACAC, DBIA and C of C plus a downtown landowner and two councilors), the buzz I heard was that these people have to be there for the "political buyin"! I don't know about you but I think having institutional and Council input into what was essentially a citizens' cause will slow it down and bureaucratise it. If Council and institutional input is necessary it should be done by means of regular liaison meetings not by control from within. Think how exciting it could have been if all those interested groups had been part of a big Plenary session that instructed and received reports from a working group mandated to produce work and report back at regular milestone meetings. These meetings could form the backbone of a series of meetings open to, and working with, the energy of the general public. What a great Spring community exercise that would have made. But as a friend of mine said when I suggested, "Too sophisticated for this bunch."

It looks as though we shall be paying for our councils (Cobourg & Port Hope) to play nice to each other at an arranged dinner party sometime soon. I think that unless they get some work done let them pay their own way. We don't pay councilors to eat without work! The problem is that the Mayor of Cobourg doesn't seem to appreciate that the Mayor of Port Hope is very parochial. He isn't going to do anything that will upset the boys in the coffee shops, and even talking to Cobourg will do that. "Hey we (Port Hope) didn't become the largest Town in the County just so we can put up with the old ways! There's a new dog in Town".

Wednesday 17th:
Just a column (No. 7) and a little observation:
This week's executive meeting of Council must have been the first because obviously councilor Jackson did not know her place! It was observed that as councilor Williams approached his place at the table, in the pecking order, he saw Councilor Jackson sitting in his spot. After a session of musical chairs and whispered (in her ear even) instructions the 'man who would be mayor' assumed his rightful place. I wonder if councilor Jackson knows where her place is now? One thing for sure it's downwind of councilor Williams!

Oh! here's a correction for me and a plug for the Northumberland News

Mike
I will run a correction and am always pleased to acknowledge all emails
ben
mike johnston wrote:
> Just a short note Ben to let you know Northumberland News did not get the
> inspiration for the sidewalk snow clearing story from your Web site. That
> story had been written long before Christmas. As with all newspapers, other,
> more timely stories come along which are used in the paper first. While I
> had noted a reference to your story on the main page of your Web site about
> a week ago, I hadn't read the story until today, Tuesday, Jan. 12.
> Mike J.
> News editor

Sunday 14th January, (many apologies this Sunday, no column, just the musings: the gods of the flu' struck me and I've been under the weather for 48 hours in the past 96)

The political news this week was the public meeting held to explain the changes to King St, that will take place this year. Of course the merchants are furious and apprehensive. This is because the Town Engineer has not had a history of delivering public projects on time and because everybody else has an opinion about how the job should be done. This meeting I think was designed to make Lloyd Williams feel good, he's back on Council and although he is only a councilor 'the man who should be mayor' has designed a series of public meetings that he can control. The most pathetic sight of the night was looking at the podium seeing Lloyd launching into his second performance of the evening whilst the majority of the audience decided to leave. Not even a dark blue suit and a town tie could make him look good. The upshot of the night was that nobody was satisfied although the bureaucrats and politicians have worn us down, by these continual public meetings, where the suggestions made at previous meetings never seem to be incorporated into the next session, to the point of everybody thinking that we should just get on with it.

I see that the Northumberland News decide to write a full page spread about the fact that homeowners do not have to shovel snow from the sidewalks, I wonder where they got the inspiration? I have a lot more scoops for you Mike, but if you want them first you will have to pay. Look here for my article again.

A rumour peddler passed this one to me and it should be taken for what it is -- a rumour. The possibility of a strip mall in a location other than the properly zoned 'Golden Miller' property is being contemplated: who is the person trying to bust the greenland farming policy of Hamilton Twp. Stay tuned.

The best for last:
The prizes for political stupidity, or arrogance must go to the local politicians who accepted political donations from Royal Cobourg at the same time as they were voting on Royal Cobourg's application for rezoning their land. Imagine what the public reaction would have been if the public had known that some members of Council had taken $500 a piece only days before Royal Cobourg  had been given permission to rezone their land! That is why the election financing laws have to be changed and disclosure must be made before the election not after.

I received an interesting e-mail from a reader who has an interesting perspective on things and an obviously different point of view about the Lucas Point deal referred to in Wednesday's offerings. read it here

Wednesday 10th January:
Good news for Cobourg in that a long negotiated deal has come through but at what cost. The news is simple a Union has bought 11.5 acres of land in the Lucas Point industrial park. The bad news is that for the size and location of the land the economic spin-offs will not be as big as expected.

Some more about the situation in Port Hope. A well connected former Port Hope politician rang me the other day to tell me about how the actions of the Ward 1 (old Port Hope) councilors had upset the people in ward 2 (old Hope Twp). Remember how it was reported in last years diary here how Dave Watson wanted to be the Deputy Mayor. Well it never came to pass and it is suspected that a bit of "old boys backscratching" may have had a part to play. It was reported that  newcomer Julie Maidens was the swing vote and speculation occurred that she may not support Aldo Agostino. Well she must have held out because she ended up being named the Chair of the Economic Development committee, very prestigious for a first-timer! Some people in ward 2 are putting two and two together to think they are getting shafted, first that happening and then the shutout on the police services board. Anyway this informant predicted that the ward 2 voters will soon come to see this 'amalgamation" as a take-over. The ironic thing is that if the ward 1 councilors continue to act like bullies does that mean they are getting to be seen as "doing a Cobourg" by the rest of the county.

Sunday 7th January:
First the good news, thank you Bill Patchett and Tom Hawke for having faith in the Downtown, I can't wait to see if after all these years and playing around the edges of downtown whether the powers-to-be will now accept Bill into the inner circle. Probably, but only if he promises that one of his boutiques will never sell coffee!

It will be an interesting evening at the Town Hall on Wednesday where we all get to talk about the final (final) design for King street. The idea of slimming the street down to widen the sidewalks is such an easy one, on the surface. But how do you make sure that everybody gets the same thing. For instance if 'bump-outs' are to be built which store front gets them? If the street is reduced how do we handle daily unloading of trucks, how do we make sure that the meters are not hogged by all day users? What about the biggest question of all -- should we have parking on the main street at all? These questions have been with for as long as King Street, do not expect a resolution on Wednesday. But it will be interesting to see how long the honeymoon will last for the new downtown coordinator. Talking of that the new coordinator is the same person who was given the job prior to the hiring process being repeated. Does that mean that the hiring panel refused to admit they made a mistake or that Linda Hunter was still the best of a bigger bunch. There are still some aggrieved parties, so obviously not all the people in the process are satisfied.

Now the rest of the news:
e-mail received this week
"Ben,
I really liked your column about the police acquittal in the Romagnuolo
case. For some reason I missed it until this week. On that note, make sure you read the story in this week's EYE which lists all of the Toronto police's screw ups in 2000. It's pretty upsetting when you see it all listed in l place."  read here

How about those survivors? CBS is coming to you with  new shows, get the skinny from this web-site: Survivor Andy Warwhol said it best "everybody has their 15 minutes of fame"; Rich, Sue, Jenna and Gervase (all of whom appeared on the Hollywood Squares this week) had better get used to being out of time there's a new bunch coming. For the official line click here for CBS's site. For a page that lists the 16 contestants click here

Wednesday 3rd,
Column day. I'm still trying to talk to the Cobourg Star, they have a new Editor even though it hasn't been announced yet, an in-house promotion, wait for it!

I have been wondering how the owners of artificial trees feel about the use of tax dollars in the 'real' Christmas tree pickup. Is this the first move to abolish user-pay? If it is I can support it.

I have put a page together here that explains the (d)evolution of the Strathy Lands (where Royal Cobourg wants to build the Walmart) this will be part of the public education about the OMB appeal.