The Diaries up to Jan 2001

Wednesday 20th December 2000

Went to the first Council meeting of this term, everybody looking smug and serene, well they won didn't they? The place was packed, there were delegations of people with business left over from last term, notably the Millennium Committee. Mary Corbett (who proudly proclaimed that she had been knighted as the Duchess of FerryView Hotel (sounds like something from "Upstairs-Downstairs") and as such felt pretty good, gave the final report to Council. I thought it was pretty neat that Mayor Joan was complimented more often than Councillor Delanty but that obviously was a last hurrah. Joan received a photo album of the projects, a little dig there, the album being a personal gift rather than a gift to the Town. Anyway they (the committee) took great pride in being completely self sufficient, even to the point of setting up a trust find to replace the roses in the park, and disbursing every last penny: the Barracks Foundation got those.
    I did latch onto another slant on a campaign promise. If you remember the Mayor in his campaign made a big deal out of wanting to institute a "Civic Awards Night". So after Jacqui Manning made her presentation, as chair of the Town's awards committee, I spoke to her about the recommendation. It turns out that the committee had made a decision way back last summer to recommend to Council that such a night be instituted. But knowing how the Council works decided to wait until the end of the year to make that recommendation to Council so that it may be considered as a budget item for next year. It turns out that a member of the committee (a key Delanty supporter) wrote a letter to the committee asking for such a thing. The committee never discussed that letter because the member never attended any more meetings. The next time the committee heard from the member was during the campaign when she arose to state that she had never heard from the committee about her letter. I guess if she had attended the meetings she might have!! Meanwhile Peter made this recommendation a plank of his campaign, nothing like betting on a sure thing.
    Looks like Billy M got off to a bit of a jerky start last night, he was the odd man out on the resolutions last night. I guess Peter's little mini-council meeting failed to smooth that one over.
   A bit of a kerfuffle in Port Hope. Dave Watson wants to be the Deputy Mayor but it looks as though he may not be able to get the votes from his fellow council members. It is rumoured that the new gal on the block holds the key, will she vote for Watson or follow the rest of the big town votes and put Aldo Agostino in the chair?

Sunday 17th December

Well what to do with an email like this: (denotes my censoring)
"A person who cannot be named was at the United Way/ Chamber Dinner last night in Port Hope and told me a story about a newly elected Mayor (name withheld so I can't be accused of divulging sources).
The newly elected Mayor was sitting at his table and told this story with pride.
Paraphrasing here....
He said that during the election he was campaigning in the (name of the Street withheld) area when he came to the door of a handicapped woman. The women asked why she should vote for him. The candidate for Mayor gave some policy type answer, but the woman suggested, Hey how about you shovel my walkway when it snows.  The candidate for Mayor said okay and you guessed it...this week the woman called the "Mayor" and asked when he was going to come and do her walk. The newly elected Mayor hummed and hawed and instead of jumping on the photo op of a lifetime he called his buddies at the West High School and asked if a student looking for community
service hour could go and clear the woman's walkway. The person who cannot be named  says he just shook his head and said "XXXXX how could you miss such an excellent opportunity for a photo op. You need a press agent". He's right I can just see the headline "Mayor lives up to campaign promise". Instead the headline is "Mayor backs out of Anniversary Parties and gets grade 9 students to do his dirty work." If he keeps this up the next three years are going to be very very interesting."

OK here's my challenge to the readers: whose side are you on? Do you bemoan the lost photo-op or admire the delegation skills of the newly elected Mayor?

BTW I did consult a local observer who replied to the comments in the above e-mail this way:
"Now - an alternative way to look at this might be that Peter took full responsibility for his offer and delegated appropriately.  After all, the job apparently got done through his influence. One could argue these are leadership skills in action.  Surely, as a citizen, we would prefer our elected official spend his time attracting new industry or setting the stage for teamwork versus shovelling our driveways.  Perhaps he does not need the photo opportunity preferring to toss the press proper respect when meaningful news comes along."

In the interest of balance I will not give my opinion and let the story speak for itself. Make your comments here

A Public Service Announcement

a lovely sight but who should clean the snow?In another vein I thought of a newspaper article a friend of mine gave me back in the summer "You know I don't always agree with you but read you every week, here is something you may want to bring up one day" How true! when reading today's (Saturday) Toronto Star. There was a similar article saying the same thing as my friend's article: the sidewalks belong to the Municipality and they have to clean them off. This is one of the biggest secret on municipal politics. The bylaw that mandates snow removal is now in the same limboland as the bylaw that bans election signs on public land. They are out there waiting to be challenged.

The facts according the articles:
The Court of Appeal, on July 26, laid out two big rulings.

The Municipality is on the hook for both. SO despite what you may read and hear the Court of Appeal has ruled the the Town has to clean up. The other thing to keep in mind is that if you do fall and break something you only have SIX MONTHS to make a claim against the Town.

As someone who has long felt that the Town should be cleaning sidewalks this court case strikes a chord with me. Now all we have to do is make a big stink and the Council will listen, (they did promise to listen didn't they!) First the brush cleanup and then sidewalk snowclearing.
 
 

Regular column here

Wednesday 13th December

I attended the inauguration of Council and the Mayor and came away with the impression that apart from the usual Council Watchers most of the sworn-in councillors had lots of relatives and friends. The new Mayor was resplendent in a shiny robe (the last Mayor had a new one made and this one is six years old) that had been dry cleaned. I also learned that the extra short one especially made for Angus Read is still available, now we know why Dean MacCaughey is back on Council -- his robe is awaiting!!

Also heard, via a third source, that the new Mayor is musing about delegating some of the "puff-stuff" (you know the duties that Joan did so well - the ribbon cutting and birthday parties) to other councillors. "I attended four functions on Saturday!". That's part of the Mayor's job Peter. I wonder if the jobs do get delegated if there will be  a pecking order that may offend some of the voters who expect the Mayor to turn up to their invitations and get the #3 councillor. A Cobourg A & B list?

Highlights from the speech and festivities:
"Cobourg's in good hands" Fred Long
"Paul is in Ottawa trying to find his way around" Malcolm Wardman bringing greetings on behalf of MP Paul Macklin
"I've given so many speeches and I am still quite nervous... I looked up on the wall [in the back room] and there was a picture of my Dad as mayor, being Irish I became quite emotional" Peter Dalanty

A full transcript of Peter's speech is here

Another urban myth put to bed. I heard last week that a planned expansion by GE Plastics had been thwarted because the PUC had refused to connect fibre optic or supply a necessary piece of equipment needed to connect to the fibre optic. Well, here is the real story: GE Plastics was floating a concept to expand lines in one of three plants and looked at Cobourg America and Mexico. Hamilton Twp not having the proper resources to help GE allowed Cobourg's Economic Developer to work with Bill Finlay on a proposal. It was studied by GE's head office and when the Province refused to give any industrial incentives and the Federal Departments did not help either, the obvious level of Government Aid was lacking and more was available in Mexico, so guess where the plant ended up? Nothing to do with the PUC.

There are now six objectors to the Secondary Plan process, one of the objectors is Royal Cobourg. Now it can be said that it is not just three cranky people objecting but even the developer doesn't like the landuse changes. What this does is demonstrate to the public that if Walmart really wants to come here they should change developers and it also shows what the objectors have been saying: the developer is using Walmart as a wedge to obtain a power centre!
 

Sunday 9th December:

Todays story is about how people on Cobourg Council are plotting to raise their wages. Not even sworn in one week and not even having met as a full Council yet (1st meeting tomorrow night) a raise and how to do it is already being planned.

This story will be denied by all but I believe it as I trust my source and can understand the scenario.

Here's what I have sniffed out: The budget chief (Deputy Mayor Spooner) has been trying to recruit a committee of respected Cobourgers. These highly respected individuals will be asked to review the pay for Cobourg Councillors and recommend changes.

First Problem: some of the potential recruits believe that Council has missed the boat. The time to change pay scales was before the election and the previous council should have done it. But those self-righteous councillors refused to do it. "I am not going to vote myself a raise" .... John Lindsay. Now with the newly amalgamated Councils and the rural councillors, of the County, being paid for all meetings attended Cobourg Councillors find themselves amongst the lowest paid Councillors in the County. What a blow to the ego, let alone the pocket book!

Second Problem: It would be politically expedient but very unseemly to have a new Council vote themselves a raise.
Solution: Find a sympathetic citizens committee to recommend a raise. The next election is three years away and voters' memories are short and also many of these councillors will be one-term councillors. So they can probably get away with it.

My Comment: Even though the majority of Council are senior citizens and are already pulling down at least three pensions they still feel as though they need more pay, it will boost the ego.

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