Going Back In Time

A baseball backstop can't just go any place.It has to be planned.
Why are you so sure? you ask.
Well. ..because we did it wrong once.

The first diamond we built was in Fleury Park years ago. We didn't know it was facing the wrong way until it was played. The setting sun blinded the players so they couldn't see the pitching ball coming at them.

We had to re-locate the whole fandango. Fortunately no lights had to be moved. There were none.

I didn't post yesterday. The issue in the forefront of my mind required listening to the tape of a February meeting. .

I hate that. Listening to the Mayor's endless dissertations once is hard enough. Doing it a second time is unendurable. I never watch Council on T.V.for that reason.

A Leslie Street resident's outrage at having to look at part of a light pole at the new diamond through leafless winter trees from her dining room window, was the issue at hand.

Staff had visited the home to view the offending pole. It was recommended to move the pole at a cost $7 Ks plus. Council was not inclined. The matter was placed in the hands of the Chief Administrative Officer for management of the outcome.

It's what happens when the vote appears not to be going the Mayor's way.

Notwithstanding a favourable recommendation, the resident requested delegation. Context of her complaint was failure to consult when the diamond was being planned They came home one day to find a pole was practically in the backyard.

It was another night to Dump on the Director . Even though the pole was recommended to be moved.

At the end of the lengthy complaint, I asked the resident if she had been informed a favourable recommendation had been made.The decision was pending.The matter was not on the agenda.

She acknowledged notification prior to requesting delegation status.

That fact clarified, I asked why had she had come to the meeting. Why was she there?

Mystified, the resident needed the question repeated before she understood.

Finally she did. She had previously referred to speaking to "Evalina" , now waved her arm toward the Mayor and said "Phyllis told me".

"Ah Yes " I said, almost to myself, barely refraining from the jock gesture of triumph.

Councillor Wilson on a point of order, objected to my "cross-examining" the delegate.

The Mayor agreed with the Councillor and added it was "disgraceful behaviour"

The tape of the Mayor's discourse continues for more than twelve minutes of baffle-gab seemingly striving to bury the fact she had told the resident to attend Council and fulminate at large in a complaint against staff for failing to advise of plans to build a diamond in her backyard without providing an opportunity to object to placement of lights.

Staff were the real villains of the piece. The opportunity to point that out without personally making the statement herself , could not be missed.It was classic Morris tactics.

Council needed to compensate for failure of staff.

So, the plot was revealed.

Last Tuesday , in the final debate, Councillor Gaertner declared her reason for voting in favour of planting four coniferous trees, thirty-feet high, behind the bottom half of the light pole at a cost of almost $8ks to obscure the awful sight from the resident's dining-room window was "staff failure to follow process".

The fact there was no process to follow had failed to register with the Councillor.

The Mayor's strategy had worked...somewhat.

Councillor Wilson and myself, unbeknownst to each other, had gone at different times, to see how bad the situation was before the issue was to be decided.

From the town's property we separately viewed the distance behind the light poles. A stretch of bare earth, a substantial green slope rising and beyond that a ring of dense forest circling the top completely obscured any sign of a house.

A house in which , by the way, the owner had informed the CAO on the visit to find a solution to "the problem", they did not intend to continue to live.

So, the recommendation to Council, contrived by the Mayor, at substantial expense of staff time and effort, was to spend almost eight-thousand dollars, planting thirty-foot high coniferous trees which would probably not survive the transplant, and not even provide shade to park users, to obscure part of a light pole, which could not be seen through the summer foliage of a deciduous forest which was already in place on town property .

On Tuesday, when I was finally recognized by the chair to speak , the Chair interrupted and took great exception when I referred to her own and Councillor MacEachern's involvement in achieving a favourable recommendation for the Leslie Street resident.

From the Chair, a point of order was called to stop my comments in mid sentence. " I am not going to allow you to impugn my motives Councillor" the Mayor declared amidst a flurry of other verbiage, after failing to persuade the Deputy-Mayor to take the chair, while she expounded her lengthy point of order, from the Chair.

Councillor MacEachern chimed in with her statement. "I am sick and tired of her (me)making things up" she declared.

It was indeed a performance. Hardly orderly. Quite abusive in fact.

The resident, on the other hand, sufficiently confident of her friendship with "Evalina" and Phyllis" has apparently felt no need to keep it a secret.

But, for all the expense of staff time and effort to solve " the problem" and the river of words from the Mayor, the vote on Tuesday was five to four against planting the trees.

The Mayor, Councillors MacEachern, Gaertner and Granger were the lonesome four... for a change.

After all this time of the infernal alliance, some are wondering if another nefarious plot is afoot.