Extra October Tuesday

This October has five Tuesdays .

The  regular schedule has two Council meetings and  two  Committee meetings.

I find  organization of the agenda a bit of a puzzlement.

Tuesday's Council  had little of substance to deal  with  other than the four motions I presented.

In May June July and August, going into and throughout the sumer recess, agendas were jammed with issues .

We dealt with half  at each meting though we worked until midnight,

Many important  issues  got short shrift  as a consequence.

Presentations and  awards got priority and  delegations took huge blocks of  he time allocated for town business.

Motions by Councillors  waited months not weeks to be  heard. It was hardly  worthwhile under  the circumstances.

Months ago Councillor Abel put  forward  a motion without notice ,to direct the director of Parks and Recreation, to do a  small study and report back on  "feasibility " of  the  idea of the town buying a block of land with Yonge Street frontage for a "Heritage Park"

That was after Council  had informed the proponent of the scheme , Bill Albino and a real estate agent owner of one of the properties  they should  prepare a business plan before coming back  and after they'd gone  to the Heritage Committee  angling for a recommendation from them to Council.

I asked the Director several weeks ago ,how was that feasibility report coming along ?how was he doing it ? and how much time was he spending on it ?

Turned out ,none at all, the task had been taken from him. 

I think he said it  had been given to the heretofore planner , now a special projects manager in the  CAOs  department.

I have since heard  from two sources,  the second being Chris Watts that $25,000 is being spent on it. 

I know nothing about that. But it's possible because the CAO has authority to spend far more than that without Council approval.

All of which leads me to believe there's very little respect for the role of Council and transparency goes by the board.

Last Tuesday the Mayor reported  the town had made it to  the short list of some institute of excellence  as one of  the top hundred  employers in Canada. 

The application was prepared by the  town's manager of communications

Who does stuff like that ?

When the town won the Prince Charles Award for something or other, I tried to find out who we were  our competitors. Who did we beat out?

It was a secret.

Could be we were the only ones who nominated ourselves.


I  concluded there weren't enough towns with enough staff with  enough time on their hands to be messing about with  stuff like that .

The  prize  might not mean anything at all.