City Council Finally Gets Down to Work

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
February 7, 2011

Well Council has taken its most significant decision since taking office over three months ago. It’s about time they got down to work!

Council may be a bit slow getting off the mark and down to work as it is a little tough carrying on business when the leader is gallivanting out of town in a Mackie’s moving van meeting Mayors of Southern Ontario’s many cities, towns, and bergs.

In its first significant decision, City Council appointed Doug Sanders as City Councillor to fill the vacant council position.

Sanders was nominated by Bob Chapman and seconded by Nancy Diamond and won support from Pidwerbecki, Diamond, England, Henry, Bouma, and Chapman.

In seconding Sanders, Diamond demonstrated that her powerful and scheming hand was behind Sander’s appointment. In her brilliance, she does have a way of being in charge but removing herself from centre stage when it suits her purpose. In this case, she publicly displayed that she was only a compliant accessory after the fact, disguising her strategic role as its prime mover and solidifying a political ally in Chapman, and, of course being able to step back and reject responsibility should any criticism arise now or in the future regarding the appointment. Sanders, of course, will now become part of the Diamond team.

From the outset, I think Council’s choice was a reasoned one. Sanders did run for local council and finished a few hundred votes behind Mary Anne Sholdra just missing the last elected position. And appointment of Sanders can be easily justified to impartial observers.

Mary Anne Sholdra, the only other nominated candidate had her name put forward by Aker and Wood and supported by Neal and Marimpietri. Sholdra’s nomination, like Sander's, can be justified to rational observers based on her vote count. Her rejection by council can also be strongly justified.

Roger Bouma nominated Mark Paton but did not have, and could not find, a seconder. Either Bouma was left out on a limb by his fellow councillors, was not in the loop when these things were decided, or does not understand how these things work. In any case, Paton was cherry-picked by Bouma, and was one of many reasonable choices, but was less clearly justifiable to the voting public.

Perhaps Bouma nominated Paton without a seconder to highlight the backroom manoeverings that had gone on.

Publicly, a few names seemed to dominate the public speculation of who was to be appointed with Will Thurber and Dr. Gary Gales dominating the list. Interestingly, neither of these individuals were considered for appointment as they didn’t get nominated as per the rules. Other names put forth were publicized by the individuals themselves through social media but none of these "outsiders" received any traction at all.

Despite Sholdra’s higher vote than Sanders, her past performance indicated she didn’t deserve to be appointed to the position. As a member of the last city council, she was heavily criticized for missing meetings, arriving late, leaving early, and absenting herself frequently during meetings.

Interestingly, in her personal presentation in support of her nomination, she pledged to correct these problems promising regular and punctual meeting attendance.

It’s amazing that any citizen seeking the public trust to look after the city business would find it necessary to promise good meeting attendance. That would seem to be a “given” for those who sought appointment.

For that reason, despite her electoral results, Sholdra had proven that she was not up to the job and should have retired from politics prior to the last election. For that reason, Doug Sanders was a good and reasonable council "first" choice.

Council’s recognition that the public doesn’t always get it right was a gutsy decision taken in the city’s best interest.

The public doesn’t always get it right is a given, especially on Oshawa’s massive general vote ballot containing the names of 70 candidates which severely undermines democracy in making it impossible to know the candidates.

In the last local city councillor race, for example, there were two candidates with MBA’s overlooked by the public; Will Thurber, a business professor at UOIT, Trent, and York, and Mark Paton. Instead the public elected, TTC bus driver, Mike Nicholson and narrowly missed electing Mary Anne Sholdra whose presence on council was a severe embarrassment because of her sheer incompetence, inability to understand issues, and her ability to keep alert and attentive at meetings.

The public also missed two MBA holders in the Regional Council race in Kevin Brady and Doug Hawkins, both of whom would have brought good business sense to city council. Both finished far out of the money. Instead the public elected a college student who stated that she was enrolling in university courses and narrowly missed electing Brian Nicholson who lied about having a university degree and has had no significant or successful work experience in the private sector.

While I do support the appointment of Doug Sanders, there are a number of observations I would make about this important bit of city business.

The first is, despite the controversy of the nomination process, the few people in Council Chambers to witness this bit of “democracy” in action leads to the question as to whether city residents really give a damn about what their council does. Certainly a huge dose of apathy was apparent in voter turnout.

Perhaps the poor attendance by the highly critical chattering classes was a symbolic boycotting of the legitimacy of the event.

While I support appointment to fill the position, I am critical of the very democratically limiting process city council followed.

In democratic elections, citizens are able to declare themselves candidates in the race, but the city council process didn’t allow this. Council members acted as gatekeepers deciding privately among themselves who could be considered.

This was the purpose of the nomination process requiring two councillors to put candidate’s names up for consideration and also the purpose of keeping the list of interested citizens confidential so that public campaigns could not be mounted to generate support for various individuals. This might have put additional public pressure on politicians to select specific popular candidates as well as sparking second guessing of the result by the public.

Historically, Oshawa has been a very parochial place where most in authority were related to each other with nepotism and cronyism dominating the city landscape. The council screening process for approved candidates echoes this past.

There have also been extremely serious city council communication oversights in the appointment process.

To my knowledge, there were no official communications calling for nominations, informing people of the appointment process, or indeed even announcing the date of the appointment meeting. All communication has been left to the responsibility of the public press without city hall vetting or oversight.

Because there was no formal application process to be considered for appointment, no complete lists of those requesting appointment could be compiled----so the public will never know which “gems” advanced their names for consideration.

This was the same serious oversight, of course, of a previous council that put the convoluted general vote plebiscite question on the ballot and forgot to inform the people about the meaning of the question and its consequences.

One amazing shortcoming of the entire appointment process was that no formal vetting process was completed prior to the new councillor being named. Only after the fact was the new councillor required to sign a declaration of qualification. It doesn`t make sense to sign a letter of eligibility after you`ve won the job.

Once bitten, twice burned would seem to have been a city lesson well learned---but not in Oshawa where we’ve now had two elections in a row where ineligible candidates have been elected.

The only way this vetting process could have occurred prior to appointment with the Council process adopted would have been to hold an illegal in-camera meeting to screen the candidates to insure eligibility prior to the Council meeting where the decision already made was going to be confirmed.

The 34 minute Council Meeting making the appointment was so efficient that it probably was just a formal replication of those illegal in-camera meetings---a charade to formalize a decision already made.

The appointment process was in the best interests of this city but I continue to question the wisdom of considered candidates being chosen in a closed and private way that smells of cronyism.

But hey, this is Oshawa and we have huge tolerance for a city council that hits us disrespectfully time and time again.

In Egypt today, the people are striking back! They`ve had enough....and obviously we haven`t----yet!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

A Giant Windfall Payday for the City's “Fired” Politicians

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 24, 2011

Mayor John Henry’s campaign literature stated the city needed new, principled leadership at city hall and that he’d promote new accountability, transparency, and economic growth for the city.

In terms of the principled leadership promised, I’ve heard on good authority that Henry has been dragging his feet on meeting with COSCO officials regarding expansion into Oshawa since COSCO’s cut-rate on-site pharmacies would steal business from his wife’s pharmacy.

If this is true, putting his family’s self interest first is inconsistent with his promise of restoring respect for the taxpayer and providing accountable leadership at city hall. It sounds more like Chicago politics under infamous Richard J. Daley’s iron fisted and corrupt administration.

Mayor John Henry’s leadership has not enjoyed the customary “Honeymoon Period” always afforded new office holders. In Henry’s case, it was a record short-lived honeymoon as even many of his former avid supporters are now his critics.

Council’s indecisiveness in replacing disgraced Mike Nicholson’s abandoned council seat speaks volumes about council productivity and the mayor’s leadership. Since the city wide vote is undemocratic which depends upon voter knowledge of candidates, I do support council appointment to fill the vacancy out of fear that, in an election, many unwary Oshawa voters would jump off the turnip truck and elect Brian Nicholson or Mary Anne Sholdra.

Appointment does, however, remove the possibility that city council could seek public opinion on the general vote election system that was highly criticized by the majority of city voters. Fixing the election system would be a first action by a council truly interested in democracy.

Accountability and transparency is still a major question with city council, as it is with all governments, despite the fact that all elected city politicians promised a more open and accountable council. Sadly, what we have has not changed in this regard.

A prime example of this lack of transparency has to do with the severance payments received by retiring and defeated politicians. While information on this has recently been released on city Report FA-11-14 published on the January 20, 2011, Finance and Administration Committee Meeting Agenda available on the city web page, the report only gives half of the story hiding the full payout amounts no doubt to mitigate citizen anger at the largesse politicians serve themselves at taxpayer expense.

Section 242(1) of the Municipal Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.M.45, provides that a municipality may pass by-laws for paying remuneration to the members of Council, and such remuneration may be determined in any manner that Council considers advisable.

Because of the breadth of remuneration permitted by this law (anything Council considers advisable!), the parting allowance itself does not tell the full story of compensations and benefits provided.

And getting a clear answer to the full benefits is virtually impossible to establish....whether severance allowances, like politician’s salaries, are 1/3 tax free, whether there are monthly pensions when age requirements are met, whether drug and other health benefits are provided, whether equipment like computers, cell phones, and other electronic equipment were inventoried and had to be returned....and these questions could go on ad infinitum. Answers require very specific questions with no information being voluntarily provided.

I first requested disclosure of the severance amounts from the city clerk’s office on November 8, 2010, and was told the info would be published in an annual report in the first quarter of 2011 and that I’d have to file a Freedom of Information request (FOI) to see it earlier, direction I received on two subsequent occasions, although they couldn`t tell me the cost to provide this information they had at hand, having already written the cheques for the huge amounts.

Finally on Jan 8, 2011, in response to a threat to finally file a FOI request and to a comment from me that the giant lack of transparency in a council purportedly operating on policies of openness, accountability, and transparency would be a huge revelation to the general public, Percy Luther, of the Clerk`s Department, informed me that he had looked into this further, as I had requested, and informed me of the disclosure report FA-11-14 mentioned earlier.

City policy calls for political severance allowances of one month`s salary for every year of council experience. City severance allowances thus generated were: John Gray, $110,821.33; J. Kolodzie, $57,042.00; L. Parkes, $45,950 + $34,759 unclaimed retroactive pay when she campaigned as Federal Liberal Candidate during the period Dec. 2004 to Nov. 2006; A. Cullen, $21,072.92 + an MBA; R. Lutczyk, $22,183.00; and B. Nicholson, $22,183.00. Mary Anne Sholdra did not serve on council long enough to qualify for any severance allowance.

These handsome figures are only part of the story and don`t include Regional severance allowances nor do they include tax-free pay provisions, or any health or pension benefits outlined earlier.

Durham Region figures have not been published and these figures are much more difficult to establish than city severance allowances.

My first request for the figures resulted in the Regional Clerks department sending me the first page only of the Severance Benefits By-law (Number 61-93) which gave a preamble but didn’t get to any details of the severance allowance. In the end, they turn out to be the same as Oshawa`s policy in providing one month’s salary for every year of regional council experience up to a maximum 18 month's salary.

So secretive are the Regional Political severance allowances that it’d probably be easier obtaining top secret classified military intelligence. Getting information is not helped by the general lack of co-operation by Regional bureaucrats who dragged their feet at every instance often neglecting my requests for information. Information finally provided was not compiled into a single place and required extrapolating info from a number of separate sources.

Regional officials couldn’t help by simply running me off a computerized list of severance cheques already printed and distributed. That would make it too easy and the public must be forced to dig for information. Transparency is only a word, not a practice!

The experience list provided me recorded 22 years of experience for Brian Nicholson qualifying him for the maximum 18 months of salary. They didn’t seem to remember that he had a break in service with his defeat in 2000 and presumably collected 15 month’s severance at that time. Since the maximum payout allowed by the policy is 18 months salary, he presumably would only be eligible for an additional 3 years with his October 25, 2010 defeat.

Because Nicholson’s defeat was overlooked in the figures given me, I surmise that he has double dipped for a giant overpayment, collecting 15 month’s severance in year 2000 and the maximum 18 months on his recent defeat.

A request to Durham Region Payroll Officer, Joanne Cermak, to confirm Nicholson`s payout, went unanswered. Nor did she answer my other queries whether the payouts are 1/3 tax free or if politicians can claim any other entitlements, compensations, or retirement benefits such as pensions payable at some defined age of eligibility, health benefits, etc., all in addition to the handsome cash severance packages they received.

Based on 2009 Regional Salaries (and not the 2010 salaries that would have been used) the minimum Regional payouts to retiring/defeated Regional reps from Oshawa are: John Gray (16 months credit+ committee Chair = $69807); Joe Kolodzie (max 18 months credit = $69533); Brian Nicholson (if only 3 months credit based on payout remaining after 2000 election defeat and break in service = $11589 or $69533 if break in service and 2000 payout forgotten about in which case there`s been an overpayment of $57944----but what the hell, it`s only taxpayer money!); Robt. Lutczyk (10 months credit = $38629); April Cullen (7 months credit + Committee Chair = $30540).

So combined Regional and City severance WINDFALL allowances for our retiring and defeated politicians are as follows: John Gray $180628, Joe Kolodzie $126575, Brian Nicholson $33762 (or $91786 if Region overlooked Nicholson’s 2000 defeat and collection of eligible severance at that time), Robert Lutczyk $60812, April Cullen $51613 + that MBA.

So the best estimate of taxpayer payout to fired and retired councillors is a minimum $453,000, almost half a million of your taxes, maybe money well spent to get rid of these politicians.

Remarkably, these total severance allowances are worth about the equivalent of $3/4 million to the politicians if the allowances are 1/3 tax free as is their regular salary.

And hey, all of these payouts were unbudgeted and so were paid for from “found money,” that fat, waste, and excess I’ve written about so often---the fat, waste and excess that I suggested cutting by 3% during the election campaign....and the fat, waste, and excess politicians will pad by whatever percentage tax increase they hit you with this year!

Don’t worry! Be Happy! But pay those taxes!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

EDITOR'S NOTE
A week after my unanswered request and days after my column deadline time, i received the following email which provides some, but not all, of the information previously requested that has been referred to in the body of the column above. These recently provided figures will allow readers to revise upwards the severance figures provided above....and they will also clear up the mystery of B. Nicholson's severance package and the questions raised by incorrect information provided me earlier by Regional Officials. The over-estimation of J. Kolodzie's allowance was due to overlooking the fact that he was an Oshawa Local City Councillor only for many years and not a Regional Councillor

Mr. Longworth, In regards to your inquiry about the severance pay entitlement of the 16 Regional Councillors who did not return for the 2010 to 2014 term, please see the information listed below. (You will see that only 15 have applied at this time.)

Individuals are entitled to this severance if they have more than three years of service, up to a maximum of 18 months remuneration.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Abernethy, Jim: $15,992.67
Crawford, Scott: $51,976.17
Cullen, April: $31,487.17
Emm, Gerald: $71,967.00
Grant, John: $15,992.67
Gray, John: $71,970.67
Johnson, Richard: $71,967.00
Kolodzie, Joseph: $27,987.17
Littley, Bonnie: $15,992.67
Lutczyk, Robert: $39,981.67
McMillen, Jim: $27,987.17
Nicholson, Brian: $27,987.17
Pearce, Marilyn: $44,981.67
Shepherd, Bob: $15,992.67
Trim, Charles: $44,981.67

Regards,
Tania Laverty
Manager, Communications The Regional Municipality of Durham
P: 905-668-7711 ext. 3813
E: tania.laverty@durham.ca

Oshawa doesn’t deserve this City Council

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
September 6, 2010

The municipal elections are now a scant seven weeks away and candidates are heating up their campaigns as the deadline for nominations for election to city council approaches.

At present there are 47 declared candidates to appear on the ballot. Candidates for Durham Public Board of Education or the Separate school board will be in addition to these.

Do you have a chance in hell of becoming an informed voter? To do so, you’d have to know who each of the candidates are, have a chance to meet them, and know what they stand for. An impossible task! Hell, there are so many candidates that even the candidates themselves do not know all their opposition candidates.

The latest totals for each office are Mayor---Vote for 1 of 6 candidates, Regional Council---Vote for 7 of 25 candidates, and Local council---Vote for 3 of 16 candidates.

This general vote election and the huge impossible election ballot with 53 names for Public School Supporters when trustee candidate names are included and 52 names for Separate School Supporters is compliments of Mayor John Gray and Councillors Pidwerbecki, Kolodzie, Parkes, Henry, Sholdra, and Marimpietri. If you think their implementation of the General Vote after refusing to inform voters about the plebiscite question is a travesty of democracy, they should not get your votes on October 25th.

It’s interesting that the plebiscite question was placed on the 2006 election ballot despite the fact that there was not one whimper of expressed citizen discontent with ward elections. This should raise serious questions in your head about why the question was on the ballot.

All of the action for change has come from city politicians and so the plebiscite question and the result they wanted arose simply as another form of entitlement for the politicians

We already know that they vote themselves huge salaries, lifetime health benefits, huge retirement benefits, $100 per week tax free car allowances, free advertising and campaign materials on the taxpayer’s dime, free travel, city charge cards---they even voted to demolish council chambers and city hall “A” wing at $25M to give themselves more palatial office space more becoming of their station in life.

So why not shanghai democracy to give them a lifetime council seat. This is the atrocity they’ve perpetrated on the Oshawa people.

Their manipulation of democracy to get a result they wanted is more akin to the election systems in North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and many African countries, etc.---the kinds of governments where western nations have seen serious losses of troops trying to bring justice and fairness to citizens entrapped under inhumane dictatorial governments.

To secure the desired plebiscite result, Council followed a strategy of keeping the issue secret to confront voters “cold” in voter’s booth with a question they had never heard, never considered, and didn’t understand….and then you had to vote “NO” to preserve a system that everyone was satisfied with….CLEVER!

Realizing this “ploy,” I did write to the Mayor and Council and Committee Chairman, Cathy Clarke, whose committee steered the issue through council, suggesting an information brochure explaining the pros and cons of the ward/general vote systems be sent to all residents but this suggestion was ignored in the interests of keeping the secret to election day.

I even offered to write the argument for preserving was elections but this offer of help was also ignored.

While Canada’s Supreme Court has frequently stated that an informed public is a basic necessity of democracy, Oshawa’s City Council decided on this “strategy of secrecy” to keep the public in the dark and catch them with a trick question that no one had heard, considered, or discussed, and which had confusing terminology that was never defined, and worded in such a way that the “yes” answer most will give when confronted with a confusing question they don’t understand, resulted in a change from the system everyone seemed satisfied with.

Amazingly, Mayor John Gray stated at city council, just before the adoption of the general vote, that city council had no responsibility to inform the public about the question council asked. He said it was the responsibility of the concerned public to fundraise and organize to inform the public. He didn’t say such third party fundraising and campaigning is against the Ontario Municipal Election Act, nor did he say that the same Act gave City Council unfettered and unlimited spending ability to communicate details of plebiscite questions to their publics.

Amazing, city council asks a question to get public opinion on an issue and says they have no responsibility to inform the public about the issue, and lies about this being private citizen responsibility.

This was lying to the public at its worst---or it showed a tremendously uninformed mayor. In any case, it definitely demonstrated that Gray is unfit to lead our city and lead our council.

Don’t you think that if city council wanted an accurate measure of public opinion on this question, they would have wanted to inform the public?

Because they didn’t provide the necessary information, they showed they didn’t care.

They just knew the result they wanted and followed a strategy to get it.

This is vote fixing in the extreme and is a practice we would expect from third world authoritarian fascists, despots, dictators, and tyrants….but in Canada---no way!

How can a city council that pulls this “secrecy strategy” to “trick” the public and “fix” the vote ever claim to be open, transparent, honest, accountable, democratic…and respectful of city ratepayers?

And what is just as important….If they pull a “fast one” like this on such an important question, can you trust anything they tell you?---like the city’s debt position or the costs of city hall demolition, rebuilding, and renovations….or their election promises.

Presently John Gray and every member of council are acknowledging that taxes are too high after voting for them and now to say they believe in holding the line or cutting is just too hard to believe. In fact, two months after the last election, Mayor John Gray was calling for 9% tax increases.

So why did politicians want the general vote? Easy! 1) They wanted to “semi-retire” by eliminating all constituency work. When everyone is responsible for everything, no one is responsible for anything, and besides…your vote is not important in the bigger scheme of general elections---they’re not responsible to you! And, 2) they’re virtually guaranteed lifetime re-election. This is the history of the general vote in Oshawa when for seven general vote councils counting for 107 seats, not one councillor lost their seat by the vote. All change took place by death or resignation of members. Only name recognition is important in a general vote election….not service to the public! And 3) they’ll now be able to demand more salary claiming they have twice the constituency size of the Federal or Provincial Government!

The General vote is going to cost taxpayers “big time” as politicians claim these greater salaries for greater responsibility, bigger staffs to handle a claimed bigger workload, and bigger offices to house the increased staff, more palatial offices consistent with their increased importance, and bigger office budgets to cover their bigger needs….big, big, big, $, $, $...all piled on top of the highest taxes in the GTA….ridiculous!

Service to you, the voter, is irrelevant for politicians under the general vote. Politicians can snuff their nose at you! Your single vote is relatively unimportant when 20,000 or so votes might be required for election and so no politician will put much effort into solving your problem.

Instead politicians will devote great attention to the wishes of trade unions, the golf club, large churches and organizations, etc. as they feel that these organizations will encourage their city wide membership to vote for the “friendly” and “helpful” politicians that have jumped in to serve the needs of the large organization.

Therefore the voting power and the interests of politicians shifts from individual homeowners, taxpayers, and residents to the larger organizations controlling or influencing large blocks of votes.

Our general vote here in Oshawa is proof positive that your politicians don’t give a damn about democracy. Everything is secondary to their sense of entitlement. That’s why we have a system here not used in any large city anywhere in Canada.

And don’t you think if the system implemented here was any good, it’d be widely used across the country?

The job of city voters come the October 25th election is to turf out the whole damn self-serving bunch before they do more harm to democracy and to this city!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Politics 101---A Basic Primer of Political Strategy for Political Neophytes

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
August 9, 2010

Today is my birthday and I should be getting reams of presents….but I’m reversing things a bit and giving out gifts of political advice from one who has been closely involved in politics for over 35 years as a Federal and Provincial Constituency Executive Member, Campaign Organizer and Strategist, Voting Delegate at a number of National and Provincial Leadership Conventions, and Federal Candidate for the governing party.

This column is written out of concern of a “Code of Conduct” campaign signed by 19 of Oshawa’s 27 “new” council candidates. The real concern is that this code of niceness may discourage some candidates from doing the basic and necessary job of every candidate in every campaign….that is, highlighting incumbent and council shortcomings to make the case that change is necessary.

The first and most basic lesson in Politics 101 is that voters never replace incumbents because they’ve found someone better. Incumbents are only replaced because they’ve messed up so badly...so incensing the public that change is demanded. And competitors to the incumbents have to make sure they stoke the flames of this public discontent. Public memory is short….and new politicians must make sure the public never forgets.

This “niceness code” makes no more sense than promoting the nicest person in the company as its CEO. In making that choice, niceness is not a factor…nor will it be a factor for election to council. Wise voters will be voting for candidates they feel will be effective leaders...but voters have to be concerned enough about the actions of the present politicians that there is an “ocean current” sentiment for change. We are seeing much criticism of council in “letters to the editor” and successful politicians will have to “stoke the flames” of this latent unrest if they hope to have a chance at election.

The naming of individuals, which is discouraged by the “Code of Conduct” Campaign, is part of the process. Election to City Council is not like getting elected as President of a High School Student Council, which is a popularity contest where niceness is important. Real politics is a savage “blood sport” with huge consequences for the public and where only the tough and thick-skinned survive.

Another problem with the “Code of Conduct” Campaign is that signing the code may be the “first lie” of some candidates who have no intention of it having any impact on their campaign behavior. They may see political merit on being on the “nice” list, even though it is unlikely to lead to many votes or any change in their conduct. Signing the code may only highlight the hypocrites, which in itself may not be a bad thing.

While there are many astute and knowledgeable voters, mostly because they are engaged with the council over some issue like high taxes, the student rental housing problem around the university, the $46,000 MBA funding issue, the $250,000 Cullen Gardens Miniatures issue, the burgeoning city debt which has risen from $15M to over $160M under John Gray’s administration, the Goodman Pond beaver slaughter issue, the Mayor’s $46,000 Birthday party issue, the demolition of many of our city arenas, the wasteful $20M demolition and rebuilding of Council Chambers and “A” wing of city hall, or the last election’s Ward/General Vote plebiscite issue in which the Mayor publicly stated it was not City Hall’s responsibility to inform the public about this issue. So much for transparency and accountability from this Mayor! So council fooled the public with a trick question they had never seen and didn’t understand into voting for an election system not used in any large city in the country but which was favoured by the politicians in preserving their lifetime seats.

Unfortunately, most voters are not so engaged, interested, or knowledgeable, and many who vote do so only out of a feeling of democratic responsibility. The public memory is short, and so voters have to be constantly barraged from all directions and with a unified message from all new candidates about the mess, the entitlements, the lack of transparency and accountability, and the giant mistakes and wastage of tax monies of the present bunch.

Without this message, which is the message the public has to hear to give them reason to kick out the present crew, I guarantee that there will be few new members of council….that is the history of the general vote in Oshawa. Out of seven general vote councils prior to 1985 counting for 107 total seats, not one incumbent lost their seat by the vote. All change on council over that time resulted from the death or resignation of the aging members.

In fact, in the upcoming “General Vote” Election, there is only one guaranteed new face for council. Two councillors have vacated their local seats, leaving two seats to fill from among those presently nominated, and one of those two new seats is likely to go to former local councillor Mike Nicholson, brother of Councillor Brian Nicholson. At the Regional Level, one councillor has vacated his seat which will likely go to former Mayor Nancy Diamond or Local Councillor Tito Dante Marimpietri. No other changes will take place unless all of the new candidates bring out the heavy artillery and start firing their big guns now. Just having good ideas will not cut it!

The second basic rule of Politics 101 is that you don’t get elected based on your knowledge or intelligence or ideas or education or platform or what you can contribute to the city.

One only has to look at Councillor Maryanne Sholdra for that. At the recent special council meeting having to do with the beaver cull, she arrived late as usual, and drew howls of well-deserved derisive laughter asking questions that had already been answered, and her “other planet” surprise that the beaver cull did not involve hundreds of beaver in the Goodman Pond rather than the well publicized 4 or 5 that even the children who were present knew. Despite her incompetence, she is likely to get re-elected with a “sign and ad campaign” in which she avoids all public appearances and minimizes any face-to-face contact with the public. That's why she didn't attend the recent forum for all City Council candidates. She knows in politics, as in “finders-keepers,” possession of a council seat is 95% of the law---and any public appearance by her simply exposes her incompetency to the public.

The “niceness” campaign plays right into the hands of the politicians in helping them to retain their seats by reducing public sentiment for change.

In fact, incumbent politicians will criticize any critique of Council mess-ups as destructive to the city, hoping, of course, to discourage opponents from exposing council and politician shortcomings. They know that its council actions themselves that result in political change, and they want to minimize voter knowledge of the mess-ups.

Falling for the “niceness” campaign is the new candidate’s and the city's worst enemy. It simply props up the incumbent dead wood on city council helping to insure their re-election. You have to give voters reason for voting for change. You have to attack their record and performance at every turn. Otherwise, you don’t have a hope in hell of winning. Niceness will simply not cut it!

Campbell’s Soup sells well because of the very recognizable name and red and white label and its long standing staple of a family’s diet going back to great-great-grandmother’s time---not because it is the best product around. Politics is not much different from this. The politician’s name is important….not that it’s good or great…but that it is recognized and familiar. Just as mother will pick Campbell’s off the shelf first without questioning whether it is best, many voters will pick the familiar name off the ballot without giving quality a thought. You only stop buying Campbell’s Soup when it’s left a bad taste in your mouth for some reason.

Same thing for politics! You only stop voting for a politician once he’s left a bad taste in your mouth. The job of new politicians is to remind voters of that “bad taste” left by the current bunch. Otherwise, voters will continue to pick up that “political can” of Campbell’s Soup never considering the quality of what is inside with the majority of voters never considering that there might be someone more deserving of their vote.

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Mayor John Gray and His Merry Band of Beaver Killers

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
JuLY 26, 2010


At the June 28, 2010 city council meeting, city council were presented with a staff report that addressed the problem of a colony of beavers building dams in the Goodman Creek storm management retention pond. It reported that city staff had engaged trappers to ensnare the colonizing beavers with underwater traps. This would cause the beaver to die a slow and terrifying death by drowning.

If you mistreated your dog in the same fashion, you would be called up on the carpet and subjected to a lengthy prison term, and an examination of the state of your mental health.

This deplorable staff information was accepted unanimously without comment by any member of council who are used to voting to destroy or demolish everything that comes to mind---city hall, North Oshawa arena, the civic, rundle house, the downtown, etc., etc., etc….and now, the Goodman Creek beaver colony!

This is just another episode in a never-ending litany of incidents, bad judgements, and political pratfalls by our current crop of Laurel and Hardy Keystone Kops "Comedy of Errors" City Council that can’t seem to get anything right. It would all be so funny, if it weren’t so damn serious.

This city council is so politically inept that it trashes this city under the “bad publicity” bus with virtually every action it takes.

This week, it’s the Goodman Creek beaver colony….next week---stay tuned!

This city council is so inept that city staff must be toying with the politicians by slipping in this beaver killing information at the last council meeting prior to the October 25th election. Perhaps city staff, like many city residents, wants to see a complete Election Day wipeout of all of the present incompetents.

Voters will have an important choice to make on the Oct 25, 2010, voting day---whether to re-elect the incumbents to give us more of the same incompetence and lack of responsible oversight or to replace the old and tired faces with new who would be more alert to responsibly managing the affairs of this city.

Voters will have the choice to have more beaver cullings, more MBA tuition fundings for politicians, more needless destruction of city arenas, more life-time retirement benefits for politicians, more needless and expensive construction projects like replacing our iconic council chamber and “A” wing of city hall with a misplaced aluminum-clad beer-can replacement, more salary and benefits perks for politicians, more Cullen miniatures purchases, more student housing fiascoes, more high taxes, and the never-ending list goes on...OR a complete break with the past and the election of a complete set of new faces on city council.

In watching Oshawa elections for the last 30 years, I’ve never seen such potential political talent stepping up to the election plate as I’ve seen this year.

Every councillor has a duty to yell and scream when they see irresponsible or unethical actions or bad judgements being made by council or city staff, or any individual member of council. Instead we see a council that is not self-policing in any way…a council whose members jump on politically expedient bandwagons only after bad/unpopular decisions have been exposed by the public.

Every member of council was silent on this “beaver issue” like they were so deafeningly silent on actions such as funding the $46,000 MBA’s or the $45,000 Mayor’s birthday party Stephen Colbert day, or the $1/4 Million Cullen Miniatures purchase, until the wastefulness was exposed by private citizens. And only then did some see political opportunity in jumping on the bandwagon already exposed by private citizens.

Voter’s have to be cognizant of those politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouth at once…voting one way at council and then supporting the opposite positions to voters.

This is not the first time this city council has voted in support of inhumane killing of beaver in this pond. They reluctantly admitted to killing six beaver here in November, 2009, after first lying to residents that the beaver had been captured and relocated.

The November killing raised considerable public furor at the time and you’d think that the fuss raised would have taught council and city staff that the public would not condone this brutal action. Guess they are either slow learners or just don’t give a damn about voter’s concerns.

Of course, we all know that staff can take control if there is weak leadership at the helm...and Mayor John Gray is often seen as an enthusiastic cheer leader for city staff. In his hard hearted fashion, fully supportive of the staff decision to slaughter the beaver and refusing to call a meeting to review the matter until forced to do so by a petition of the majority of council, Gray intoned, "We just have to get rid of those critters some way."

I received an email from Andrea Bragg, an Oshawa resident concerned that beavers in Goodman Pond were once again being inhumanely killed in the same barbaric fashion as last fall, and that despite the public concern raised at that time, city staff have not come up with recommendations that would include relocating the animals or installing a beaver pipe that would control water level buildups at the same time as allowing the beaver to continue to exist in the pond.

Ms. Bragg suggests that city hall’s action to drown the beavers, which graces Oshawa’s Coat of Arms in recognition of it being a First Nation’s Trading Post for beaver pelts in earliest times, is brutal, unethical, and unacceptable in present times.

Besides, beavers presence in the retention pond and their subsequent raising of water levels has resulted in the emergence of a more diverse ecosystem including ducks, swans, herons, fish, mink, muskrat, turtles, frogs, snakes and foxes, and a more interesting mix of plant life---a little bit of Canada’s cottage ecosystem right in the middle of Oshawa. Hell, the beaver are providing free engineering and labour to do a job of parks beautification and naturalization that city hall and its taxpayers would otherwise be spending big bucks to do. Perhaps city hall sees these busy beavers as a contentious labour issue!

The vast majority of city voters would agree with Ms. Bragg and it is totally unbelievable, that in this election year, no city council member would object to the inhumane culling of this beaver colony.

Ms. Bragg said her group was ready to call in the Toronto media, even though, as she says, “This city does not need any more negative publicity.” In my response to Ms. Bragg, I suggested that she should call in the Toronto media as the most expeditious way of trying to save the beaver, since any reasoned plea to city council usually falls on deaf ears, especially as council has recessed for the summer and will not now be meeting until after the October 25th election.

Even adverse publicity has not stopped this city council from irresponsible action in the past, but it is the best hope Ms. Bragg’s group has of stopping the senseless slaughter of the Goodman Creek beaver colony.

Ms. Bragg and Marissa Kata organized a protest rally attended by about 55 residents and a couple of city councillors at the Goodman Creek Retention Pond on Saturday, July 17. They also invited the Toronto Press.

In preparation for the July 17th event, concerned resident Jack Snedden was checking out the surroundings around the Goodman Creek beaver pond. Despite city hall’s assertions that the traps involved were underwater snares, he found two “loaded” beaver traps partly buried in the mud and vegetative material surrounding the pond. Had children stepped on these, they would have been seriously injured with expensive potential lawsuits lodged against the city.

Councillor Brian Nicholson, who was at the rally, insisted that these snares were not the ones engaged presently by the city and that these must have been left over from last November in the last beaver cull.

This lack of care is even more serious if the traps had been left there over the winter and had not been collected and accounted for by the “experts” who were paid to set the traps on behalf of the city.

As a result of the protest rally, enough councillor signatures were gathered to hold a special city council meeting on July 21 to review the earlier beaver killing decision. A motion by Brian Nicholson to immediately stop all beaver killings in the Goodman Retention Pond and for city staff to come up with a comprehensive plan to control water levels and flooding potential in city beaver ponds was passed on votes of Brian Nicholson, John Neal, Robert Lutcyk, Tito Dante Marimpietri, and April Cullen.

Opposed to the motion, and continuing to support the brutal slaughter of the animals, were Mayor John Gray and Councillors Nester Pidwerbecki, Joe Kolodzie, and Mary Anne Sholdra.

This was such a hot issue that Mayoral Candidates, Councillors Louise Parkes and John Henry, were not there to vote on this important issue---Guess they didn’t want anyone to know how they felt on this important issue and that speaks tons about their potential leadership of city council.

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

One for You and Two for Me!... Are some city politicians on the take?

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
June 7, 2010

While we undoubtedly have one or two city council members who are there to perform some ethical and valuable public service, we have others who are there to line their pockets with higher salaries than they’ve ever earned or could earn in the private sector, who play every ethical question so close to the line so as to seemingly erase the boundaries between right and wrong, and skim off every dollar in every way they can for their personal entitlements.

With the release of the recent Oliphant Inquiry commenting on the brown bags of cash former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney received from Airbus lobbyist Karl Heinz Shreiber, questions arise as to the honesty of elected officials everywhere and at every level. Mulroney, of course, stuffed the cash in a New York safety deposit box “forgetting” to declare it as income to Canada’s Income Tax authorities until it became public information.

Recently, Canada’s Federal Parliamentarians rebuffed Sheila Fraser, Canada’s Auditor General, from auditing the half billion dollars of expense money Canada’s 308 MP’s and 105 Senators burn through annually.

And recently, Oshawa City Council voted against public disclosure of their own expense records. What do they all want to hide? Is ethical public service less important to our elected officials than drowning their chops in the public trough? And isn't this secrecy contrary to the city's transparency policy?

To assure citizens that city politicians were acting in the city’s interest, City Council passed a by-law on October 14, 2008, putting in place a Council Charter as a guideline for the conduct of members of Council. It provides a single public statement of Council values, responsibilities and desired behaviour.

It stated, “Public service is a public trust, and as such, Council members hold positions of privilege. Every elected municipal official should be committed to the highest standards of ethical behavior and discharge their duties in a manner that recognizes, and is committed to, the well-being of the community."

The Charter Along with the transparency and accountability policy, we were told, will help ensure that the public interest is protected and Oshawa residents may have trust in the integrity and impartiality of their local government.” Good luck on this!

Council actions show that these are simply PR Documents which misrepresent the day-to-day values and actions of many of our politicians. These documents make it clear that the principles and values declared are operating guidelines only without any censure processes. Good thing for some of the politicians because some continue to operate in ways that most citizens would declare unethical, unfair, dishonest, and unprincipled.

Even though they were passed as bylaws…and you and I know that all bylaws have enforcement penalties---but not these bylaws, that have to do with council actions and behaviours.

In any case, we thought we’d look at some of their principles and just see how they’re working for the citizens of our city.

The charter says the key role of council is to “Act as the guardian of the public interest.” So we’d ask Mayor John Gray who trotted out this Council Charter with great fanfare how spending $46,000 of taxpayer money for the MBA’s was acting as a guardian of the public interest; how secretly spending $45,000 of taxpayer money on the Stephen Colbert Day (the Mayor’s $45,000 birthday party) was acting in the public interest; and we’d ask council how demolishing city arenas in older Oshawa and rebuilding north of Taunton was acting in the interest of the less mobile children in these older sections of Oshawa; and we’d ask council how needlessly demolishing our council chamber and “A’ wing of city hall and rebuilding at a cost exceeding $20 million is acting in the public interest. We’d ask the same question about the $40 Million GM Centre in downtown that loses $3 million annually was acting as a guardian of the public interest and about the $250,000 Cullen Gardens Miniatures purchase. We could go on asking this question about most of the city politician’s actions since this same gang has been on council.

The Charter’s first paragraph preamble says, “Municipal Council members hold positions of privilege. As leaders of the community, they are held to a higher standard of behavior and must discharge their duties in a manner that recognizes a fundamental commitment to the well-being of the community, and maintains and enhances public confidence and trust in the Corporation.

So Councillor Brian Nicholson attends Oshawa’s Committee of Adjustment, presided over by his spouse, Mrs. Kyle Nicholson, on behalf of one of his political donors in order to get development approvals through the Committee. What? Assisting his and his wife’s and his brother’s political donor to get development approvals!!! And this was for the selling a portion of Chopin Park initially assessed at over $180,000 for only $15000, with the city picking up all the standard developer costs of over $10,000 to allow the developer to build 24 apartment units? We haven’t established whether there was going to be a “sweetheart deal” with all of the lot levy developer charges but fortunately with the widespread media attention to this sell-off of our parkland, the deal did not get council approval.

It’s interesting that Nicholson went to bat for his political donor friend even though city planning officials had always recommended against approval. We don’t know what discount was proposed over the $408,000 the developer would have been expected to pay in development charges for the 24 units he was proposing. As former long time City and Regional Councillor, Bruce McArthur wrote, this guy was certainly one "lucky" developer to have a friend like Councillor Brian Nicholson.

So much for that “higher standard of behavior and discharging of duties in a manner that recognizes a fundamental commitment to the well-being of the community.

Nicholson's action raises serious concerns. Are politicians expediting development and selling their votes for political donations? This is an extremely serious question and an important reason to make corporate donations illegal and publicly fund election campaigns.

And what do you think about the ethics of a city politician representing a donor in front of his wife to get some development favour? Such favours are all at the expense of Oshawa taxpayers, of course.

The question of city political appointments for the spouses of politicians is very questionable and smells of nepotism, corruption, and profiteering. Nepotism and Cronyism are both defined as political corruption by wikopedia. All city hall actions should be squeaky clean and at arms lengths. Nicholson, no doubt, lobbied and voted for his wife to get that chairmanship of Oshawa’s Committee of Adjustment…but representing one of his political donors in front of his wife is reprehensible in all ways and stinks of rot. Former City and Regional Councillor and now Mayor Candidate, Cathy Clarke, lobbied and voted for her spouse Michael to get the City Harbour Commission Appointment.

All these connections sounds like Chicago politics in the day of iron fisted Mayor Richard J Daley.

The requirement of the City Charter in, “Ensuring the accountability and transparency of all decisions and operations of the municipality,” does not exist for this City Council. The city still precedes virtually every meeting of council with an in-camera session. And the Mayor personally dictated the $46,000 funding for his birthday party, the Stephen Colbert Day, and even city councillors could not get the cost for this until one filed a freedom of information request at a cost of $110. But the truly telling example of negating this principle was the Ward/General Vote Plebiscite and for which the Mayor said the city had no responsibility to inform the public of the question, its meaning, the difference it would make, etc. saying all this communication responsibility was that of concerned citizens themselves.

In respect of the Charter Principle, “Act as the guardian of the public interest," one need look no further than Councillor April Cullen having the gall to apply to use city tax money to fund her MBA degree tuitions, and when she is on her last courses, announces that she will not be running again, and takes an instructional job with Durham College, a job that she would be unqualified for without her taxpayer funded MBA. Her $100,000 political salary, I guess, was not enough for her to pay her own tuitions, despite the fact that many parents and their children go deep in debt to pay for their own education. Cullen justified the taxpayer cost as “only 48¢ per citizen over her four year term…as if she places costs above principles. Shame!

Usually when one has an employer funded tuition, one is required to work for a declared number of years to insure employer return on the investment. Pay back of the tuitions is now necessary as taxpayers are receiving no benefit from this expenditure. City council must vote to withhold Cullen’s tuition costs from the healthy retiring allowances she will receive. Of course, an ethical politician would direct that the tuitions would be withheld. We’ll keep an interested eye on how this develops.

And, of course, if city council was really interested in acting as a guardian of the public interest, they would have stopped approvals of these tuitions at the beginning. But politicians wouldn’t want to step on other politicians sense of entitlements, would they, for fear their own entitlements would be withheld.

We’d ask how the extension of health benefits to retiring and defeated politicians recently approved at the final hours of this council prior to the upcoming election is acting in the public interest, or is it, as is so much of council business, acting in the politician’s interest.

The Charter Principle, “Treat each other, City staff and members of the public with courtesy, understanding, trust and respect, at all times,” is a real laugher. To hear the bickering and the accusations and to witness the widespread council tension, conflict, and infighting is shameful although this is to be expected when all politicians are competitors for the same votes in the upcoming "General Vote" municipal elections. Council behavior seems to be more like a school yard brawl than adults working cohesively for the benefits of this city. And council members sometime extend this lack of respect and aggressiveness to citizens making presentations to council and its committees. With this negative and bullying behavior extended to each other and to private citizens, we have a dysfunctional and non-productive council…and Oshawa is the loser.

A key element of the City Charter is that politicians “Not use the influence of his or her public office for any purpose other than for the exercise of his or her official duties.” This Charter principle is obviously not important to Councillor Brian Nicholson. He has not only represented his political donors in front of the city’s Committee of Adjustment, he has used his political office to represent individuals, presumably at a fee, at other hearings. Apparently Nicholson presented his Regional and City Councillor business card at a Landlord and Tenant Board hearing in Toronto as his credential.

The city subsequently received a letter from Bryan Hackett, Hackett Simpson Tripodi LLP, Barristers & Solicitors, on behalf of Adel Kirloss, Landlord, inquiring as to whether Councillor Nicholson’s appearance before the Landlord and Tenant Board as an agent for the Tenant concerning a Landlord & Tenant matter (TST-01070-IN) with respect to 196 Spadina Road, Toronto was authorized by City Council.

It would be interesting to check to see whether city or regional council or committee meetings were scheduled on the day(s) of this hearing to establish whether Nicholson was putting his own financial interests ahead of his responsibility to voters.

Perhaps, the law office involved should have filed a complaint against Nicholson with the law society for acting as a "non-qualified" agent for a defendant in a pseudo-legal hearing.

Such complaints in the past have resulted in severe penalties for politicians which ultimately resulted in huge legal costs and the loss of their council seat.

Space limitations here prohibit me from further exploding the myth that the City Council Charter has on assuring positive values, ethics and behavior of city council members.

The Charter was only a PR Document designed to fool the gullible public about the true actions, attitudes, and motivations of many of our city council members.

While only some members of city council have been named in this article, more are guilty of serious transgressions. For example, all those who voted for the General Vote---Councillors Pidwerbecki, Kolodzie, Parkes, Sholdra, Marimpietri, Henry, and Mayor Gray were all voting out of their own self-interest and do not deserve your support in the upcoming Oct. 25, 2010 municipal elections. They put their own interests in getting re-elected until their death or retirement in front of the city's interest in having a representative, accountable, functional, and productive city government.

They designed a convoluted and difficult to understand plebiscite question and followed a strategy to limit public information and discussion in order to catch voters "cold" in the voting booth with a question they didn't understand, had not heard or considered, and worded in a convoluted way such that the "Yes" vote most voters would give, if they didn't understand the question, resulted in the change the politicians wanted.

This is vote fixing, a manipulation of the public, and an underhanded assault on this country's democratic principles.

City voters must throw out the incompetent and self-serving bums at the earliest opportunity if we are to get this city on track again.

City voters must elect a local government that works!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

There are Strange Things Done Neath Facebook’s Political Sun

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 31, 2010

You can tell when a politician is on the run. That’s when they start striking out and threatening and bullying. And in a sign of true weakness, after all of the bluster fails to work, when the opposition is unyielding, they retreat, with their tail between their legs.

Their character also shows when they attempt to dominate all the conversation…cause if you’re dominating the floor, no one gets a chance to question or dispute what is being said. As one very popular Oshawa City Politician advised many years ago, "If you don't know what you're talking about, talk loud!"

And when all this fails, a politician on the run threatens to sue to silence those communicating information they don’t want the public to know…even if the info seems innocuous on the surface. And so Oshawa's Councillor Brian Nicholson threatened to sue me last week for reminding him to document his employment record outside of politics on his resume…but more of that later!

We have had classic examples of all of this political theatre during the past week, with Councillor Brian Nicholson at center stage.

It started innocently enough. A concerned citizen, Ms. Jennifer Evelyn, decided that she’d get in the game and try to compile information about city council candidates for the illumination of her fellow voters. This is especially important now that we have the general vote which will produce such a giant ballot that it will be near impossible for voters to get to know the candidates.

As all city council candidates were seeking to be hired by the Oshawa voting public for the position of city council member, she figured it would be useful to start a facebook page to host resumes for the candidates. After all, they are all attempting to be hired by the voters, and a resume would be basic to help voters decide whom to “hire.”

As a Mayor Candidate, I quickly posted a resume with a list of credentials and accomplishments on Ms. Evelyn’s site. Councillor Louise Parkes said she’d pull one together and post it…although as of this writing, it has not been posted.

Sometimes politicians promise things that they have no intent on doing. They feel that the political capital comes from the promise and not from the follow-through. They figure the promise will be forgotten, but that they can pick up some valuable political capital in the process.

By way of apparently supporting the public agenda, some politicians will even offer suggestions to make the request stronger.

When Ms. Evelyn requested resumes, Councillor Brian Nicholson posted a host of additional items to be asked of resume respondents and, as is his habit, gave a myriad of Nicholsonian suggestions. When pressed for his own resume, he explained it was posted elsewhere without giving the location.

When pressed for further resume details, Nicholson pointed out that he had a BA in economics and political science, and then gave a lengthy list of City and Regional Economics, Finance, and Budget Committee Chairmanships he’d held.

His degree in economics certainly would have garnered him some votes for the chairmanship of these committees. After all with that economics major, he would look like a trained guru of economics to his fellow city and regional politicians.

Nicholson failed to provide information about the details of his university education and so he was asked some basic information---Which university?...And when? When this information was not forthcoming, I, and others, decided to check up on Nicholson's claim to that Trent University BA degree in economics and political science that he said he had.

During the process, and in response to all the resume advice Nicholson had provided on the site, I posted a remark that it was worthwhile to bring some “real world” experience to political office. I specifically mentioned that Nicholson should detail his work as a jail guard and as a life insurance trainee, the dates of those jobs, and why he left them. This is what got his ire up.

I thought asking why he left those jobs was a legitimate question any job interviewer would ask. Nicholson, however, responded to this simple question in an unusual way.

“If you have info you’d like to share about this, go ahead, because my lawyer needs the work, and the last guy who broached this subject lost a defamation lawsuit,” Nicholson wrote on the facebook site.

I couldn’t understand why such a simple question would strike such a hostile and sensitive nerve. Maybe there is something there the public should know…if only to know why a lawsuit is threatened with such a simple question regarding past employment history. I was floored by Nicholson’s aggressive response!

All Nicholson’s sensitivity over my simple question started me wondering when this former jail guard/life insurance trainee got that degree. Why was he so hot? Did he get it on the taxpayer’s dime too? Did we pay for his degree just as we sucker taxpayer’s paid for April Cullen’s and James Anderson’s MBA’s?

When we requested details about Nicholson’s degree, where it was from, and the dates, he quickly pulled all references to it from the places where I’d seen it and had previously printed off a copy. Nicholson then removed all of the many comments/suggestions/information he had provided on Ms. Evelyn’s facebook page…a page and a topic that he seemingly enthusiastically endorsed earlier.

Now that’s funny. Why would he pull his comments and suggestions and threats of lawsuits and references to his university degree from the page? Something seemed rotten in the state of Denmark! Nicholson’s action to pull all of the stuff he had written on the page sent inquiring minds a flutter! Good thing I’d previously printed off all the pages with Nicholson’s advice, threats, credentials and comments!

We started to wonder whether Brian Nicholson had the degree that he claimed he had. After all, that economics training may have been influential in getting him those chairmanships in the Oshawa’s Economic Policy Committee, Durham Region Budget Committee, Durham Region Finance Committee, Oshawa Library Finance Chair, and the many other Finance/Economic Chairs that he noted he held in his time in elected office. He seemed like the finance/economics guru of Oshawa and Durham Region. And all these chairmanships probably stem from his claim of a university degree with a major in Economics and Political Science. And wouldn't he be called a fraud if he got all these important positions based on credentials he claimed he had, but didn't?

And so we called the registrar of Trent U and asked whether Brian Nicholson ever earned a Trent Degree. “Nope,” we were told, “Nobody by that name is a graduate of Trent.”

Maybe Nicholson was mistaken about his graduation from Trent University. Maybe he graduated from Queens, or U of T, or Harvard or some other university….or even some Southern online institution that will send you a diploma on anything you want…but I guess we’ll never know.

But the whole thing and sequence of events does lead to some serious questions. In the meantime, we’ll just have to believe Brian. He says he has a degree---we just don’t know where its from, what dates he attended, or indeed who paid for it. We just know that he doesn't have the Trent University Degree he claimed. And hopefully the taxpayers didn’t shell out a dime for Nicholson's education---that’s for sure! Maybe Oshawa City and Durham Regional Councillor Brian Nicholson will clear up all these mysteries for us.

In another Nicholson “play of the week,” discussions are sweeping the nation about politicians at all levels releasing detailed expense records. After all, it is our public money and we have a “right” to see how it is being spent, don’t we?

And so Brian Nicholson jumped on this horse.

At widespread public suggestion that politician expense records should be published in Oshawa, and following some council debate, Brian Nicholson moved a motion that detailed line-by-line records be released for all politicians for each year over the last four year term.

He undoubtedly knew that it didn’t have a hope in hell of passing, but it was opportunity for some good press and worthwhile political gamesmanship in this political year, boosting himself up while pushing opponents down into the sewer---perhaps where some of them would be if records of their expenses ever did become public.

He could once again appear the defender of the public purse, maybe all the while hoping like hell that his motion didn’t pass.

When the full-disclosure motion was defeated, Nicholson announced with some fanfare that he was going to "direct staff" to compile his record of expenses which he would then post, and he challenged all other council members to do the same. I have not yet seen Nicholson’s records posted but await their publication and will confirm in this column when I see them.

Hopefully, like the immediate political capital idea expressed earlier, this promise to post was not just more political bluster with Nicholson finding some excuse in future not to post, or conveniently forgetting the promise, feeling that all political benefits have already accrued with his announcement and challenge to his fellow councillors, and that the whole thing will now just go away.

I hope Nicholson’s full disclosure motion was more than just good political theatre knowing that it was not going to be passed. In the meantime, Nicholson can look like a hero to those who are concerned about political spending.

There are two problems with Nicholson’s blustering “DIRECTION TO STAFF” pronouncement to release his expense records.

As an individual member of council, he cannot direct staff to do anything. Direction to staff can only come from council and that requires 5 votes in addition to Nicholson’s. Even if Mary Anne Sholdra was absent yet again for another crucial vote, he’d still need six votes as tie votes are lost.

Interestingly, Mayor John Gray’s input into the discussion was a motion that full disclosure should be confirmed for the future only, allowing politicians to clean up their future spending “P’s & Q’s” while continuing to hide present and past spending indiscretions with the taxpayer’s dime.

Now, back to defending myself on that threatened lawsuit, Nicholson v Longworth.

EDITOR'S NOTE---When all candidates were asked to complete questionnaires for recent OTW Candidate Election Profiles, Brian Nicholson stated that he was only a high school graduate with some courses in Economics and Political Science....Guess he can't sue me now if I call him a liar and fraud for misrepresenting his academic credentials, can he?

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/