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/

The System is Broke and Needs to be Fixed

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 24, 2010

Voices are being raised widely that the municipal election system being used in the Province of Ontario is broken and needs fixing. Factors such as career politicians, limited political turnover, election funding, voter turnout, ethnic diversity, giant advantages of incumbency, public cynicism, etc. have all been cited as contributing to low voter turnout. Provincial Legislation which sets the rules for these elections have been reviewed for revision but only minor tinkering has occurred.

None of the big issues that need fixing have been approached by the Provincial officials and their political bosses, probably due to the fact that a great number of provincial lawmakers have arisen from the municipal scene. These guys would hardly want to upset their municipal political brethren and friends, or indeed upset the apple cart that led to their own lengthy political careers, would they?

A group called “Better Ballots,” led by Toronto activist Dave Meslin, has been organized to bring “grass roots” awareness and interest to municipal elections and he was in town last week to address a Durham Chapter of Better Ballots organized by Bruce Wood, President of Oshawa Ratepayer’s Association.

Better Ballots Toronto has compiled a survey of 14 election ballot and voting possibilities and have been surveying citizens to establish what would make a difference to voter participation and turnout, and one of the local papers had an online poll of the survey .

A number of items on the “Better Ballots” survey have to do with making voting more convenient (weekend, online, and telephone voting), lowering the voting age, and extending the vote to permanent residents. These are “apple pie” changes and should be implemented without question.

Internet and telephone voting would undoubtedly increase voter turnout. Despite politicians publicly citing low voter turnout as a problem, privately they like low voter turnouts because that favours incumbents.

Online voting was voted on and defeated by Oshawa City Council as incumbents probably thought the general vote “incumbent advantage” would be reduced if voters could research their vote and then vote from their list. We certainly will be publishing lists to help voters with this task of choosing.

Council rationale for defeating internet voting revolved around security concerns, yet they collect taxes and allow for paying of parks and rec course fees, etc. on the net. And, of course, there are many jurisdictions in Ontario that already have internet voting…so those security concerns are council fantasy---or stretching at straws to support stuff they wanted to avoid! Forget the voting convenience, Oshawa!

Lowering the voting age is another “Better Ballots” good idea. Civics classes in high schools would certainly improve student’s knowledge of the candidates and habits started early often persist into the future. Start-em-young, I say!

Pre-election contribution disclosure is another “Better Ballots” good suggestion. While this may not increase voter turnout, it may affect voter selections. Mayor John Gray, for example, gets close to 80% of his campaign financing from the development industry. This may pre-dispose him to support zoning changes and subdivision approvals needed by developers and city infrastructure expenditures like water and sewage expansions helpful to the development industry but at great cost to the taxpayer.

Knowledge of campaign funding sources would be useful information prior to elections as it is certainly believed by many, that, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

While many of the Better Ballots ideas may improve the election voting process, I feel that there are major systemic problems with the entire election process that have to be addressed to effect real change in improved voter interest and turnout and a real change to the improvement of municipal governance.

I do believe that the "Better Ballots" proposal for term limits is crucial, and I was a guest panelist on the Dec. 8/09 TV Program, Goldhawk Live, arguing just that.

There is so little municipal turnover in the Province that, it has been reported, that only two incumbents out of Ontario’s largest cities were defeated in the last municipal election. So little turnover allows for inadequate room for council renewal and also sends the message to voters that the act of voting does not matter.

Election to council has become lifetime employment for many municipal politicians and prohibits new blood with new ideas and real world work experience from coming into the political fold.

This is certainly true of Oshawa City Council which has a number of members who have been on council for over 20 years and some with very limited or no other work experience.

Rather than legislating this change, the past Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing indicated term limits was a decision for individual councils to make. Of course the Minister that uttered this ludicrous suggestion had a vested interest as he resigned his MPP position shortly thereafter to attempt to return to his former job as Mayor of Ottawa. I would support petitioning the Minister to make term limits the Provincial Law as sitting council members are unlikely to vote to limit their lucrative council seats.

Many of the problems with municipal voting are systemic problems that have not been addressed by the “Fair Ballots” ideas although I applaud their efforts at suggesting reform.

I have SIX KEY SUGGESTIONS that I believe would lead to real reform leading to much better municipal governance and a growth in participation and voting:

ONE---For increased government accountability, municipal political parties (distinct from Provincial and Federal Parties) should be allowed. They are already legal in British Columbia and Quebec and should be here.

Oshawa’s general vote, for example, is impossible for voters without the use of local municipal parties that would simplify the huge ballot into various “teams” with the platform they promise to deliver.

Each political party would then go to the people with a platform.
The platform itself would provide the key choice for voters rather than the individuals involved.

The members of the party would be expected to implement the platform or run the risk of losing support in the next election.

At present, municipal politicians run as individuals and cannot make promises or be held accountable for council decisions as they have only one vote independent of all others on council.

Municipal parties would provide some obligation on the part of their associated politicians to support the group platform or risk losing group endorsement in the next election.

It is a more accountable process if you know what you are going to get before the vote and hold politicians to account to deliver on their promises.

Voting for a party with a platform would provide voters with a real sense of having a “say” in their governance and a crucial role in setting the direction for their municipality on all the key issues. It would also provide politicians with voter support for implementing the initiatives, especially big ticket initiatives, they had promised.

TWO---Campaign costs are “out of line” and eliminate many worthy candidates from participating. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, for example, spent $100 million on his campaign. Costs are escalating in Oshawa, as well, where the upper limits for a Mayoral Campaign are $110,000, for a Regional Campaign about $90,000, and for a City Councillor Campaign about $80,000. These costs are outrageous and eliminate most citizens from considering political office.

I believe all political campaigns should be publicly funded. This would eliminate the risk of donor control of council members and their votes, and also, in recognition that different constituent groups bring different interests, skills and backgrounds to the council table, allow for inclusion of a broader spectrum of citizens to the political process.

Campaign variables such as print advertising, signs, political forums etc. would be highly regulated and publicly and minimally funded and supplied by the municipality using its tendering and bulk purchasing powers.

Many candidate forums would be organized and funded by the municipality, as would flyer production and delivery as responsibility to insure an informed electorate would rest with the city.

Every candidate would have identical opportunity to present themselves to the voting public thus presenting a level playing field to all.

Candidates would be required to post bonds of approximately $2000-$3000 to insure serious campaigns, and this would be refunded if they secured 25% of the winner’s vote tally.

This process would allow all serious candidates to run and would not put rich candidates at an advantage because of money or incumbents at an advantage because of their ability to raise donor funds from the development industry.

All city election costs would be recouped by the city through a reduction in the present excessive political salaries and expense budgets.

THREE---Voting is not only a right, but a responsibility that many people of the world would give their right arm for.

Therefore I would introduce incentives to vote. I would assess a minor voting incentive “tax” as part of the property tax bill for every homeowner in the city. This would provide a monetary “reward” of perhaps $20 for every citizen casting a municipal vote.

The total payout would be totaled and recouped by way of tax assessments over the following four year council term.

A heightened obligation to vote would also encourage responsible citizens to get to know the candidates and hopefully select a stronger council.

FOUR---Council salaries and expenses are getting out of hand. Sitting as a municipal councilor is not a job but a privilege.

Therefore I would support fixing council salaries at those of the average worker in Ontario as assessed by Revenue Canada data and not the executive salaries and perks city politicians are commanding today. The Ontario Provincial Legislature put a ceiling on the salaries of School Trustees a few years ago and they should extend salary limiting legislation to city politicians.

FIVE---Over the long haul, I would favour working with Durham Regional Councillors and the Ontario Provincial Legislature to eliminate Oshawa City Administration and Council as well as those of all of the local city municipalities within Durham Region.

This was done by the Mike Harris Gov’t in Toronto and the City of Toronto now has the lowest taxes in the GTA. A $350,000 Oshawa house, for example, is taxed at the same rate as an $880,000 Toronto house.

Oshawa City Council costs about a third of your property tax bill and yet has very few important responsibilities as all of the major responsibilities were given to Durham Regional Government when it was formed in 1973.

Region wide planning of our Fire Protection Services and our Parks and Rec Services would result in far more strategic placement of these facilities.

Eliminating Oshawa City Council and Administration would cut out significant overlaps and duplications of service to result in huge tax savings.

At the same time, you would still live in Oshawa, just as residents of North York, Scarborough, or Etobicoke still live in those places, despite the fact that their local governments were eliminated many years ago.

SIX---I would support petitioning the Provincial Government to mandate the publication of detailed itemized expense reports on city web pages. Citizens have a right to know where every one of their tax dollars are being spent and publication of this information would insure careful consideration by politicians of all of their expense spending. This is a current issue at all government levels but disclosure has been denied by Oshawa City Council.

At the Federal Level, the $503,500,000 spent annually by our 308 MP’s, an average of $1.634 million per member, is coming under closer scrutiny and MP's feel mounting pressures to allow for an audit by Sheila Fraser, the Federal Auditor General, but this has so far been denied by parliament

If all these changes were implemented, I guarantee Municipal Governments across the Province would be more vibrant and voter interest and participation would increase exponentially.

Editor's Addendum
Every political system is broken and needs to be fixed. Movements such as the Occupy Wall Street Movement and a recent grassroots movement to amend the USA Presidential Election System are proof positive of the need to bring fairness and the ordinary citizen's participation into the process.

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 Has Opened to the Masses---Get involved!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 17, 2010
As the election approaches, city politics seems like a war zone with facebook war-of-words battles breaking out everywhere and politicians attacking each other incessantly.

But what can you expect when the politicians have introduced the general or city wide vote which not only robs the various communities of their guaranteed community representation at city hall, but has produced a dysfunctional council by making all politicians competitors with each other for the same vote.

These are functions of the general vote that I predicted when I made a number of presentations to city council opposing the general vote. At that time, I said the politicians would backbite, bitch, bicker, and grandstand trying to grab the press leading to an unproductive and dysfunctional council and large parts of Oshawa would become disenfranchised over time as all of the political representation would come from a few of the richer areas of the city. We now see these predictions coming true in spades.

But the last thing we’d expect is for city politicians to take out their vitriol on voters who want to express their opinions. After all, that is a right we have in this country…right? But the unheard of is happening.

One Columbus resident who has been active as a responsible and committed citizen in working to preserve the rural uniqueness of her community has received the despicable scorn of Mayor John Gray and Councillor Brian Nicholson when she made a presentation to the May 3, 2010 meeting of the Development Services committee of Council. She addressed Durham Region’s planned amendments to its official plan pushing for about 3,000 hectares of prime agricultural land north of the proposed highway 407 to be rezoned for employment and residential use. Ms. McConkey argued this was hasty and premature rezoning of farm land which would quickly lead to urban sprawl. This rezoning of agricultural lands (Regional official plan amendment 128 *Durham Region Growth Plan passed by the Region last June but not yet approved by the Province) involves land mostly already owned by the Development Industry and is favoured by John Gray who is Chair of the Regional Planning Committee. It is interesting that Mayor John Gray gets close to 80% of his campaign donations from the Development Industry, and with so much cash coming from the Developers, Gray may very well be seen as a representative of the Development Industry and not at all of the people of Oshawa.

Interestingly, Queen’s Park agrees with Ms McConkey and, is expected to issue a formal denial of Durham’s rezoning attempts. The Province is not happy with the excessive amount of land the Region wants to earmark for future residential and employment land. In order to justify paving over more green space than sanctioned by Ontario, Durham officials set aside the province's population and employment forecasts and insisted their region would have 25,000 more jobs than expected by 2031.

John Gray, Durham Region Planning Committee Chair, supported by his #1 supporter, defender, and apparent sidekick, Brian Nicholson, seem very defensive about the Province’s probable rejection of Regional Rezoning Plans and unleashed their despicable vitriol on Ms. McConkey at the May 3, 2010, Oshawa Development Services Committee Meeting. You can view a video of their disrespectful and alarming attacks. This video gives ample example of the dysfunction of this council and also the disrespect some city politicians have for its citizens.

John Gray’s and Brian Nicholson’s despicable attack on a concerned citizen is difficult to believe as this kind of disrespect coming from elected officials can never be justified. Their questioning of this citizen debutant borders on the type of hostile cross examination worthy of some major criminal trial…except that the judges in those cases would demand greater respect of the accused.

This behaviour is just one more indication of why Oshawa is becoming the laughing stock of Canada...Cullen Miniatures, MBA's, Stephen Colbert Day, mayor's use of city charge card to pay off Provincial Offences fines, money losing GM Centre, unnecessary demolition of council chambers and City Hall "A" wing, handling of student housing issue, raids on student housing with police and locksmiths to go through student personal belongings looking for leasing documents, Regent Theatre, highest taxes in GTA, demolition of North Oshawa Arena and The Civic because of surplus of ice pads after construction of Legends Centre and agreement with UOIT with their ice pad complex, the Mayor's bright yellow "boy toy" gas guzzling muscle car, pathetic state of the downtown, the lake front/marina fiasco, etc., etc., etc.

We need a change of leadership in this city---and we need it fast to limit the damage!

Facebook pages mounted by Oshawa Citizens indicate a new age of politics is upon us. Not only are many of the pages informative and entertaining, they are changing the face of political campaigning and opening up information and opinion opportunity to every interested citizen Information generation and flow is no longer just the purview of the commercial media or those rich enough to buy media space or those prominent enough like incumbent politicians to get free media coverage. Every person’s ideas and opinions can now be expressed and widely diseminated. And politicians are finding it impossible to hide information or hide behind the press.

This week, for instance, we have learned that Councillor Louise Parkes, the city council rep on the Downtown Business Improvement Area, has been accused by former BIA members of being asked by Parkes to write letters to the editor supporting Parkes. Doesn’t this smell like the supportive letters to the editor disgraced former Conservative Cabinet Minister Helena Guergis directed her political staff to write to newspapers following Guergis’s temper outbursts during airport security checks when she was leaving Prince Edward Island in the last months?

We also learned that Councillor Brian Nicholson who regularly cuts readers from entry to his facebook pages when they disagree with him or correct the "misrepresentations," “spins,” and "lies" he tries to foist on his readers, it has been widely alleged that he has created facebook aliases to allow him to eavesdrop surreptitiously on facebook commentary about him and use these aliases to anonomysly write supportive and "apparent" third-party rebuttals in response to any negative commentary about him that is running rife over the facebook accounts of Oshawa residents, many of whom have expressed the idea that he must be defeated in the next election.

For your entertainment, you could do a search on facebook and find pages entitled, “Brian Nichulsoncullanclarkeydodadee,” “Candidates Behaving Badly,” “Stop Bullying in Oshawa Politics,” “The "SHWA" Dictionary,” “I Love The Oshawa Bunny Ears Man!,” “You know you're from Oshawa when...,” “Say 'NO' to Louise Parkes for Oshawa Politics,” etc., etc., etc.

This listing of facebook pages having to do with Oshawa City politics is certainly not exhaustive. Virtually every declared candidate has mounted both facebook pages and websites.

And more interesting, informative, and entertaining stuff is cropping up every day.

We have entered a new age of politics. It is impossible to hide information from the masses and everyone can have their say.

Maybe this is “true democracy!”…just like those early days in Greece when the earliest forms of democracy emerged---when everyone had their say and town meetings were the order of the day...

Perhaps we have come full circle. The grass roots are becoming more important in how we’re governed.

Now folks…We just have to get out and VOTE! This is our responsibility and an opportunity many people in the world would give their right arm to have.

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

Thanks for all your help boys…Don’t know what we’d do without ya!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 10, 2010

We’ve just passed the Federal Income Tax deadline and so that seemingly never-ending river of cash that floods governments at every level is obviously on our mind. No wonder they all seem compelled to spend like drunken sailors just to keep from drowning in all our cash.

And now on the eve of the new HST, which will increase Ontarian’s family tax loads by almost $800 annually, our minds are becoming focused on just what we get for all this money.

Recently our Prime Minister prorogued parliament so his commitment to Canada’s business did not interfere with his enjoyment of the Olympic Games. His $9000 an hour flights on government jets cost taxpayers about $45,000 for each of his trips to Vancouver or $90,000 for the round trip. This is only a small portion of his costs, however, when his accommodation, hospitality, security, venue tickets, etc., are included. His total Olympic costs undoubtedly cost the taxpayer tens of millions of dollars.

When Harper's Defense Minister, Peter McKay, took the same flight some months ago, he was asked by the press why he didn’t fly commercial. “Because it didn’t meet my schedule,” he responded. Well lah de lah. I took a flight out to Vancouver to volunteer in the Olympics, and guess what, I had to make my schedule fit the plane’s schedule. I couldn’t ask all you taxpayers to pool your cash to send me the Harper/McKay way!

Anyway, all this got me to thinking about where a lot of our tax cash goes and this exposes that strong sense of entitlement, the wastage, and the secrecy in too many places, even here in Oshawa with our local city government members, some of whom would be unemployed and unemployable were it not for their council seats. It's a fact that not one of our sitting council members made nearly as much in the private sector as they do from their Oshawa City Council political positions! And none of them has ever lived as high on the hog as they do now snorting at the public trough.

It’s not only here in Oshawa where Mayor John Gray feels he can use your tax monies to fund MBA’s for his friends, pay off parking and other bylaw infraction fines using a city visa card, use your tax monies to provide himself with a $40,000 birthday party, demolish council chambers and parts of city hall so that he and his political friends can get bigger office spaces and their names on a new building, and Louise Parkes, arguing for bigger office budgets so she can travel more on your dime, or Brian Nicholson arguing that university tuition money should be hidden in office budgets to hide these expenditures from you. After all, our taxes are the highest in the GTA and among the highest in the country and we wouldn’t want to lose this distinction, would we?

So Council…keep on spending, spending, spending….and we’ll keep on giving, giving, giving!

Whatever you do, don’t jeopardize our #1 rating as top taxpayers in the GTA! We want everyone in the GTA and in Canada to “Prepare to be amazed”….After all, city taxpayers reportedly spent $100,000 for some creative mind to come up with this motto-crap under our Mayor’s watchful eye.

Of course, voters have to be concerned with more than excessive spending by City Council. We have to be concerned that Councillors do not give away the store. How so, you ask!

Elections are expensive. With the General Vote and City-wide campaigning in Oshawa now, the upper spending limits for city councilor, regional councilor, and mayor are now approximately $80,000, $90,000, and $110,000 respectively. Politicians turn chiefly to the development industry for their election funds. Of course, we know he who pays the piper calls the tune…and so the developer’s political donations are nothing more than vote buying. Pleasing donors with "friendly votes" insures repeat donations for the next election. Thus politicians may give away our city store.

Politicians may give away the store, as is the case in Oshawa, with the smallest development lot levies in the GTA thus forcing the highest property taxes in the GTA on residents. Taxpayers then in Oshawa are called upon to subsidize the housing development in this city.

The largest proportion of campaign funds in Oshawa comes from the Development Industry with Mayor John Gray leading the pack getting the 77.47% of his campaign donations from the corporate sector.

Part of the real concern about use of our tax monies is the secrecy involved.

Because of inadequate controls, politicians can spend their office budgets with impunity. They can use these for hosting their friends at the Legion, buying birthday gifts for their children, taking their friends for a big night on the town, or buying flowers for their spouse. While all of these are admirable expenditures, they are not admirable uses for your tax money or mine.

When John Gray spent $40,000 of your tax money on the Stephen Colbert Day (The Mayor’s birthday party), he refused to let even his fellow councilors know the cost and it was left to one of them to file a $100 freedom of information request to get the costs disclosed.

Even at the Federal Level, the 308 MP’s and 105 Senators are very secretive about their “office budgets”, an acronym, of course, for the personal expense use of our tax funds and have been resisting audits of that half billion dollars of “petty cash” by Federal spending watchdog, Sheila Fraser, for some time. Each MP and Senator burned up $1,210,653.75 on average for their expenses...amazing.

All parties are complicit in upholding the culture of hidden Ottawa receipts, one of the few stashes of taxpayer funds not yet subject to review and audit. They have their own Public Accounts committee of parliamentarians to do this, they say. Unlike the spending scandal by British parliamentarians that ended the careers of 30% of them in 2009, we have no castle moats to clean in Canada and our guys don’t pay prostitutes for their professional service…oh yeah!

Locally here, city politicians rave that their salaries are tied to salary increases won by unionized city staff. I fail to see how this justifies politician’s excessive salaries. Doesn’t this tend to allow for excessive wage increases for all city staff as the politicians realize that they will personally benefit from big staff increases?

And salaries are excessive! An inspection of Ontario’s “Sunshine List” (Public Sector Salary Disclosure List) shows over 100 city employees making over $100,000 annually.

An email I received, signed “Angry Taxpayer” asked me to explain how at least 12 Maintenance Supervisors in the Regional Works Department could be making over $100,000 per year and why a foreman on an asphalt crew made over $130,000 when this job in the private sector would pay less than half of that. You’ve have to admit there are no explanations except that things are running wildly out of hand…and you and I, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, are paying for this largesse….even while struggling to put bread on our own table!

Recently questions of mileage allowances have been in the press. One Toronto city manager who earns in excess of $170,000 claimed $17,483 for business use of his automobile in 2009, a Toronto city engineer claimed $29,000 in the last two years and the highest claiming Toronto politician, Norm Kelly, claimed $14,000 in the last two years. That’s only slightly higher than the $10,400 tax-free every one of our Oshawa politicians claimed over the last two years. But hey! Our politicians don’t deserve near as much as those Toronto guys because our guys don’t have to drive so far and we don’t have to cope with all that heavy city traffic.

Some Oshawa city employees are claiming over $800 weekly for using their own vehicle for city business. That’s more than many workers in this country get in salary and more than it would cost the city to rent a vehicle from Enterprise or one of those big rent-a-car places.

But who gives a damn about costs when you can just reach deeper into the pockets of those generous Oshawa taxpayers to fund all your extravagances.

And now we find out that Regional politicians from Ajax, Pickering, and Clarington are sitting on the board of Veridian Corporation and Pickering reps are reaping handsome stipends and expenses of $29325 (Dickerson), $27845 (McLean) and $15493 (Pickles) annually to oversee the operations of the former municipal electrical distribution companies they sold to Veridian. The two Ajax and the two Clarington reps are no doubt harvesting the same.

No wonder we’ve been hearing rumblings for years about Oshawa City Politicians wanting to sell Oshawa taxpayer owned Oshawa Power Utilities Corporation to Veridian….There’s big personal bucks sitting in those hills for the politicians to do this. Many of the City Politicians could add another $30,000 to their annual income by selling off OPUC in exchange for a job of sitting on the Veridian Board of Directors….Isn’t it great how politicians are always looking out for our interests?

Thanks for all this public service boys….don’t know what we’d ever do without ya!

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

The Preposterous Mr. Gray

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

Absurd, crazy, daft , foolish, harebrained, idiotic, dopey, loony, nutty, half-baked, off-the-wall, batty, unglued, bonkers, and wacky are not usually words used to describe your mayor, the chief executive of your city. But Mayor John Gray’s asinine actions that have recently become public have once again earned our “leader” these apt descriptors.

You’d think that nothing could beat using our tax moneys to fund MBA’s for his ”chosen” or using our scarce tax monies to fund his own birthday party to the tune of $45,000, but this week we discover that he has used our property tax monies to the tune of $916 to pay Provincial Offences parking tickets and dog bylaw offences for private individuals.

While $916 is not a huge amount, there are important principles involved. Is there anything that the Mayor will not fund with our property taxes?

We just wonder how much more creative Mayor John Gray can get in the inappropriate use of our tax monies and wonder whether we are just discovering the tip of the iceberg in his reckless and unethical squandering of taxpayer resources.

As for these fines, a letter released by the City Director of Finance Services in response to details requested by the Finance and Administration Meeting of March 25, 2010, states: 1) that a media member attending the Oct. 7, 2009 KISS Concert was advised by a representative of the city to park in a handicapped parking space and was subsequently fined. The Mayor’s office paid the $316 fine to the Provincial Offences Office and was subsequently reimbursed by the media member’s employer in April 2010, and 2) The remaining $600 is comprised of tickets issued on Aug 12, 2009, by Animal Services staff to an individual for “allowing an animal to run at large (3 tickets @ $125 each) and for failure to register an animal ($110). These fines were increased to $600 due to late fees and were paid directly by the Mayor’s office to the Provincial Offences Office.

There are giant questions arising from these fines: 1) Was it the mayor who counseled the press to park in the handicapped parking zone and, if so, what does that say about the mayor’s attitude toward accessibility by the handicapped? 2) Is it legal for the mayor to use tax funds to pay fines issued to private individuals? 3) What is Oshawa’s Auditor General’s comment on this use of property tax funds? 4) How widespread is the mayor’s indiscriminate use of our tax dollars? 5) Why was the city reimbursed for the parking infraction in April 2010 only after the expenditure was discovered at the March 2010 meeting? 6) What is the mayor’s comment justifying the use of tax monies to pay personal fines?

In light of this squandering of tax resources, and to really put icing on the cake, the various mayoral candidates were asked by a local paper to comment on the major issues facing the city. All responded, “High Taxes!”

John Gray, the guy who paid these personal parking and dog infraction fines out of your tax dollars, and led a council wasteful in so many ways of our tax dollars, agrees that high taxes are a big issue. He said the city’s high tax rate results from its aggressive program of capital improvements. He didn’t mention them, but he might have mentioned the consistent million dollar losses of the GM Centre, the unneeded demolition of city arenas, and the needless demolition and rebuilding of a large part of city hall. He mentioned the low tax increase this election year but failed to mention the record high increases in previous years to give us the highest tax levels in the GTA. You can bet your bottom dollar that Gray expects to recoup tax revenues lost this election year with record high increases immediately following the Oct. 25, 2010 municipal election. You will recall that he pressed for a 9% increase immediately following the last election!

John Gray’s record is not one that favours lower taxes.

Two other candidates, Louise Parkes and Cathy Clarke are also city politicians who have consistently voted for the slash and burn and rebuild philosophy that has run our city debt levels to record highs. Both, like Mayor John Gray, are now calling for restraint this election year, no doubt to go back to the “drunken sailor” days of spending after the next election that they exhibited while on council.

A vote for those on council, past or present, is an invitation for them to persist with the wasteful and extravagant ways of the past that runs up our city debt, wastes your tax money, and digs a hand ever deeper into your pockets to feed politician’s sense of entitlement. If you’re pleased with the direction city politicians have been taking this city, vote for them!

If you feel the city needs new direction, you should consider a clean sweep of council. Those who have sat on city council and contributed to putting this city in the fiscal and high-tax and management mess that it finds itself should disqualify them from getting your vote.

As your new Mayor of Oshawa, I promise to give this city the real visionary leadership it needs starting with annual tax cuts until Oshawa reaches the average tax rates of the GTA. I believe 5 to 6 years of 3% annual tax cuts would do the trick at the same time as providing a slow enough cutback to city hall for adjustments to take place to cut out the fat, and cut out the waste and needless expenditures at the same time as protecting our levels of service.

Tax cuts, of course, are not the only aspect of my new leadership of Oshawa. I have visionary plans for the downtown and lakefront that you might read at www.wepromise.ca.

Come the New Year, Oshawa voters will literally throw out the old and usher in the new…we’ll throw out the tired and uninspired leadership of the past and usher in a new vision and a new beginning for our 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/

Does Supporting the Troops require supporting the mission?

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
April 19, 2010


If you criticize government policy to engage in the Afghani war, rabid supporters of Canada’s war efforts claim you are not supporting our brave men and women engaged in this dangerous effort. Independent observers without the government blinders know there is a “barn door” of difference between the two and can clearly separate the two issues. Most everyone now is beginning to accept the notion that we can support our soldiers while at the same time being dead set against them being engaged in the conflict far from home.

This same type of argument is often being floated out there by city politicians who undoubtedly feel that Oshawa voters are not smart enough to distinguish such differences between the two issues….Supporting the troops and supporting the mission in Afghanistan.

Both Mayor John Gray and Councillor Brian Nicholson regularly cite any criticism of city politicians and/or their decisions as negativism….”destructive to the city,” they say. Such nonsense!

Oshawa voters can clearly see the difference and in fact recognize that most criticism directed at city council is an attempt to make the city better. Any politician that respects their constituents would know this. Attempts at slandering opponents with the term “negativism” is simply an attempt to “shush” opponents thus limiting public input and debate.”

In fact, the only thing that motivates candidates to stand for election is dissatisfaction with city politicians and a desire to do better.

Mayor John Gray, in his annual “State of the City” on Feb. 18, 2010, reminded those assembled that negativity about the city hurts residents and businesses and called for an end to "old attitudes" about Oshawa.

In that address, he stated “domino effect” planning by the city encouraged UOIT to expand into the downtown taking over all available space to house the move of 1000 students to the downtown core.

While the mayor applauds this move, I feel it is disastrous for the any renewal of the city core. The overloading of students in the downtown will further discourage Oshawa’s adult population from patronizing higher end stores and restaurants. These will disappear to be replaced by fast food and beer joints, and dance halls, all of which will attract “hell-raising” youth from afar.

I guess Mayor John Gray would attack me for being negative about these developments. I don’t know why when a better Oshawa is important to me in my role as a long-time housing stakeholder.

My investment in the city will go south if our downtown or city further deteriorates.

Recent attempts to clean up the downtown will be wasted if undesirable elements are attracted there to mingle with our student population.

Newspaper accounts already document the havoc raised by student tenants in some residential neighbourhoods surrounding the university and this will now be duplicated downtown. Negative thinking? No! Realistic? Yes!

Gray trumpeted city investment in the GM Centre as being the keystone of downtown renewal and guaranteed that it was a money earning proposition. We learn now that the 2009 operating loss was $1 million taxpayer dollars not to mention the additional debt servicing charge on the $45 million dollar facility. Taxpayer costs to subsidize these losses will continue to cost homeowners dearly.

The huge losses spawn rumors that the city will sell the facility after the election. Selling will produce staggering taxpayer losses. Investors would only buy this money siphon for a song! Is this thinking negative? No! Realistic? Yes!

In last years “state of the City” address, the mayor said Oshawa was well on its way to shaking off its old image of a city in decline, and was now a great place to buy a home or start a business. He rhymed off a long list of recent achievements including a rejuvenated downtown, a new management company overseeing the General Motors Centre, the new Conant Complex which opened in south Oshawa last summer, energy-saving renovations currently underway at City Hall and the release of the Crombie report and its recommendations for Oshawa's waterfront.

Note that all of the mayor’s comments were wrong. The downtown is not rejuvenated and as explained above will slide ever downward, the new management center overseeing the General Motors Centre is experiencing record losses, the money wasting and unneeded demolition and the “Beer Can” rebuilding of Council Chambers and “A” wing required only maintenance and not demolition and the energy refit will never pay for itself in a million years.

If the mayor and civic administration had their way worldwide, I guess they’d demolish and rebuild Parliament Hill, Buckingham Palace, The Louvre, 24 Sussex and every other public building in the world as no building that’s been standing for a few years is up to date in energy efficiency. Negative thinking? No! Realistic? Yes!

Gray also dived into the contentious issue of property taxes, saying reports that Oshawa's taxes are the highest in the GTA, are simply untrue. He compared property tax increases in Oshawa with our Durham neighbours. Note he chose his words carefully referring to property tax INCREASES and not the taxes we actually pay.

The fact is that a $350,000 house on any of Oshawa’s boundaries would currently save $1200 annually in taxes if it were moved to the other side of the street into Clarington, Scugog, or Whitby. Just moving your house to the neighbouring municipality would save you enough cash to fund a yearly Caribbean Cruise.

A $350,000 Oshawa house pays more taxes than 23 out of 25 GTA municipalities would pay on a $450,000 house and more than 16 out of 25 GTA municipalities would pay on $550,000 dollar house and more than 3 out of 25 municipalities would pay on a $750,000 house. Amazing! In fact, a $350,000 Oshawa house pays the same taxes as a $880,000 Toronto house. Are we negative to point this out? Hell no! Do taxpayers need to know this stuff? Hell yes! Sky high taxation signals gross fiscal mismanagement in Oshawa.

Gray may spout low tax increases to us this year but doesn’t he have a responsibility to say why we’re paying only .9% more this election year when he was admonishing council for wanting less than the 9% he said we needed only two years ago? I think so!

Maybe Mayor John Gray should explain that a major reason Oshawa has the lowest priced housing in the GTA is because of our excessive taxation which makes housing less desirable and depresses real estate prices thus robbing Oshawa homeowners of tens of thousands of home equity every year.

In his Feb 2008 address, Gray emphasized that the City of Oshawa is one of the most affordable places in which to live, do business and is gaining that reputation not just in Durham but in Canada and the world.

He quoted an international public policy survey on housing affordability that surveyed 227 cities in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA which listed Oshawa 49th of the cities surveyed and first in the GTA. Doesn’t he know this is an index of the desirability of a city as low prices are equated with low demand and low desirability? More proof that we need a new council to “fix” Oshawa!

In his Feb 2007 address, Gray acknowledged the city has suffered from image problems in the past, but stressed that is changing through downtown improvements like the General Motors Centre, community resources like UOIT and positive publicity like the 2008 Memorial Cup bid and recent Stephen Colbert challenge.

Looking ahead, the mayor promised to deliver on three major downtown projects that will further revitalize Oshawa's image: a marquis hotel, a name-brand grocery store and re-location of a new corporate headquarters downtown.

So let’s look at these promises as a function of John Gray’s leadership. Oshawa Image problems? Still here but worse with widespread national press as a result of tax funded MBA’s, $46,000 tax funded Stephen Colbert Day, UOIT student housing problems, Cullen Gardens Miniatures, money losing GM Centre, sky-high taxes, unneeded demolition and rebuilding of city hall, Arena demolitions, etc. As for the Memorial Cup…didn’t happen! The Marquis hotel…didn’t happen! Name-brand grocery store…didn’t happen! New corporate headquarters…didn’t happen. We need more than words and promises. We need action!

The mayor concluded, "We can achieve great things and never allow a pejorative thought to get in the way of our ability to progress." Are we being negative in looking backwards at the mayor’s own words and promises…all of which have been unfulfilled? I don’t think so.

But I do think by looking back we get a sense that we do need a change of political leadership in Oshawa…and quick!

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

City Councillor claims things are rotten at Oshawa City Hall

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
April 12, 2010

When Mayor John Gray was criticized for spending in excess of $40,000 of hard earned taxpayer monies to fund his personal birthday party, also dubbed the Stephen Colbert Day, he justified the expenditure by insisting that the value to the city of the publicity gained by the expenditure was incalculable.

I wonder whether he feels the same way about the widespread national attention given to his use of $46,000 of taxpayer funds for MBA’s for Councillor April Cullen and his Executive Assistant, James Anderson. For this, he and the city got widespread publicity bordering on the incredulous and laughable from editorialists right across the country and downright anger from those at home having to pick up the tab.

In an earlier column, I explained that I was kept up to date with John Gray’s funding of these MBA’s in a commuter newspaper in Vancouver where I was volunteering at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

And this week, we find that groups of ratepayers have to sue the city to have them uphold the city bylaws restricting housing around the university as residential rather than as student rental housing which the residents claim is destroying their neighbourhood through ongoing problems with noise, parking, parties, garbage, and vandalism.

All this, the residents claim, is threatening the safety and well being of homeowners in the area. The resident’s lawsuit is about reclaiming their neighbourhood through the enforcement of bylaws already on the city books.

Once again, this story was picked up by the Toronto Star and has hit the national media and was read by hundreds of thousands of Toronto Commuters on Monday April 5 as the front page headline of the freely distributed Metro Newspaper screamed, “Rowdy renters…Oshawa families suing city in bid to reclaim neighbourhood.” No doubt, similar headlines featured the same story in commuter newspapers distributed in all of Canada’s largest cities.

Residents near the university refer to their neighbourhood as ”The Streets of Broken Dreams,” and cite broken glass, beer bottles and condoms strewn around, front lawns torn up by cars, eggs thrown at houses and garbage piled up.

In one case, students retaliated against an older couple who complained about rowdy behaviour by placing pieces of glass in their backyard to cut their dog’s feet.

Oshawa is getting so much negative publicity that it seems as if the negative publicity value of their actions is a major determinant of what they do.

And now we learn that part of Mayor Gray’s renewal plan for the downtown is to do everything possible to facilitate movement of some of the university faculties downtown so that those disruptive problems experienced in the university neighbourhoods will also be experienced downtown.

I guess Mayor John Gray’s idea of renewal is flooding the downtown with students to discourage the adult population with their superior buying power to go there to support higher end restaurants and stores. This will surely prove to be another disastrous step by Gray’s inept administration.

Just as the city hall is complicit in creating this future downtown problem, they were complicit in creating the residential housing problems around the university.

Short-sighted thinking along with city planner’s approval of housing renovations to install up to seven and eight bedrooms in some houses to allow for student rental housing was a shirking of municipal responsibility to uphold the areas as residential in the first place.

Any politicians on the ball would have been calling for student residential housing from the initial stages and setting aside land tracts zoned as such from the very beginning. And now we are seeing the same short sightedness with student housing in the downtown.

Earlier, Oshawa made the National News in the Toronto Star, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and Macleans Magazine, when city hall bylaw officers with police and locksmiths in tow raided student housing around these same university neighbourhoods inspecting panty drawers of absent students to search for leasing documents.

This action hit the student newspapers of many of Canada’s universities informing many prospective Ontario students and their parents of Oshawa’s Neanderthal civic administration and, of course, discouraging their attendance and limiting the growth of our university here.

The proof is in the pudding! Oshawa city council has learned plenty of ways to get free national press. There was no need for Mayor Gray to personally spend the $45,000 on his birthday party to get that press that he called incalculably valuable.

And yet the city continues to spend countless numbers of our tax dollars to publish carriers for politician’s mug shots which are distributed at great cost to all front doors in Oshawa. Most of these end up unwanted and unread in the recycling bin. But where was the attempt to communicate when we really needed it---an explanation of the plebiscite question on our city council voting system which robbed our various Oshawa communities of their guaranteed representation on City Council.

With all of its press exposure, Oshawa is becoming one of the best known communities in this country. You can hardly pick up a newspaper anywhere without some reference to Oshawa. Unfortunately, most of the information is bad and a function of the political leadership of this city.

All of the national press has translated into making Oshawa a less desirable place to live, if housing demand indicated by housing sales figures released by the Toronto Real Estate Board is any indication. The first quarter sales figures for Single detached housing show an average Oshawa single family house price of $255,808 for the 194 sales that occurred in Oshawa for the lowest housing value over the entire GTA.

Late breaking news as I write this column is that Councillor Louise Parkes has announced her candidacy for Mayor of Oshawa in the upcoming October 25th, 2010 election.

In a Toronto Star article of April 7, 2010, Parkes stated that, “Leadership is a huge issue…Things are falling apart because of leadership style and a ‘systems failure’ at city hall…things are rotten,” she says, “and I aim to fix it.”

Parkes is right. Things are rotten at city hall and she is part of the problem…not part of the solution.

She was key cheerleader for the city’s purchase of the Cullen Gardens Miniatures and key critic of council’s decision not to proceed at great expense with the project.

She was asleep at the switch when she voted against providing citizen information about the ward/general vote plebiscite question and subsequently voted to rob communities of their guaranteed representation on city council; asleep at the switch while Mayor John Gray was approving the MBA funding; asleep at the switch while council was approving the costly and unnecessary demolition and reconstruction of council chambers and city hall “A” wing; asleep at the switch while the Mayor was funding his $40,000 birthday party; asleep at the switch while Council approved demolition of North Oshawa Arena, the Civic, and potentially Children’s Arena and Harmon Park Arena.

Indeed something is rotten at city hall. Louise Parkes was the councilor who pushed for bigger councilor office expense budgets and travel allowances…and pushed for failed Glyn Laverick to take over the Regent Theatre. After voting for high tax increases for Oshawa for years, she is now a convert for lower taxes. Yes…we need more of Louise Parkes at City Hall. Yeah! Right!

With Parkes now in the race, maybe Councillor John Henry will be encouraged to get into the race. Anti-council sentiment is at such a feverish pitch that I want to knock off as many sitting councillors as possible to give the people of Oshawa a new beginning in the governance of this city.

Because I am confident of becoming your new Oshawa Mayor, I want as many new council faces as possible. Oshawa needs a clean sweep of 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/

Talk about roping yourself to a sinking ship!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
April 5, 2010

Despite voter’s rage about the audacity of Mayor John Gray’s wasting taxpayer money on funding $23,000 MBA’s for his executive assistant, contract employee, James Anderson, and Councillor April Cullen, Councillor Brian Nicholson is still defending the Mayor’s outrageous and irresponsible action.

By doing so, Nicholson continues to expose the sense of entitlement he feels for himself and members of Oshawa City Council. He feels, as the Mayor does, that our tax monies can be spent any damn well way they please. Our tax monies can be used to service the needs and wishes of the politicians and not the city and its people.

In fact, despite the “Accountability and Transparency Bylaw” signed by all members of city council, Nicholson recently proposed a motion stating that such funding in future should be “hidden” in politician’s office budgets so that the tuition funding could continue but that the secrecy of the office budgets would hide such funding from the public. So much for his “respect” for the responsible and transparent use of our city taxes!

Last Tuesday, March 30, 2010, Nicholson published a 1600 word article on his Facebook Page justifying the MBA expenditures and supporting John Gray’s right to spend taxpayer money in this way. He also supported Councillor April Cullen’s and Executive Assistant, James Anderson’s, application for having taxpayers pay their MBA tuitions in the first place.

Nicholson writes his commentary for his “fans” on his facebook page and if someone disputes what he says, it is not long before the critic is cut off from Nicholson’s page so as to not undermine the inaccuracies that Nicholson spins on the page. I, for one, got cut off the page because I disputed Nicholson’s assertion that Oshawa was one of the lowest taxed places in the GTA despite the fact that we all know that we are absolutely the highest taxed place in the GTA and one of the highest taxed places in all of Canada. Nicholson regularly “snows” his readers in untruths, misinformation, and “spins” that disguise the real facts from his readers.

He seems to be tied at the hip to both John Gray and April Cullen as he has regularly attacked critics and opponents of John Gray and has continually stood up in support of April Cullen over the MBA issue as the only member of council to publicly do so. It seems as if all are members of a little three person fan club.

In his statement, Nicholson states, “This MBA controversy has been rife with irresponsible comments. Charges of illegality, conspiracy, corruption, intimidation, theft, and conflict of interest have been made with wild abandon.” Nicholson didn’t mention the most appropriate charge of “gross stupidity” and “irresponsibility” that is being made in press editorials right across the country!

“It is unacceptable,” Nicholson goes on, “when these charges are made by those who may not be aware of the workings of government, but when they are made by candidates for public office, by presidents of local ratepayers associations, and by members of Council, they are not only unacceptable but are deplorable and must be addressed.”

Once again, I guess, Nicholson thinks criticism is unwarranted by those getting centrally involved because, I assume, he feels that they should know “the workings of government,” and thus implies that every government uses, or should use, valuable tax dollars to serve politicians first.

If this is the case, perhaps Nicholson should be very critical of April Cullen and James Anderson for not enrolling in Harvard so that they could screw taxpayers out of close to $150,000 for tuitions. Even top ranked Queen’s and Western would set back the taxpayer close to $70,000 but neither April or James would get a high enough score on the GMAT for these “good” schools. Instead, they enrolled in “bottom feeding” Cape Breton University.

Maybe both Nicholson and Gray support publicly funded tuitions so that they could work on their BA’s at the public’s expense. Who knows? If we keep electing these guys, they may end up with a basic degree sometime.

In one Facebook posting, April Cullen claimed of “saving the taxpayer” about $6000 due to costs she picked up herself...like a summer in Cape Breton Island that she funded herself. She also justified taxpayers paying for her MBA because it cost each of us just pennies per week over her four year term. One amount she said she personally picked up, her summer program in Cape Breton, looks surprisingly like the $1808 she billed Durham Region for Travel. Doesn’t her sense of entitlement blaze through with her statement that she saved the city money on her MBA?

She makes no claim of personal benefit for her MBA, or thanks to the taxpayers, only asserting her many sacrifices and hours she put in on the degree….as if the sorry Oshawa taxpayer would give a damn about that. She does assert that she earned her $116,551 salary, though, because she had her long distanced taxpayer expensed blackberry with her. Thank you April!

In a recent meeting of the Finance and Administration Committee, Bruce Wood, President of the “Oshawa Ratepayer’s Association” made claims that: 1. The Mayor knowingly abused the city Corporate Training and Reimbursement Policy, 2. The Mayor circumvented the policy, and 3. Staff was intimidated into signing the applications due to political pressure and for fear of their jobs.

Nicholson bounced each of these suggestions off the City’s Auditor General who responded he came across no evidence to support any of Wood’s claims.

In his responses, the Auditor General was between a rock and a hard place….pleasing his political masters or giving his truthful opinion about the legitimacy of the MBA funding and process. No senior government employee of any government ever publicly contradicts or admonishes politicians no matter how “wrong-headed” they are. You can bet though that the more professional and dedicated staff were writhing in their beds at night and clenching their teeth at work during the day so as not to say what they really felt about the issue.

Oshawa’s Auditor General is paid about $160,000 annually and is on a renewable term contract. He was appointed by the politicians, acts on the politician’s directions, and his contract will not be renewed by the present bunch if he does not support the actions of the Mayor and Council at every turn. I have not once read a city Auditor General’s report that was at all critical of city operations, departments, staff, or the politicians. He keeps walking that “narrow track” at every turn to protect his future employment.

For a really effective Auditor General, he should be appointed on a ten year non-renewable term and be free to investigate any area of the city operations at his whim including calling sworn testimony and subpoenaing witnesses and making public reports through the press. This would give the office teeth similar to that enjoyed by Sheila Fraser, Canada’s Auditor General.

Right now, Oshawa’s Auditor General, as the job is defined, is a “pussycat” purring at the politician’s lap.

The Auditor General, though, did make one suggestion, that the policy should be tightened up so as to remove any ambiguities. This is simply a political statement that suggests that the policy gives room for the Mayor to make an interpretation of the rules.

I don’t know how much more defining the policy can be. There is a specific form for the purpose that quotes a maximum of $2000 per year or $5000 in any 5 year period. That’s clear to me! It also says that any application exceeding these amounts should also be approved by the city manager. That’s also clear to me! What’s the confusion?

In any case, no matter what the policy, common sense dictates that MBA’s should not be funded for politicians or political appointees. And it is good judgement we expect from our politicians in handling our affairs, isn’t it?

As a conclusion to his letter, Nicholson demanded a public apology from all critics of the MBA funding. I think that apology would be due from every single Oshawa resident except for Mayor John Gray, Councillors Brian Nicholson and April Cullen, and the Mayor’s executive assistant, James Anderson.

They are undoubtedly the only four in this city of 160,000 who agree with the funding, and the rest of us will undoubtedly express our disagreement with our votes come election day, Oct. 25, 2010.

Click here to read Brian Nicholson’s complete absurd statement supporting both the MBA funding and Mayor John Gray's "right" to make the decision to fund these tuitions out of your tax money.

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 inflames the MBA Rage…again!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
March 22, 2010

Mayor John Gray’s refusal at the March 8, 2010, City Council Meeting to allow further discussion on the MBA funding issue by calling a motion “out of order” to have city politicians reimburse city coffers $46,000 for their collective failure to stop Gray’s irresponsible and irrational MBA funding for Councillor April Cullen and his executive assistant, James Anderson, has once again ignited rage across the city and has been the subject of discussion in media coverage across the country.

John Gray obviously believes in the city motto, “Prepare to be amazed” and his “amazing” actions have made him and our city council the subject of national ridicule.

Canadians right across the country are certainly becoming amazed at the irresponsibility and the sense of entitlement of Gray and his self-serving council. He must feel so secure in his position that he doesn’t give a damn what he does to the public---even in the face of an upcoming election!

Council Members must feel equally secure in their positions to let this kind of bulls—t slide through with nary a whisper knowing that past history with the self-serving General Vote that they swung on the people lets them hide in the weeds of “name recognition” and shields them from electoral defeat.

Never before with Oshawa’s General Vote history prior to 1985 had any politician lost their seat through the general vote. But never before have we had such a politically incompetent mayor and council.

This ridicule focused on city council will certainly extend to city voters if they do not remove this Mayor and his band of incompetents, shysters, tricksters and free-loaders from control of our Civic public purse. We have had too much of their snorting at the pig trough at our expense!

The Toronto Star and Toronto Sun Oshawa MBA stories have been picked up by the national news agencies and published across the country.

Such widespread publication of this story documents the public interest in the extreme feelings of entitlement of this city council in using our tax monies for their own benefit rather than the benefit of the city.

There is such extreme national and international interest in this MBA story that a Google search using the words “Oshawa,” “Mayor,” and “MBA” will turn up 106,000 references as of the date of writing this column.

I was surprised to see an item in the “Leader Daily”, a free paper distributed at sky train locations for commuters into Vancouver where I am working as an Olympics/Paralympics Volunteer. Hundreds of thousands of Vancouver commuters all saw the same item that caught my eye—“Paid MBA not a free ride: political staffer,” which documented Mayor John Gray’s and his political sidekick, John Anderson’s, assertions that Anderson forfeited $36,000 of city pension contributions in exchange for his $23,000 MBA funding---a deal negotiated by Gray who thus took credit for saving the city $13,000.

Gray advanced this justification for funding the MBA tuitions at the Feb. 22, 2010 City Council Meeting

Gray’s gloating, however, proved to be an outright lie used in attempting to defuse the situation, a theory supported by Gray’s (and the city’s) refusal to make Anderson’s MBA funding agreement public in response to citizen “Freedom of Information” requests that have been lodged.

This refusal to release the document even questions the existence of any contract or agreement.

Gray’s statements were investigated by private citizens who discovered such agreements were an impossibility as Anderson didn’t qualify for any pension without giant time buybacks which did not require matching paybacks from the city.

When this information was publicized, Gray then said that his earlier statements were in “error.” I say Gray knew his words were an outright lie designed to mislead the public.

The outright “lie theory” is also supported by Gray’s use of the “lie strategy” in the past.

He claimed for public consumption on the televised council meeting in his preamble before final voting to adopt the general vote that city hall had no responsibility to communicate details of the plebiscite question to voters.

As I had just made a presentation pleading to council not to adopt the general vote, he said the communication responsibility was not the city’s but was the responsibility of citizens like me.

This was an outright lie as he would have known that “Third Party” citizen campaigns were against Ontario Elections Law which gives municipality’s unfettered ability and thus responsibility to fund such plebiscite information campaigns. You can view John Gray making this statement at http://www.motionbox.com/videos/4c9fdcb41510e6c3.

The other strategy used is secrecy and stonewalling, despite him gloating earlier on a transparency and accountability bylaw passed and signed by all councillors.

Gray not only refused to divulge the Anderson MBA contract, he says he negotiated, but also refused to disclose the $40,000 expenditure he personally approved for his personal birthday party dubbed the “Stephen Colbert Day.”

This information was not even available to our elected councillors until a $100 Freedom of Information Request was filed.

So much for the transparency and accountability policy the mayor personally wheeled out with great fanfare. It’s just pretty “Political Words” tarnished beyond recognition by his and council’s actions.

This whole issue leads to many unanswered questions about the agreement and about the integrity of Mayor John Gray and James Anderson.

Was this a verbal or a written agreement? If verbal only, what business acumen does this show about the Mayor? After all, this is a contract according to the Mayor that saved the city from paying $33,000 from Anderson’s pension. If the contract was written, dated, and witnessed, it must be made public. Failure to disclose the contract to the public will only lead to continued public speculation and anger.

Voters will rightly begin to speculate on the honesty of the mayor and whether the story about the pension payment savings to the city was a blatant lie “crafted” by Gray and Anderson to resolve the issue to public satisfaction.

Freedom of Information requests to disclose the Gray/Anderson MBA contract have so far been refused leading to speculation that:

a) There is no contract suggesting the tuition was an unconditional gift of taxpayer money.
b) The issue of foregoing pension plan paybacks for Anderson was never discussed and has only surfaced recently to appease public inquiries.
c) Was a city form used and the funding ceilings identified on the form superseded on the form or did the mayor draft up his own contract for the funding?
d) If there was a contract, was it properly drafted by the city legal department?
e) Where and how is the money identified in the city financial records?
f) At what point and in what way were the details of the MBA funding communicated to council?
g) Is there any record on council discussion on this matter after they learned the Mayor had personally gifted the funds?
h) What was the timeline in the approvals of both Anderson’s and Cullen’s tuitions?
i) What were the conditions of tuition payback when Anderson left his position if the Mayor was not re-elected?

You can undoubtedly devise many additional sensitive questions upon close examination.

The most important question though is, “Why did no politician SCREAM about this issue before it was made public by private citizens?”

But let us speculate that the whole idea of the pension payback was a lie perpetrated by Mayor John Gray and his executive assistant.

It would not be the first serious misinformation campaign perpetrated on the people by John Gray. His whole rationale for council’s failure to communicate the ward system plebiscite details to the public was a response to my criticism that the people had not been properly informed. What did Gray do in light of this criticism? He floated the giant lie, “The city had no responsibility---that was up to citizen’s themselves!”

This kind of statement demonstrates that Gray believes that the council need not communicate to the public. Nor should it be self policing---all is a public responsibility….Amazing!

As citizen Alan Slater wrote in a letter to the editor published in a local paper last week, “The MBA issue will not be over until Election Day. If Mayor John Gray has any supporters left, will one of them inform him that the affair is definitely not closed. It will not be closed until the coming election when voters are reminded of his arrogance and lack of business judgement, which has helped Oshawa to become one of the highest taxed municipalities in the country.

Anyone who votes for him or any of his colleagues can expect more of the same abuse of power and disconnection from the realities of life in these hard times.”

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

Are More Demolitions of City Facilities on the Horizon?

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
March 15, 2010


Is the Mayor and city council preparing to demolish our network of twenty Neighborhood Association Clubhouses that have been centers for organized recreational youth hockey, soccer, and softball run by dedicated volunteers in Oshawa for over 60 years?

They are if reports surfacing from a recent OCCNA (Oshawa Central Committee of Neighborhood Associations) meeting are any indication. A recent OCCNA meeting was attended by a member the Provincial Government who stated that the Mayor and some of his councilors are planning to shut down any Neighborhood Association Clubhouse that is not handicap compliant by 2025.

A city official was quoted as saying that the city and the OCCNA need to be aware of legislation and work towards upgrading their clubhouses by this date. The source inferred that the city did not plan on funding any of the required upgrades, and instead, will simply bulldoze the facilities if the clubhouse members do not fundraise and complete the work themselves.

According to one key longtime clubhouse volunteer, the mayor and some councillors must be trying to get back at OCCNA groups for making sure there were no user fees for baseball and soccer fields and for opposing the closing of arenas. He says that some of Oshawa's municipal politicians just seem to try and think of any underhanded scheme to try and ruin the unique system that the OCCNA provides for sports to the children of this city.

These reports of the potential bulldozing of the OCCNA clubhouses are consistent with city council’s seeming desire to wipe out youth recreational activity through huge increases in facilities fees for swimming pools and ice pads putting costs beyond parent’s ability to pay.

This short-sighted city discouragement of youth activity is inconsistent with national concerns about child inactivity and obesity, and the future costs to our health care systems.

It is public knowledge that Mayor John Gray and his City Council of incompetents have already demolished North Oshawa Arena and Council Chambers and City Hall “A” Wing which they are replacing with an aluminum $20 Million "Beer Can" centering the traditional limestone buildings now encircling city hall square. The new council chamber will stick out like a sore thumb...and look cheap and temporary within the surrounding architecture.

They also have approved demolition of the Civic Auditorium in April and have disguised this demolition in news reports as “an exciting” rejuvenation project.

Note they have chosen the word rejuvenation carefully….like the “renewal and renovation” at city hall which was a $20 million money-wasting and unneeded demolition and rebuilding project.

You know also, of course, that studies are underway to demolish Harmon Park Arena and Children’s Arena.

A large part of the rationale for demolishing four out of Oshawa’s five arenas was a surplus of ice pads resulting from city hall’s approval to build the GM Centre whose operating losses cost taxpayers about $1 million annually ($3M when debt charges are included), the multi-pad Legend’s Centre, and also the city’s partial funding of the multi-pad ice complex on the university grounds.

After approving these projects, how can civic administrators now say that this recent overbuilding has given Oshawa a surplus of ice pads thus necessitating the demolition of the older but strategically placed skating and hockey facilities?

If these facilities needed some upgrading, as claimed, wouldn’t it have made sense spending a fraction of the capital costs of new projects on the upgradings?

I get the impression that city council is like a bull in a china shop. It just crashes ahead in an unthinking way and then looks for a rationale to support its decisions to the taxpaying public.

In the case of city hall rebuilding, for example, the reasons offered in turn were: 1) a leaking roof, 2) not handicapped accessible, and finally, 3) not energy efficient.

In truth, city hall was grasping at straws to support an unneeded and wasteful project at great cost to the taxpayer.

The first and second excuses were low cost maintenance items and the third (energy inefficiency) is a characteristic of every public and private building in the world that has been around for any length of time. Count the Parliament Buildings, The Louve, Buckingham Palace, and Washington's Capital Hill and Toronto "New" City Hall built about the same time as Oshawa's demolish council chamber probably inspired by Toronto's iconic city hall in this lot...but only the insane would ever contemplate demolishing any of them.

In fact Toronto preserved its "Old" City Hall built in 1899 which it bills as a showplace of history and exquisite craftsmanship. No such thinking with this city council bunch. They even allowed the demolition of Rundle House which was important enough to be featured on an city publication, "Historic Walking Tours of Downtown Oahawa."

We must put an end to this council and their “search and destroy” missions which are blowing up every city asset in sight.

Little wonder Oshawa suffers the highest taxes in the GTA and among the highest in the country.

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

Moving UOIT Students downtown is a giant mistake!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
March 8, 2010

I’ve heard of LBWA---“Leadership by walking” around which has some merit…but leadership by following the crowd and hoping for the best…never!

Leadership requires vision…not simply watching things happen and then trying to weave these happenings into some kind of coherent “plan” devised after the fact.

In his annual “state of the city address” on February 18, 2010, to about 150 city business and political leaders and city hall staffers, Mayor John Gray seemed to be looking at the city through rose coloured glasses taking credit for things far beyond his control, while taking bows for the General Motors Centre, which has a $3 million annual taxpayer loss, as being a catalyst for bringing the new Provincial Courthouse downtown, which in turn precipitated the move of UOIT and Durham College faculties and residences downtown---a carefully planned domino effect, he said!

"Last year, I stood before you,” Mayor John Grey spouted, “and pledged that within five years, the downtown would look and feel dramatically different than it had before. One year later, this pledge is soundly on its way to being realized."

The Mayor’s right! One year later, the downtown is starting to look and feel a lot different. The future of the downtown looks and feels a lot bleaker than it did just one year ago!

John Gray took credit for the GM Centre which he promoted for the downtown, and which presently has perpetual annual operating losses of $1 million plus debt servicing costs approximating $2 million, as the catalyst for downtown renewal. The losses to taxpayers are so significant that there are rumors the city will try to sell the GM Centre after the next election, and swallow the huge taxpayer losses.

But the Mayor’s “take” is different---“A planned ‘domino effect’ from the GM Centre was responsible for the Provincial Consolidated Courthouse,” the Mayor said, even though we all know this courthouse has been in the wind from almost the time the mayor was in diapers.

Then, he said, both created the thrust to attract our University to relocate some of its faculties downtown---first, the Education Faculty responsible for training teachers, and then, the College’s Legal Services Faculty responsible for training law clerks and such.

The Mayor spins such a teasing yarn! He should be in the spinning business!

The prime reason for the movement of these students downtown was not the GM Centre or even the Courthouse, but the availability of space that the university could get for a song.

Why was the space available? Because the downtown is dead, and businesses cannot survive there---and Civic Administration and the Politicians have not taken a lead in the development of the downtown. They seem to manage by walking behind.

They didn't take the initiative to lead downtown development by developing and implementing a feasible vision for a vibrant downtown. They managed by putting things to chance and hoped like hell that something worthwhile would happen.

The downtown invasion of UOIT/Durham College students will prove once again to be a mistake.

It offers only a quick fix to occupy vacant downtown spaces, at the same time as destroying opportunity for a longer term development of the downtown into a vibrant magnet for attracting quality shops, restaurants, and cultural institutions---a quality place to attract the adult population and their consumer dollars from far and wide to the Oshawa downtown.

Oshawa has the least attractive downtown from Kingston to Niagara Falls, and this is not going to change with the student invasion.

And if I were a student attending the University, I would be damn mad about being banished from the main campus with all its libraries, student facilities, and campus atmosphere, all of which is an important part of university attendance, learning, and growth. There is something special for serious students about the atmosphere of wandering the campus of academia, rather than walking the streets of a downtown.

So, I’ve claimed that overstocking the downtown with students is bad for the development of our downtown and a serious error by city council. Let me explain!

With a preponderance of students, most of whom are on low fixed budgets, the only kind of business that will thrive over the longer term are fast food joints, beer and jive dives, and oftentimes, groups of students raising hell. After all, students still do want to have boisterous fun and kick up their heels from time to time. That has not changed from the time you and I went to university.

But this is the very thing that will drive the adult population away, and in turn drive the higher class, higher priced, restaurants and shops out of the downtown.

The Mayor thinks these students will work wonders with downtown businesses. Good luck!

Wonder what he’s been drinking as he looks at Oshawa with those rose coloured glasses that gives him an unrealistic and unreasonable view of our city?

The influx of students downtown will also attract non-student youth to the downtown, and we will have a repeat of the serious problems of rowdy youth when we had the huge teen nightclubs in town that used to attract troublemakers from far and wide, necessitating huge police servicing costs.

Thank goodness, we finally got rid of this problem---for a while!

The mayor insists that it’s a great idea to fill the downtown Scotiabank building, the Alger Press Building, the Regent Theatre, the Genosha Hotel, and any other space that becomes available with students …

He thinks these students will work wonders with downtown businesses.

I think it’s a catastrophe!

And I think it demonstrates a weakness in John Gray’s long term vision for this city, and a real weakness in his analytical skills in failing to see something that is plainly visible to all.

But what more can we expect from this mayor whose judgement personally approves $40,000 of taxpayer money for funding the Stephen Colbert day (the mayor’s personal birthday party), and personally approves $46,000 of taxpayer money for MBA’s for his Executive Assistant and Councillor April Cullen, and who has “gone Hollywood” with taxpayer money with his bright yellow “boy toy” gas guzzling 426 HP sports car graffitied with his signature across the fender?

I have a very different vision for the city than Mayor John Gray who, by selling the Regent Theatre to the University, deprived the downtown of a potential cultural icon, and opened the floodgates to the student invasion.

My vision will be somewhat harder now to implement although it is something we still believe in.

As your future Mayor, I have an exciting vision for your downtown.

I have ideas about redirecting the one way traffic around the downtown four corners and creating landscaped walking malls and gardens on Simcoe Street from Bond Street to Athol, and on King Street from Centre Street to Mary.

I have also envisioned commissioning an international design contest to study our downtown streetscapes, to come up with a common design theme for the building facades, and then providing tax incentives for building owners to update their building street facades.

I have envisioned a pleasant place with strolling musicians, and art shows, and festivals over the summer.

I have plans to remove all downtown parking meters which presently keep people out of the downtown, and provide free downtown parking in all city parking lots perimeter to the downtown.

As for the vacant Alger Press Building, I had thought, before the University’s 30 year lease, that the old factory would have been a great site for the kinds of boutique warehouses created at Toronto’s Harbourfront, with space rented to artists and cultural groups and cottage industries with boutique clothing lines, and antique vendors. It was part of my plan to create a downtown that would be a magnet for the consuming Oshawa public, as well as those from out of town.

It’s only if we can attract people to our downtown that vibrant, high class, and profitable businesses will be attracted there.

Port Hope, Port Perry, and Cobourg are nearby neighbours that have vibrant downtowns. Why can’t we?

We need a mayor and city council that thinks “big,” and maybe then Oshawa will become more than “The Shwa.”

The planned domino effect the mayor said he planned is not quite the one that we will see following the October 25, 2010 municipal election.

At that time, citizens are planning to topple The Mayor and Oshawa City Council one-by-one…a domino effect indeed!

In the meantime, the Mayor continues to fiddle while Rome burns!


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