Mayor John Gray and His Merry Band of Beaver Killers

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

City Politicians Signal Intention to Work to Rule---an Early Victim of the General Vote

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

City politicians have now voted to “Work to Rule!” They have decided to withdraw their service from responsibilities that don’t provide them a salary.

They will no longer serve as unpaid Council Representatives on the many Volunteer Boards of Community Organizations that create the social fabric of Oshawa life---like the Volunteer Board of the Oshawa Senior Citizen’s Centers.

City politicians have shown it is not important work for them to sit on these boards. Hopefully the many city volunteers who have sat on these boards for many years, and perform invaluable efforts on behalf of this city, will not follow the politician’s lead and make the same service withdrawal decisions. If this becomes the case, these organizations will flounder and fold and Oshawa and its citizens will be the losers.

Hopefully the community volunteers will prove to be more responsible than our city politicians and will not withdraw their service.

Councillor Nester Pidwerbecki was at a McLaughlin Art Gallery show opening a week ago representing the Mayor who was on a midweek holiday. Pidwerbecki was approached by a senior---a cultured lady who asked, “Why is city council withdrawing city council representatives from the Senior Citizen’s Centers Board of Directors?”

Pidwerbecki responded with the same stock answer he gives for taking a lead role in introducing the general vote to city elections.

“We have a new philosophy at city hall,” he said. “We want all of our council members to take a city-wide view in their council duties. We don’t want politicians to become parochial by taking on any special interests. And besides, he said, the councillors assigned to these non-paid roles never show up anyway.”

Perhaps Pidwerbecki was talking about himself for failing to attend as Council Rep at Board Meetings of voluntary organizations he was appointed to. Perhaps he showed up at this art opening only because its election year.

By withdrawing from the local volunteer boards, Politicians are isolating themselves from important aspects of city life. In Pidwerbecki’s comment, he also inferred that politicians don’t take interest in attending volunteer boards unless they are paid. Some philosophy eh?

The lady responded to Pidwerbecki’s explanation, “How will city council know what problems and challenges Oshawa Senior Citizen’s Centers are facing? Who will champion our interests and our needs on city council? Who will be our liaison with city administration?”

“Everyone will represent your interests on city council,” Pidwerbecki responded. “With our new philosophy, everyone is responsible for everything. That’s why we have introduced the general vote for the upcoming elections---to remove councillors from taking a special interest in any specific community.

How about applying Pidwerbecki’s philosophy to your workplace? Wipe out all of the specialized responsibilities of the staff and make everyone responsible for everything. Would anything get done? Of course not! When everyone is responsible for everything, no one is responsible for anything. It’d be a recipe for disaster in your workplace. Same for city hall!

For effective work, responsibilities have to be assigned. The benefits of assigned division of labour has been known and practiced since the beginning of time. Perhaps our council dinosaurs and flat earthers are in a time warp regressing beyond the cave man that even then practiced division of labour assigned responsibilities.

The general vote is seen by many of our aging councillors as a way they can reduce their workload and semi-retire, at the same time as securing their council seats till their death or resignation, and calling for greater salaries, office staff, and office space, because the 160,000 city size of their constituency will be twice the size of that of our MP’s and MPP’s.

Why a reduced workload? Half of a ward councillor’s responsibility and effort is looking after constituent concerns. Community work is time consuming, but with the removal of ward councillors, no politician will be specifically responsible for answering the concerns of any community or representing its needs on council. With the few votes your local concern represents, city politicians will not be any more interested in handling your problem than sitting on Boards of our voluntary community organizations, which is the first formally reduced workload casualty of the general vote.

Why a more secure job tenure? The maximum cost of city wide elections now has been pegged at $80,000 for city councillors and $90,000 for city and regional councillors, both about 7 or 8 times the maximum cost of ward elections. The only candidates able to raise campaign funds are the incumbents who take donations chiefly from the development industry, in return of course, for favorable votes supporting their donor’s projects. The high cost of elections wipe out serious and competitive campaigns of the vast majority of candidates since the only source of campaign financing for non-incumbents is their own bank account.

Over time, because of the high cost of city wide elections, all city councillors will eventually come to reside in a few of the richer areas of Oshawa leaving vast areas of the city unrepresented and forgotten on city council.

Pidwerbecki’s idea of politicians taking a city wide view to reduce parochialism is a spurious and misleading argument.

Ward representation didn’t result in parochialism among politicians. Every council action required a majority vote of ward councillors---the building of the Legends Centre in the North end, the building of the South end recreation centre, purchase of the Cullen miniatures, city hall reconstruction and refurbishment, demolition of North Oshawa Arena and the Civic, failure to protect historic Rundle House from the wrecking ball, etc., etc., etc.

Ward politicians have two functions---1) To look after the overall interests of the city, and 2) To handle the constituency concerns of their ward residents. This important latter function will be lost with the general vote.

In actual fact, the general vote will result in increased parochialism by city politicians. As all politicians come to reside in a few of the richer areas of the city, won’t these richer areas be better served by the politicians? We are already seeing this with the demolition or planned demolition of all south end arenas except for Donovan depriving the less mobile south end children from skating/hockey opportunity. These south end arenas have been replaced with new arenas in the newer richer North Oshawa communities. Rather than reduced parochialism, the general vote will result in increased parochialism as the politicians look after their home communities first.

If there is merit to the argument that city wide elections provide better government, we should apply the General Vote principles to Federal and Provincial elections which presently are ward systems. We should wipe out individual ridings to let politicians run across the Province and the Nation. The result? You guessed it! All of the MP’s and MPP’s would come from the higher population centers and low population low voter areas would be continually unrepresented and forgotten.

This is exactly what will happen in Oshawa with the general vote. If the general vote is better, wouldn’t it be used widely in the country? In fact, Oshawa will be the largest city in the country to use the general vote without the use of municipal political parties which are at present illegal in Ontario. The general vote is used only in small centers in the Province. Experts from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing have quoted an optimum size of about 20,000 for communities to use the general vote, which interestingly is also quoted as the optimum size for wards.

Oshawa general vote politicians will have constituency sizes about twice as large as our MP’s and MPP’s, a ludicrous state of affairs for local government which is supposed to be closest to the people.

This “parochialism” argument that Pidwerbecki put forward in terms of justifying politician’s withdrawal of city council representation on the voluntary boards of city organizations is a spurious bit of misinformation that Pidwerbecki spouts from time to time.

When we first got ward elections in 1985, Pidwerbecki was not on city council. He applauded the move as one of the best things to happen to Oshawa. “Now we shall see new faces on city council,” he said. “We will get rid of the country club that has been there too long!”

Now as a 20+ year member of the country club he once derided, he now champions its return. What a self-serving hypocrite!

His biggest bit of misinformation, though, was his comment on why Oshawa needed the general vote. “Oshawa is just getting too large for ward elections,” he claimed.

Of course, we all know that the larger a municipality, the more it needs ward elections. Can you imagine the City of Toronto going to city wide votes and voters across that city coping with a book-sized ballot of hundreds of candidates to select the 43 or so to be elected to Toronto City Council?

Does Pidwerbecki think the Oshawa voters are stupid?

We have seen city council devoting much time and effort in looking after their own self interests….improved health benefits, MBA education benefits, increased salaries, and handsome retirement/electoral defeat settlements---but the greatest foist of all was the introduction of the general vote.

Hopefully all of the strategizing they’ve done to look after their own self interest will backfire this time, and the whole lot will be turfed out on their ear.

We need politicians interested in looking after Oshawa for a change.

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

Clothes Make the Man…Even Transforming Mild-Mannered Clark Kent into Superman

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

WATCH CBC DOCUMENTARY ON THE POLICE VIOLENCE AT TORONTO'S G20 SUMMIT


FULL DOCUMENTARY OF TORONTO G20 POLICE VIOLENCE

CALL FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY IN G20 TORONTO SUMMIT


FINALLY---HAVE RULED THAT THOSE ILLEGALLY DETAINED CAN SUE!!! --- IT'S ABOUT TIME




How appropriate! The Queen is in Manitoba laying the cornerstone for a new Museum of Human Rights as I write this column on Canada Day Weekend. This has been a defining year for our Nation---the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the Queen’s Canada Week Visit, and the recent G8/G20 Conference. This was a year Canada made a mark on the world.

The world view of Canada has changed forever.

The recent Vancouver 2010 Olympics were accompanied by serious security and safety concerns, and so the police presence was highly visible. Everywhere you looked on every street corner were police from across the country proudly displaying the regular uniforms of their police service which acted as a symbol of a strong unifying force within the country….police from every region of the country pulling together for the common good and they did us proud. They were everywhere, groups of two or three police smiling and chatting amicably with passersby as friendly helpful faces assisting the crowds. And everywhere you looked, public areas and secured areas were defined by colourful posters in the green, blue, and white colours of the Vancouver Olympics, displaying motifs of the various winter Olympic sports.

Protesters came from far and wide to oppose the tremendous costs which might well have been diverted to the homeless, the poor, the native communities, the environment, or to combat corporate irresponsibility and inequitable distribution of wealth, etc. Similar protests accompany all world gatherings for the rich and privileged.

Some of the protesters were professional protesters---social activists moving from site to site to exhort their views. As with all such protest groups, the vast majority were simply law abiding spectators witnessing the event or enjoying the party atmosphere….not much different than witnessing Canada Day Celebrations at Parliament Hill or spectating at the Gay Pride Parade or Caribana or the Santa Claus Parade.

There is a possibility of problems everywhere that people gather---and everywhere it is the police responsibility to protect the public safety. They also have the responsibility to uphold Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms which guarantees citizens freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. The Charter also protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure, and the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. Upon arrest or detention, the Charter gives the citizens the right to be promptly informed of the reasons, to retain counsel without delay, and to have the validity of the detention determined. All citizens have the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

Toronto Police Motto---"To Serve and Protect"...Photo Credit--Richard Lautens, Toronto Star

WATCH THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO YOU'LL EVER SEE!

Every one of these constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms were widely ignored during the G20 Conference as if they didn’t exist. And so police actions are going to be tested in court actions brought by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and calls to the Federal Government for a public inquiry are being made by Amnesty International, and after rejecting public inquiries into the police action, the Toronto Police Service Board has now acceeded to public pressures announcing an independent public inquiry as I write this. The Ontario Ombudsman is investigating the misinformation given by the police about their ability to demand identification of everyone approaching within five metres of the secured meeting area or face arrest.

A facebook site with over 10,000 "friends" as I write this has been established to document some of the policing infractions and increase public pressure for an independent public inquiry over the G20 police actions.

The police presence at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics handled security well. The few minor problems that erupted were handled with dispatch, professionalism, wisdom, and only the necessary police presence. No huge police demonstrations of strength and power were evident which would have incited rather than ameliorated any potential problems.

The Olympic security organizers must have attended Psychology 101 lectures and were well aware that aggressive behaviours provoke an aggressive opposition. Too bad, the G20 security organizers didn’t attend the same lectures.

Everyone knows that dress defines a person’s attitudes and behaviours. And in all of the resulting personas, the behavior is largely predictable. Dress can even turn a mild mannered Clark Kent into Superman---a superhero in battledress---ready to fight aggressively for his beliefs.

In Toronto, the 10 foot chain link security fence and the massed police presence numbering in thousands clothed in riot gear was in stark contrast to the Olympics security measures. The G20 police with their shields, billy sticks, hard helmets, face masks, and black superhero outfits defined the police attitude, and foreshadowed the predictably aggressive behaviours the police were to deploy. The police rhymically banging their shields with their billy sticks revved up the crowds and stoked up the cops. All of the trouble provoked by the police was predictable.

Such though is to be expected as a function of a federal “law and order” government that sees everything as white and black, as either good or evil, with little in between, a party so strict in its party discipline that all messages are controlled by the prime minister’s office. I suspect that the parameters for policing this summit were laid down by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and its “iron hand control” over everything it touches. This philosophy of absolute and overwhelming power never works. And now the Harper Government want no part of any probe that may point a finger back at them!

What a contrast, the Olympics policing and the G20 Toronto Summit policing, where the massed police presence, oppressive visual appearance, and aggressive policing philosophy has been highly criticized with widespread calls for a public inquiry and the resignation of Police Chief William Blair. Hundreds of YouTube videos of G20 police action have gone viral and have trashed Toronto’s reputation as one of the world’s great cities and destroyed Canada’s reputation as a peaceful, free, and tolerant nation with a great respect for human rights and democratic freedoms.

Police action has defined Canada and the G20 Summit with headlines in the national and international press like, “G20 Summit: smashing,” “A Black Eye for Democracy,” and “Brutal spectacle failed a city and its people.”

A YouTube search will unveil thousands of videos of questionable police action with the super-hero clad police in huge numbers advancing lava-like in their star-wars getups, morphing over protesters and spectators alike, and then rushing, apparently unprovoked, into the crowds with their billy sticks swinging and sucking up individuals to be dragged behind the police lines, roughed up in many cases while the police immobilized them with plastic ties fixing their wrists behind their backs before dragging them off. In some cases rubber bullets and tear gas were fired into the crowds. In one video, I saw, a young man was hugging his obviously frightened girl friend when the police, probably in a display of macho dominance in front of the girl, power-dragged him off to her screams. In another video, the police advanced aggressively swinging their billies on a group sitting passively on the road singing Oh Canada, with their backs to the officers.

You tube videos will also show massed riot gear clothed police officers "kettling" citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and indiscrimately detaining and arresting them. Similar incidents in a recent London England economic summit were found by the British High Courts to be illegal and this will have some impact on class action suits of those similarly detained in Toronto.

Interestingly, there was no police presence around the burning cruisers or around those causing mayhem on the streets. As police seldom abandon their vehicles, there is speculation that the police planted and abandoned cruisers in the “trouble zone,” and may even have been responsible of torching them with some of their members planted among the protesters. There have been reports that the torched cars had been stripped of all of their computer and communications gear and fuel and gas caps before being abandoned. It was interesting that no police or fire service intervened to stop or limit damage to the police vehicles, nor, despite the presence of thousands of security cameras and police helicopters, was there any police presence around a Black Blok group rampaging up Yonge Street smashing store windows from Queen to College.

It has been stated by some of the police involved that they were ordered to “stand down” and not intervene in some of the destructive havoc being perpetrated by the Black Blok anarchists.

A theory being advanced is that authorities needed to allow and possibly incite some level of destruction to combat public criticism of the immense security costs.

This would not be the first time that undercover officers have infiltrated rampaging protesters and took a lead as Agent Provocateurs in instigating violence and destruction. In the 2007 Montebello Summit, police admitted such actions following press photos that showed three members of the rampaging and destructive group of rioters were wearing the same police issued riot boots as the riot gear clad officers.

The media and viral YouTube visuals are not what anyone previously would have identified with Canada or Canadians. In future, it will be hard for government officials to criticize nations accused of practicing police/government brutality against its own citizens.

Close to 1000 innocent citizens, the largest mass arrests in Canadian history were arrested and detained in crowded holding cages with open door toilet facilities, no beds, and inadequate food and water over the G20 weekend, and about 800 were released without charges showing the arrests were unjustified, while the remaining 200 were charged with minor offences like resisting arrest.

The unjustified detentions and use of excessive force is now the subject of lawsuits being raised by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Government Officials have now acquiesced to public pressure and have announced a public inquiry into the G20 police actions.

As Thomas Jefferson once said, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. Let’s hope that the recent G20 tyranny turns to renewed liberty, as those responsible for this assault on Canadian people pay the price, through the ensuing lawsuits and public inquiries.

We can’t have this happen again in Canada!

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 screwing of the Oshawa taxpayer---the secret city hall doesn’t want you to know!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
June 28, 2010

UOIT/Durham College is going to flood the downtown with students and this is going to cost all Oshawa taxpayers dearly.

It’s going to have enormous impact on every homeowner’s tax bill.

The university is critical to the city’s future but its expansion should not come on the backs of the Oshawa taxpayer.

This is a “scoop” not reported by city officials, city politicians, or any news media.

We’re exposing it here first in the Oshawa Central Newspaper…but undoubtedly the story will be picked up for future wider distribution and be of vital interest to all city taxpayers.

In an earlier column, I indicated that moving large masses of UOIT students downtown and creating a second UOIT campus there was a huge mistake.

Even though Mayor John Gray claimed movement of UOIT facilities downtown was part of a planned “domino effect” towards city center renewal, I argued lack of city and political vision discouraged foot traffic from the downtown thus making it difficult to run viable downtown businesses.

This resulted in huge inventories of vacant space and empty storefronts that could be had at distress prices.

This city council, most of whom have been on council for too long, had failed over their decades on council to develop a viable vision for a vibrant downtown. The city centre was dead---and nothing was being done for renewal.

Flooding the downtown with students will exacerbate the problem in a number of ways.

In all likelihood, the well-publicized problems surrounding the main UOIT campus will now be duplicated downtown further discouraging the consuming adult population from shopping or dining there.

The higher class restaurants and stores will disappear, to be displaced by burger joints, beer halls, and dance halls, which will be a magnet for rowdy teens and twenty-somethings from far and wide, hell-bent on joining the party. Policing costs will be increased!

But all this is just part of the story.

By the year 2015, UOIT/Durham College expects to service 5000 students in its downtown campus, and this is going to cost Oshawa taxpayers giant tax dollars.

To service the growing student population, the university expects, in future, to purchase or lease as much suitable downtown real estate as becomes available. They presently have their eye on the McLaughlin Square Condominium Building which would be converted to student use.

They already have the former Scotiabank building at 11 Simcoe Street North as the home for its Faculty of Education, the 30,000 sq ft. Former Bell Telephone building at the SW corner of Bond and Mary as the new home of its Social Science and Humanities Faculty, the Regent Theatre plus a new five story building to be constructed in the parking lot behind the theatre, and the large Alger Press Factory Building kitty corner to the Oshawa Clinic at 61 Charles, and lab space in the basement of the Genosha Hotel.

Therein lies the problem.

All of these properties produced significant tax revenues for the city but educational facilities, purchased or leased, are property tax exempt. All of this tax revenue will be lost to the city. Even the city reports supporting the UOIT downtown expansion fail to mention this lost tax revenue and the politicians were not swift enough to question this lost revenue.

At the commercial rate, even when vacant, these properties would have produced millions of dollars of tax revenue to help fund Oshawa’s operating costs.

And now that these revenues are lost, you, Mr. and Mrs. Oshawa taxpayer, will have to make up the shortfall.

While I do not, at present, know the tax amounts collected from these University acquired buildings, I shall file a freedom of information request, if necessary, to establish these lost amounts if they are not voluntarily forthcoming.

I do know, that in 2008, a 4.44% tax increase raised $4,126,938, so that approximately $1M is raised for every 1% tax increase.

At that rate, homeowners will be tabbed for an additional 1% tax increase for every million of taxation lost from the downtown commercial properties occupied by the university. This is a cost in perpetuity to the Oshawa taxpayer.

Beyond this, the Oshawa City Council has recently granted the university $7.5 million of our tax funds to help with UOIT’s downtown expansion. This is more than the $4.5M the university itself will invest in the downtown.

Fortunately, as with every other large city expenditure, such as the $25M City Hall redevelopment, the $45M GM Centre, and the $25M Legends Centre, we are given the "toss-out-line" that these expenses will not impact city taxes. So rest assured that taxes will not be collected to cover this amount...oh yeah!

In lieu of lost property taxes, Ontario Legislation dictates that the city does collect a “heads and beds” levy of $75 per student from the university.

For the loss of millions of dollars of commercial tax revenue lost from the university use of the downtown buildings, the city will get $375,000 for the "heads and beds" levy for the 5000 students expected downtown in 2015 in consideration of the lost tax revenue.

This is a costly trade-off for city taxpayers.

In addition to all these costs and tax losses, the city, according to Chris Brown, Director of Finance Services, has provided year 1 tax incentives of 90% of property taxes accruing from the privately developed student housing beyond the land-only assessments on the west side of Simcoe just south of the University and this tax incentive continues for the next 9 years decreasing 10% a year.

This taxpayer burden is being borne by city taxpayers despite the fact that the university is operating at a surplus position.

Why is the university not funding its own development costs?

Mayor John Gray and his city council are raping city taxpayers at every turn.

I guess Oshawa and it’s downtown will not shed the nickname, “The Shwa” anytime soon.

And oh yes, Mr. and Mrs. Oshawa Taxpayer. Thanks for subsidizing our university in Oshawa. You’ll pay every day of your life….and pay handsomely once again when your child attends OUR university.

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

A Clean Slate in Oshawa Politics

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
June 21, 2010


A new facebook page, “An outreach to everyone. An opportunity to heal and move forward. It's time,” has been started by Bill Steele, one of the candidates for Oshawa City Council.

Mr. Steele writes, “I am reaching out to all politicians to work together for a ‘Better Oshawa.’ New Candidates and Current Council members can all start fresh as of today. New respect and the betterment of Oshawa is priority number one.”

Of course, I am sure that Mr. Steele is a candidate for public office because he feels that the present Oshawa City Council has messed up at every turn, and that he can do better.

I guess, though, Mr. Steele is not going to, in future, mention all of the mess-ups that have motivated him to run for election.

This is unusual as Mr. Steele seems to be an excellent candidate for city council whose campaign has so far flourished by exposing and campaigning on many of the “negatives” of this city council---a council that concentrates on entitlements and self-serving bylaws that take up far too much council time.

Perhaps Mr. Steele is an early victim of the caution extended by the mayor, and outspoken incumbents like Brian Nicholson, who have called exposure of council mess-ups destructive of the city.

Destructive of the city my eye! What is really destructive of the city is failing to remind voters of the specifics of all the council mess-ups, thus insuring the re-election of the incumbents and their destructive, tax wasting, inept and sometimes unethical actions and behavior in the leadership they provide for this city.

If Mr. Steele were in the news business, he’d have a “good news” paper, and go belly up following his first edition. The public expects things to be okay, and in most cases they are, and so the public wants to know of any anomaly from the expected. This is news!

And there’s plenty of that negative National Press coming out of Oshawa---$46,000 MBA funding, $45,000 spent on Mayor’s birthday party, $250,000 spent on Cullen Miniatures which are now rotting in a city warehouse, city handling of the student housing issue, council’s unethical handling of Ontario Ombudsman’s Report criticizing City Council for its illegal in-camera meetings, etc., etc., etc.

This negative news all resulted from city council actions, despite the fact that Mayor John Gray and Councillor Brian Nicholson say negative news is destructive of the city. I’d say, “Then clean up your act, boys!”

And, of course, regular council observers know that Oshawa City Council itself is a fighting forum akin to currently popular cage fighting, where every councilor is trying to viciously subdue every other councilor into a tapout.

This is a function of the general vote where every politician is a competitor with every other council member, fighting to the death for the same votes, with their handsome $100,000 salaries and perks as a reward.

Hell, murders have been committed for a lot less!

Part of the problem with city hall is that councilors generally circle the wagons to hide the negatives, even the indiscretions of their fellow politicians, lest anyone focus on the skeletons within their own closets.

In many cities, investigative reporting by the local press exposes weaknesses in the political system, and often moulds public opinion as a force for political change.

Note the federal politician’s of all parties’ recent conversion to the idea that their political expenses will now be audited by Sheila Fraser, Canada’s Auditor General. Federal politicians were powerless to resist public opinion stirred up by the “Critical” National Press.

In this case, Federal Politicians of all parties stood united against the audit. We had lost the “opposition” role of the non-government members, which is one of the protections of the common good in our system of government. The “opposition” role had to be played by the independent press.

It is the opposition that plays the important role of attempting to keep government actions above board, righteous, honorable, and honest. Without this role, governments can degenerate into personal fiefdoms of privilege and power. The opposition role is an integral and important part of “responsible” government.

Of course, Canada’s Supreme Court says information is a public right…and that democracy itself cannot exist without an informed public.

So an opposition to question and criticize government authority is at the very heart of our democratic institutions.

This is quite contrary to the argument that Mr. Steele proposes which plays into the hands of the incumbents in hiding, as best they can, all of the shortcomings of the current council.

An opposition voice is not divisive…it is responsible…and a necessary part of governing at every level in a free and democratic nation.

How can the public be in charge of their political destiny in the absence of the free flow of all kinds of information which informs the public and allows them to make informed ballot choices?

Our whole government system at the senior levels is set up with an opposition that criticizes and offers alternatives...a role that is required by candidates for public office at all levels

Every candidate has two roles in a political campaign…to criticize what they see as wrongs, mismanagement, and wasteful and unnecessary tax expenditures, and to state their plans to fix the system.

And despite council incumbent’s attempts at silencing their opponents by loosing some of their lapdogs on those who criticize, even at senior levels of government, this column and my candidacy for mayor will continue to speak out to try to insure a fully informed public.

If this is not done, we will get the same gang re-elected with the same and continuing devastating consequences by an unknowing, unwary, and happy public.

The result would be four more years of mismanagement, growing political entitlements, and a too frequent unethical behavior by some politicians who have been on council too long, and have grown comfortable with stretching the rules of their conduct and behavior.

I'm in this race because I'm damn concerned about Oshawa, and how the present bunch are destroying virtually everything they touch---and I'm in the race to spend the next four years starting to turn things around to get things on track again.

I want a progressive, ethical, open, and accountable city council to serve the people of Oshawa. The growth of our personal investments in this city depends on it.

This column will continue to expose the rotting and smelly deadwood on Oshawa City Council. This has been the vital role of Canada’s free press since Confederation.

This is also a message I will bring to the Mayor All-Candidate Forums, and in my campaign generally, in my efforts to inform on the need for voters to “usher out the old” and “bring in the new!”

The clean slate the city really needs is fresh bottoms sitting on all of the council chairs.

And now for my giant vision and positive proposals for Oshawa….see www.wepromise.ca

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 Council erects another monument to its impressive escalation of debt

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
June 14, 2010

Well give yourself a giant pat on the back, Oshawa taxpayers, you’ve erected and paid for another monument to our city council politicians. The new council chambers and new wing of city hall opened for business last Monday.

Oh! Sorry! Not paid for yet. But you’ve accumulated more city debt.

The payback money over the next number of years is coming from our Oshawa Public Utilities Dividends and from city interfund loans such as the city’s various replacement reserve funds, which of course will be topped up again over the next number of years with ongoing tax collections. The OPUC dividends used to fund the project will not be available for use by the city to fund some of its operating costs to reduce the highest taxation mill rates in the GTA.

Although the most recently reported cost of the project is $15.4M, we really don’t know how much it cost because so many numbers have been bandied about by the politicians. The reported cost figures have bounced around more than a Harlem Globetrotter’s basketball---from $10.8M to $13.3M to $17.07M to $14.8M to $15.4M.

And now for city hall opening announcements, they have been dribbled downward once again. It’s also hard to determine, however, just what is covered in the costs being quoted, and what costs have been excluded to be hidden elsewhere.

And in press releases, we’ve been told that we’ve had cost reductions from tendered costs to result in cost savings from that $17.07M cost---oh yeah! Let me sell you a scenic cottage lot in the Hudson’s Bay swamplands.

I believe the total cost of the project is closer to $25M, and maybe more, when all renovations, furnishings, decorating, landscaping, rental of leased space and moving of equipment during the renovations, and preparation of temporary quarters during the construction, and hiring of the many project management and other architectural and interior design specialists and demolition experts are included.

Alas, we’ll never know. Politicians specialize in half-truths to pull numbers and arguments out of the air that they think you’ll believe. Like the energy savings paying for this whole project---bu-lsh-t!

In 2008, a 4.44% tax increase raised $4,126,938 so $1M is raised for approximately every 1% tax increase. Discounting variables such as city assessment growth, debt charges paid on borrowed capital, interest charges lost on city hall reserve funds capital, and the opportunity costs of what we might otherwise have done with this capital, we might estimate a 1% tax increase for the next 15 years to pay for the City Hall project, or a 2% tax increase over the next 7 ½ years, or a 3% tax increase over the next 5 years, or a 15% tax increase in one year to pay for this needless $15.4M demolition and rebuilding of city hall “A” wing and Council Chambers and refurbishment of Rundle Tower. However we pay for the project, it is a hefty penalty to pay for something we didn’t need.

We do know that the costs were higher than need be, though, since the old chamber and “A” wing were demolished before we had plans and signed contracts for the new project. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to tear down my house before I had plans, prices, and contracts for a replacement. But city hall is not nearly as concerned as we are with my bucks or yours!

Council Chambers re-building itself has been quoted as rising to $9M, a sizeable portion of the $15.4M being quoted for the entire project. At $1M to demolish the old structure, only $5M is left for the reconstruction of “A” wing and the total refurbishment of Rundle Tower. This hardly sounds creditable to me.

It’d take a forensic accountant to get to the real costs as the city accounting system spreads costs of any one project over so many accounts and over so many departments that no one ever knows the true costs. And these accounting entries often have insufficient descriptors so as to defy identification.

It’s amazing that city hall does not keep ledger sheets tracking the costs of individual projects. Only the costs of big contracts are identifiable. But don’t you know, children, that is done purposely so that construction costs can be juggled to keep the “truth hounds” at bay. Like those bouncing balls mentioned previously, the costs estimates and expenditures are all over the place. These city accountants are magicians at the behest of city council.

Fortunate for you taxpayers, though, we’ve been told that the costs will have no impact on Oshawa’s stratospheric taxation levels.

We hear this as a “toss out line” about the costs of all major City Council projects. If this is so, city hall must have its own printing press to churn out money. They just have to have a source of funds that is not taxpayer based.

With this extra debt, it’s amazing that city council can come in with a .9% tax increase this election year when they absolutely needed 4% increases over the last two years with the mayor vigorously arguing for a 9% increase immediately after the last election. I wonder what he’ll be calling for at the beginning of the next term if he wins. If I win, I’ll be calling for annual 3% decreases until Oshawa’s tax loads reach the average in the GTA.

If the city hall construction cost was the cost to erect a “good riddance” tombstone to the end of this shipwreck city council, perhaps most Oshawa ratepayers would consider it a bargain. As it turns out, there will be a brass plate erected prominently in city hall in perpetuity listing all those politicians responsible for this wastage. This should provide future councils a reminder about the penalties of wasting taxpayer money.

Now when the press toured the new council chamber last Monday, there was no mention of the upgrades that made this new building necessary---the leaking roof, inaccessibility to the handicapped, and energy efficiency.

You’d think that the rationale for demolishing the old and building the new would have figured prominently in the press presentation. Instead, mention was only made that seating capacity had been increased by about 50 to 196, that there was an up-to-date sound system, and a new video screening feature. All of these improvements plus all of the argued shortcomings that necessitated the huge expenditure could have been accomplished in a fraction of the cost of replacing the demolished building. These improvements could have probably been done for the same cost as demolishing the previous structures.

We should have suspected all of the sense behind this whole project when staff rolled out a report on June 28, 2007 that indicated city council had 3 options--- (a) do nothing, or (b) renovate “A” wing and Council Chambers for $15.2M, or (c) demolish and rebuild Council Chambers and “A” wing and renovate Rundle Tower all for $10.8M. A sensible council would have fired the authors of this document so that they could start new careers as stand up comics. This June report might better have been delivered as a huge joke on April Fool’s Day.

As Citizen, Rick Foster, wrote in a letter to the editor on March 3, 2009, “The way this project is going, the new larger council chambers are still going to be too small when the taxpayers converge with their pitch forks and melting tar feathers.”

Or as citizen, Ron Horner, wrote in a letter to the editor on February 23, 2009, “Oshawa taxpayers must really enjoy getting tax increases every year. They must, or why else would they allow this sort of waste to go on?”

And yet, Mayor John Gray in his February, 2009, “State of the City” address to city business leaders, politicians, and community stakeholder, cited this city hall renewal fiasco as one of city hall’s prime accomplishments.

Hell, I’d hate to think of their failures.

Oh yeah! MBA’s, Cullen Miniatures, overbuilding new ice arenas to put Oshawa in a surplus position as excuse to demolish arenas in older parts of Oshawa, highest taxes in GTA, cozy arrangement between mayor and some of his councillors and developers, handling of the UOIT student housing issue, GM Centre tax sinkhole, Regent Theatre fiasco, new downtown hotel letdown, Rundle House demolition, new Downtown Courthouse approved with insufficient parking and now all surrounding downtown streets reduced from 4 traffic lanes to 2 or from 2 traffic lanes to one, etc., etc., etc.

Now all that does put the city hall waste in perspective doesn’t it?

City Hall’s next major achievement to be announced? Dropping a Hiroshima type bomb on the Oshawa downtown!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

City voters must elect a local government that works!

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

There are Strange Things Done Neath Facebook’s Political Sun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so Brian Nicholson jumped on this horse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/