Sunday 22 February 2015

Tax Hike? Yes, but Expect Nothing in Return Newmarket.

For every year that he has been Mayor, Tony Van Bynen has hiked your taxes and user fees.

The question on everyone's minds is, "What does he have to show for it?"

Is your community demonstrably better because of things he has done? 

He might point to the Magna Centre as an improvement.  Pay no attention to the neighbourhood arena and pool that shut down though.  And never mind the Maystar lawsuit that actually resulted in us paying millions more than what was budgeted. 

He might point to the River Walk Commons as an accomplishment.  But that would have us ignoring the considerable (90%+) financial contribution of the provincial and federal government. 

Maybe he would point to the trails systems as his big achievement but that would have us believing that we have something unique and special. 

Take a look at the Richmond Hill skating trail for a comparison:  http://www.richmondhill.ca/subpage.asp?pageid=leisure_richmond_green_skate_trail

The fact remains, for the average Newmarket resident, there isn't much that we can say the Gruesome Twosome do well.

On the jobs front: Newmarket has regressed.  Much of the local economy is in decline.  This weekend for example, Everest College joined the long list of businesses that failed in Newmarket.  Wasn't post secondary education an economic priority of the Mayor?  Taxpayers are wondering about the return on investment for the money paid to consultants to promote post secondary education in Newmarket. 

On the community building front:  Community events are a pale shadow of what they were like during the tenure of Ray Twinney. 

On the services front:  The operations of the town is not going well.  Employees disrespect the public by not returning voice messages, street plowing is late, garbage pick up issues, and grass isn't cut in the parks. 

The only thing we have to look forward to from this mayor and his cronies is our annual tax hikes, increased water rates, and more user fees. 

Thursday 19 February 2015

Corporate Welfare is Alive and Well in Newmarket

It must be election season because our MP is driving around her constituency dropping off fat cheques from taxpayers to help local businesses "develop".

Here is an example of the type of business that qualifies for one of these "investments" - BionX.

Regular readers of my blog will remember this company that is owned by local billionaire Frank Stronach which also employed Newmarket Regional Councillor John Taylor as a company director responsible for lobbying municipalities.  One of Regional Councillor John Taylor's successes while at BionX is convincing his fellow councillors to allow the e-bikes that BionX manufactures to be used on our town trails alongside the pedestrians who also use these trails. 

It seems that when your last name is Taylor and Stronach, our various levels of government are willing to do all sorts of things to keep you happy in the run up to this fall's federal election.  We have already numerous public parks and facilities named either Taylor or Stronach. 

What is a big fat cheque payable to this Stronach owned company courtesy of the taxpayer worth to the re-election bid of MP Lois Brown? 

Tuesday 10 February 2015

Newmarket Distrusts Council

Just two months into this new term and things aren't going as Council planned.  After orchestrating to remove any possible opposition from Council, the gruesome-twosome should be settling down to a long honeymoon period. 

To their favour, the Council agenda has been extremely light.  Debates over where to pile excess snow, (if not at the expansive parking lot at RTC then where?) or how Council can take credit for the hard work of volunteers and community minded businesses (such as Home Depot) who have constructed skating rinks, are the only items that have caused any discussion within Council chambers.  Not much controversy in these two items to upset the apple cart.  (Although judging by the amount of closed door meetings on the agenda lately, we can only presume that the more controversial items are being discussed in secrecy). 

But there can be no denying that there is a palpable level of public distrust for our 2014-2018 Council.  Everywhere I go, somebody is openly complaining about the Mayor or one of the Councillors. 

After 8-weeks on the job, this has got to be the shortest honeymoon in the history of Newmarket politics. 

The question arises, Why are people so mistrustful now and not 3 months ago?

The Internet has to be the game changer. 

Now that we can have pretty much 24/7 access to Newmarket politics, (despite that best attempts of the Newmarket Era against this), people are more aware what's going on.  And as they become more aware, they realize that they don't like how things are going. 

For me, Maddie Di Muccio's blogging started it all.  She threw the curtains open and gave the public it's first glance at what was going on in Council.  All attempts to "nip it in the bud" by John Taylor failed. 

Maddie's blogging spawned the creation of my blog.  In response to me, Gordon Prentice started his own; originally opposing everything I've said but lately Gordon Prentice has been coming around to the fact that I've been right all along about the unacceptable back room plotting and scheming conducted by the gruesome-twosome bloc against public interests. 

And spun off from that, on both sides, a myriad of others who tweeted regularly about issues.  I have noticed that the tone of these tweets are changing too.  People that once supported the gruesome-twosome are expressing opinions that are far from supportive these days. 

As a political strategy, the gruesome-twosome made a fatal political error in defeating Maddie Di Muccio.  With Maddie on Council, they had someone they could point at and blame.  With 8-1 vote results, they could say that she was the person creating dysfunction.  They don't have the luxury of deflecting blame now that vote results are 9-0. 

Mayor Van Bynen truly believes that if can make it to the ribbon cutting at the Old Town Hall opening and the Broadband Internet pilot project, that he can resuscitate his broken image.  He is wrong.  The amount of Newmarket citizens who are theatre goers or who will benefit from his internet scheme number in the dozens.  The vast majority of people won't be impressed with either of these accomplishments. 

So things will continue to circle the drain for this term of Council. 

I don't expect Council to take my advice on how to fix the predicament they have found themselves in.  But for the benefit of everyone else, here is how I would proceed if I were in the gruesome-twosome's shoes:

1) Increase visibility - Rather than shrink away on Twitter, how about actually engaging the public and answer questions and deal with challenges?  Why are our Councillor's hiding (as in not being on Twitter at all or if they are, reporting on lost cats as opposed to local issues)? 

2) Release documents - Distrust stems from the inexplicable need of the gruesome-twosome to be secretive.  Mayor Van Bynen and Regional Councillor Taylor will never change their spots.  But, maybe one of the other councillors will realize that their own good name is being dragged through the mud because these two are so terrified of transparency.  The Soccer Loan, the University expenses, the SDI grant spending, the Glenway documents:  these are all initiatives of prior terms of council and are closed matters.  There can be no reasonable excuse to continue to keep these items secret  Why not release these documents and show the public you have nothing to hide.  Alternatively, keep them secret and confirm the public's suspicions that you conducted some very shady business

3) Fix the Town Website - The Town's website has some very useful information but I swear that the search engine feature was designed to prevent someone from finding an agenda item.  (If you don't believe me, try it for yourself).  Fix the web site.  Move the voting record tab to a place of prominence.  Make Council agendas more accessible with an executive summary.  And abide by the rules of closed door meetings, not to the minimum standards but to the maximum amount of information possible so that the public knows what's going on.  Again, the impression from the website to the public is that this Council is hiding things. 

4)  Hire the Ombudsman - No other gesture would show both a) that you take transparency and accountability seriously, and b) you want to save taxpayers money, than firing LAS and hiring the Ombudsman.  You can gain back 90% of the public's trust with this one small decision. 

To those people who are today complaining about snow plows, lack of Davis Drive progress, and so on, I want to give you a shake and say, "Wake up!"  We are living with probably one of the most corrupt administrations in the history of Newmarket.  Our focus needs to remain on how public money is being spent and who is getting rich off the spending.  Things are only starting to unravel for the gruesome-twosome.  Let's make it our goal to see them resign in disgrace before 2018. 

Saturday 7 February 2015

A True Taylor-made Scandal

People ask me, Why do I publish anonymously?

In the past I used to refer people to this article from the CBC:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/collingwood-blogger-complains-to-opp-about-nazi-web-video-1.1332768

Collingwood's Steve Berman is a hero of mine. 

But Newmarket is seeing the advent of a new hero:  John Blommesteyn.  You can see for yourself the level of abuse he is taking from Regional Councillor John Taylor here:  http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/5327318-newmarket-code-of-conduct-complaint-against-regional-councillor-john-taylor-dismissed/

John Taylor is a thug and a bully and a liar. 

And he wants you to feel sorry for him. The bully portrays himself as a victim. 

On the other hand, John Blommesteyn has been correct all along.

1) The Code of Conduct in Newmarket is a joke.  As Blommesteyn says in his Tumblr post (here: http://john4newmarket.tumblr.com/) it doesn't protect us against corrupt politicians like the gruesome-twosome.  It is just a charade with too many loopholes to be relevant.  Blommesteyn wants Council to put teeth into the Code of Conduct. 

2) There are issues with Taylor's charity that have yet to be explained.  Taylor's own actions are ample proof that he was aware of these issues.  For example, in the past few weeks, we saw Taylor taking down personal his website; removing the Canada Revenue Agency letter from his charity's website; and changing the contact information from the Town's email and phone number to his own personal email and phone number.  If he was doing nothing wrong, why does his actions make him appear so very, very guilty?

3)  While John Taylor would have you believe that the cost is too exorbitant for us to expose this corruption, quoted in the Era article saying: "The use of an integrity commissioner is expensive and it has serious implications for everybody.  Taxpayers are paying this price."  If Taylor truly believed this comment then why did he use it 3 times in the past three years against a political opponent?  He used it in the case of calling a name?  Isn't that something he himself has done in council chamber innumerable times?  This just goes to prove that Taylor is a liar and a hypocrite.  (My suggestion:  If Suzanne Craig is so expensive, why use her?  I am sure that there are people who would give their time for free.  Maybe the Town of Newmarket should speak to Maddie Di Muccio if she would like to volunteer her time to be the Town's integrity commissioner).

4)  Taylor is also lying when he tries to paint Blommesteyn as a failed, angry person with an axe to grind.  Reading everything I can about Blommesteyn, I haven't found a scintilla of evidence that supports Taylor's remarks.  This attempt at character assassination makes Taylor a bully in the worse kind of way, (and frankly, par for the course as far as Taylor is concerned).  Blommesteyn has been, in my opinion, perhaps excessively respectful of Taylor and his charity's work, and shows his concern only for the taxpayers of Newmarket. 

There is a suggestion that Blommesteyn plans to continue with this.  For my two-cents, I hope he does.  It is more than about time that taxpayers stand up to gruesome-twosome and say we're demanding better government for our Newmarket.   

Friday 6 February 2015

Naheed Nenshi Vs. Newmarket Council

This week's news that Calgary Mayor, Naheed Nenshi being selected as "World's Best Mayor" is being attributed to the way he uses Twitter.  With 218,000 followers and over 35,000 tweets to his name, Nenshi has done a tremendous job keeping Calgary taxpayers engaged in that city's municipal government. 

Last term on Newmarket Council, Twitter played a tremendous role in local politics.  And thank goodness because Twitter was used by us "ordinary people" to shame our politicians on certain gruesome-twosome initiatives (the Newmarket Soccer Club bail out comes to readily to mind). 

This term on Council, Naheed Nenshi's motto (Tweet, Tweet, Tweet) is being ignored by the majority of Newmarket Council.  Other than the Mayor, Regional Councillor, and the Ward 7 Councillor (all of whom are 100X more likely to tweet about a lost puppy than they are to tweet about any real political issue), Twitter is rarely used by the majority of our Council. 

Here is a summary of how our Council uses Twitter:

Ward 2 Dave Kerwin - Has his Twitter on "private" setting.  (I guess it is none our business to know how he is representing us).
Ward 5 Joe Sponga - Has not posted since August 10, 2014 (No posts this term)
Ward 6 Kelly Broome Plumley - Has not posted since September 7, 2014 (prior to joining Council)
Ward 4 Tom Hempen - Has not posted since October 21, 2014 (No posts this term)
Ward 3 Jane Twinney - Has not posted since January 27th. (She has posted two times in 2015)
Ward 1 Tom Vegh - Last posted 4 days ago.  (6 posts in 2015)

Don't attribute these Councillors' lack of posting to apathy.  This is a strategic direction from these council members meaning to keep all of us in the dark about what is going on in our town. 

Lord knows that the local paper won't write about local politics.  Residents who want to know how our tax dollars are being spent are finding extremely few sources for information.   

I have said it before, these people work for us.  We are their boss.  Why do we tolerate our employees refusing to talk to us about their progress at work?  Or worse still, actually "blocking" us from even seeing what they have doing? 

Tony Van Bynen is going to retire soon and at that point someone is going to suggest naming something after him (so we'll remember him after he's gone).  Given his penchant for keeping us in the dark on local issues, I have a few suggestions:

Things we can re-name to honour the legacy of Tony Van Bynen
  1. a dark closet
  2. the dark side of the moon
  3. a burnt out light bulb
  4. a closed door meeting room
  5. a paper shredder
Let me know if you have any other suggestions.