No Search Warrant? No Problem for Town of Newmarket Investigators

What would you do if you arrived home from work this spring to find a stranger poking around in your backyard? What if this stranger was peering into the windows of your home?

Would your first reaction be to call the police?

Well the Gruesome-Twosome Council of the Town of Newmarket is about to make it legal for its bylaws officers to enter your property without a search warrant to investigate whether homeowners are cutting grass or have an illegal accessory dwelling unit (ADU) such as a basement apartment.

These extraordinary powers for bylaws officers go well beyond what the real police have the authority to do. If the police suspected a drug lab in a basement, they would first need to go before a Justice of Peace to get a search warrant before they could legally breach the homeowner's right to privacy.

We need to think of what is in the public's best interest when it comes to law enforcement. Are people in imminent danger? Is an indictable offense being perpetrated? Of course not.

So why can't our bylaws officers simply knock on your door and make an appointment with the homeowner to view the property? Wouldn't common courtesy and respect for privacy trump the need to creep around and snoop without the homeowners consent? If there was an urgent need to inspect a property, shouldn't the bylaw officer justify their case (just like police officers do) and get a search warrant?

Instead of being decent and respectful, our municipal government is considering Gestapo tactics to deal with alleged rule breakers, such as people who don't cut their grass in their own backyard to the standards of a nosy neighbour.  This change is to be considered by Council on March 27th,

Should I continue?

My blog is now in its eighth year. I started it as a way to inform Newmarket taxpayers about the lies and distortions published by the Newmarket Era while the paper continues to ignore more serious news.

After publishing 50+ blog postings each year, and slowly chipping away at the credibility of the Newmarket Era and the exaggerated fluffing of the gruesome twosome, I see that, (on social media at least), people are coming around to my perspective.

The Newmarket Era has continually betrayed our community's trust to report honestly and factually on the affairs of our Town Council.

I remain embarrassed for the Newmarket Era each time it arrives at the end of my driveway.

I am angered each time I think that my exorbitantly high property taxes are handed over to the Newmarket Era as a form of corporate welfare to keep it afloat. I get angry even still when I recall that John Taylor's wife's gets an executive salary to take home as a result of this corporate welfare. And when I think of the additional garbage pick up costs we all assume as a result of the Newmarket Era filling our blue boxes each week with unwanted, unnecessary junk flyers (why aren't they distributed on line only?) I am frustrated even more.

But do I need to continue to beat this dead horse? Has my blog run its course? If we all know agree that the Newmarket Era has lost its credibility by becoming the propaganda arm of the gruesome twosome, then what role is there left for the Newmarket Town Hall Watch blog?

Council members can no longer be silent on questions of corporate corruption

The allegations of corporate cheating to influence the outcome of the last Town of Newmarket municipal election appear to be highly credible.

But remember that no corporation would risk their brand's reputation just to get one of its employees another part time job as a Town Councillor. This cheating wasn't about obtaining a $40,000 per year job for Kelly Broome. These corporations have their own self interests in play and are expecting a much higher payback.

For example, let's look at the new Mulock GO Train Station. Back in October 2016, Council voted for a resolution that encourages Metrolinx to fund development plans of a new GO station on the south-east corner of the train tracks on Mulock Drive. This same resolution promised to support amending Newmarket's Official Plan to support changes to land use provisions of the neighbouring properties of the train station. Changes to the Official Plan could potentially be worth millions of dollars to landholders in the area if developers seek to cash in on developing within the vicinity of the new train station.

Did anyone consider which car dealership is located at 349 Mulock Drive (located on the north-west corner across from proposed train station)? Or which Council member is employed by the owner of that dealership? And did that Council member declare a conflict of interest prior to casting her vote?

How about another Council member who is also the president of a controversial charity that used to operate right next door to the dealership located at 349 Mulock Drive? What is the relationship between that dealership and the charity belonging to the Council member? Did he declare a conflict of interest prior to voting in favour of the new train station?

And should we forget that other members of Council received "support" in their election from the owner of this dealership? Did that corporate donation weigh into their decision to vote in favour of this Mulock train station?  

The public deserves answers from our members of Council to these important questions.  When Council decisions could lead to real estate transactions valued in potential millions of dollars involving a Council member's employer, or the member's charity sponsor, or their campaign campaign "supporters", shouldn't every measure be taken to ensure complete transparency and openness?

I truly hope that the Council members will speak openly about their vote. To remain silent (like they are apt to do) only increases the speculation that our democracy is at risk of being sold to the highest corporate bidder.

Mayor's Levee, By Election Update and Naming & Shaming

Mayor's Levee

"It was a small but enthusiastic crowd."

This is the way a small number of people will remember last weekend's Mayor's New Years Levee.

The weather was decent. The event was organized. Yet hardly anyone showed.

With the Town of Newmarket struggling to stay within its fiscal means, it begs the question whether the annual Mayor's Levee should be continued. Certainly, the event cost some money but couldn't that money be put to better use?

Most telling is that many of our Council members didn't bother to show up either.


By Election Update

After weeks and weeks of delay, the Town of Newmarket finally decided to post the Candidate campaign expenses.

The public can view the filed expenses here.

No word from the Town of Newmarket if there is a deadline for a member of the public to request a campaign finance audit.

All in all, a very sloppy display of election transparency by the Town of Newmarket.and certainly not to the quality that we have been accustomed to in the past.

Naming and Shaming

I have been critical in the past of the Newmarket Era's decision to publish restaurant health violations and it dismayed me to see these stories listed among the most popular articles posted on the www.yorkregion.com web site.

Yet, it surprises me that the newspaper wouldn't be consistent here:

Of course those arrested for drinking and driving ought to be named and shamed.

We have an open and widespread epidemic of drivers flouting the law with their reckless impairment and lives and property are needlessly placed at risk. Arrest rates are at record levels in York Region but the tide of drivers willing to risk your life and property due to their irresponsible intoxication doesn't appear to be abating.

The politicians haven't come to the table with suitably harsh prison sentences.

So the newspaper has a very important obligation to step up and provide the necessary deterrent. Make people think twice before getting behind the wheel after drinking. Let them know their reputation within the community, with their employer, and others is at stake. If someone can't govern themselves to act responsibly around alcohol, then the rest of us should know how dangerous they really are.

Advantage Chris Ballard

At what point did the Newmarket-Aurora Progressive Conservatives lose the election of 2014?

Prior to 2014, the Newmarket-Aurora riding has always voted PC ever since its inception. The Liberals had no momentum here. In fact, the Liberal Party had a tough time drumming up a candidate who would be interested in running because Newmarket-Aurora was considered a "safe" PC seat. Eventually, Chris Ballard was acclaimed because no other Liberal step forward to run against him.

So why did this riding flip in 2014.

In a word, "Authenticity."

The 2014 Canadians Choice candidate, Dorian Baxter, enunciating every syllable of "authenticity", delivered the coup de grace to then PC candidate Jane Twinney's campaign. He struck to the heart of Twinney's image problem. She wasn't a legitimate conservative and the voting public knew it.

The lesson voters delivered, "We don't want phonies or opportunists."

Have local PC members learned their "authenticity" lesson this time around?



These two may be well qualified for employment at the drive thru window, but are they qualified to run as PC candidates based on the evidence of their dismal voting record on Aurora, Newmarket, and York Region Council? Do voters really want to replace "tax and spend" Liberals with "tax and spend" PCs?

Advantage: Chris Ballard.

Why Taylor's Way Shouldn't Be the Final Word on the Clock Tower Development

There are a number of people in Newmarket who feel that Main Street is perfectly fine as it is. Those people will be happy to hear that the Clock Tower development proposal won't be going ahead.

But in order to have a vibrant community, growth and change must happen. Otherwise Main Street is to become as lifeless as a museum. And unless we start charging admission (like most museums do), the economics of keeping Main Street locked in one point in time don't make sense.

What we are seeing on Main Street and elsewhere in Newmarket, are the results of years and years of neglecting planning. The Taylor legacy, from Tom Taylor through to John Taylor, over the past number of decades, has been a passive approach to development. The Taylor way is to sit and wait until developers propose something, then give into the various NIMBY groups who in turn promise to vote Taylor in the next election, And here are the results:

• Davis Drive - once the business heart of our community is now essentially a ghost town. Multiple proposals for high rise condos gather dust on the shelf because our economy is not in good shape for high rise condo development. There just aren't any new jobs in Newmarket that would support new high rise condo development.
• Yonge St - again, mostly a ghost town. Same plans as Davis Drive and guess what? Same sorry end result of empty plazas and derelict buildings. 
• Harry Walker Parkway - this area was supposed to become the economic driver of our community. Most lots are either empty or have a vacant structure occupying the lot. 

Main Street Newmarket is not in a good economic health. We know this because one bank has already left Main Street for greener pastures. Banks go where the money goes and Scotia Bank leaving indicates that the money has already left. 

Anyone with two eyes knows what Main Street needs to thrive. It needs a grocery store and a general goods/ hardware store (like a Home Hardware). Without these two anchor businesses, serving not only Main Street, but also the residents nearby - like Church, Botsford, Queen, Park and Millard residents - then there is really no reason for people to head over to Main St on a regular basis. 

But without an influx of new people moving into the Main Street area, something that the Clock Tower development would have provided, entrepreneurs don't see the upside of opening a grocery or hardware store. And that is the predicament that we are in. 

My advice for the Forrest Group, which owns a valuable asset in these Main Street buildings, is to take a page from the Taylor election campaign book. The next municipal election is just under two years away. There is time to recruit and promote the right candidates for mayor and other council seats. Good, hardworking, decent people who appreciate what prudent municipal planning really means.

The Clock Tower development doesn't have to be at odds with the best interests of the public. In fact, a good case can be made to say that this construction is exactly what our town needs. So if Bob Forrest believes in what he is doing, then put the case to the public through the ballot box in 2018.  

We all should care about the economic vibrancy of Newmarket's Main Street because a disproportionate amount of public resources are spent propping this part of town up. If Main Street was in better shape economically, then it would result in public money being freed up to be invested in other parts of the community or maybe even a reduction in property taxes (something that hasn't happened in Newmarket for as long as a Taylor has been in charge). 

Unbiased reporting at the Newmarket Era? Some assembly required

The credibility of the media in the wake of the US Presidential election has never been more in doubt. "Lyin' media" was the rallying cry of many Trump supporters. And who could forget this t-shirt that sent a stark message in the last few days of the campaign?

Yet, criticism of the American press can be quite appropriate. The false equivalency the media gave to the Clinton Wikileaks to some of the impolitic things Trump said is one example. The voting public knew that Hillary Clinton's emails were far more serious and didn't believe the press who actively tried to convince everyone that these email revelations weren't important.

The American press unfortunately crossed the line from covering the news to actively campaigning for Hillary Clinton. When they did that, the voting public didn't believe three-quarters of the news coverage they reported on Donald Trump.

And just as President Obama's talk of gun control achieved no other results other than to unintentionally increase the number of guns sold in the US, the pro-Hillary bias in the American press actually convinced the plurality of voters to cast a ballot for Trump.

Time will tell what the consequences for the United States will be as an outcome of the American press abandoning its neutrality. Will Americans ever believe the Fourth Estate ever again?

There are parallels to Newmarket.

In the last municipal election, the Newmarket Era was narrowly focused on getting rid of Maddie Di Muccio on Council and ensuring no conservative minded Councillors were elected, (the Era even went so far as publishing multiple false "news" about her and other candidates), and despite achieving success in the short term, the Newmarket Era is now in a tailspin as a result.

Instead of Council meetings where important measures received meaningful debate, we now have 15-minute long Council meetings that basically rubber stamp $600,000+ projects without any due consideration.

And outside of a Letter to the Editor from the Inn From the Cold organization demanding that the Newmarket Era report facts not innuendo, when was the last time any resident from Newmarket ever wrote about any issue related to Newmarket Council? Recently the new editor of the Era (the third one since 2014), wrote an editorial begging Newmarket residents to write to him.

But ever since Deputy Mayor John Taylor's wife became a top executive at the Newmarket Era "newspaper", credibility in the local media has dropped to an all time low. The Era, which had a tenuous idea of unbiased journalism previously, has devolved into a fan-page for the Gruesome Twosome of Mayor Van Bynen and Deputy Mayor Taylor and their council cronies.

The public has stopped trusting the Newmarket Era and more importantly, stopped reading and engaging too. The once profitable Newmarket Era has been steadily losing money as a result

I began this blog five years ago in response to what I felt was bias reporting. I made a promise to stop my blog once the Newmarket Era re-committed to the basic tenets of journalism. Instead of heeding the wake-up call, the Newmarket Era swung the pendulum even more to the extreme. 3 editors later, I am still blogging and the newspaper is still losing money. The public needs me in order to hear the truth about Newmarket Council.

After five years of bleeding red ink, you would think that the parent company of the Newmarket Era would get the message?