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?

New tax for Newmarket homeowners to be voted on tomorrow

Tomorrow's Special Committee of the Whole meeting will very quietly and almost surreptitiously impose a new "user fee" (ahem, tax) on Newmarket homes and businesses starting in 2017 related to storm water management.

The Town staff are going out of their way to say how transparent they've been. They had 44 likes on Facebook and 12 people showed up at a public information centre earlier this year on this topic. But it is fair to say that most people who live in Newmarket don't know this additional charge is coming.

Currently, the Town includes the costs of managing storm water within our property taxes. Staff have complained that our infrastructure hasn't been kept current and its getting too old and nearing the end of its usefulness. With replacement of storm water drains and other infrastructure upgrades looming on the horizon, the Town staff needs new ways to get more of your hard earned income dollars into the municipal government's hands.

Town officials promising that the first year will be revenue neutral. But no such guarantees are being offered on future years as this fund opens up the possibility of a cash cow for the Van Bynen/ Taylor administration.

For those listening in to tomorrow's 9 am meeting, expect lots of tsk tsk'ing about climate change. But the real culprit of the spiraling costs of storm water management is a lack of maintenance spending and an excessive reliance on road salt during the winter months. Both of these factors are entirely in the hands of the Van Bynen/ Taylor administration.

  

Newmarket's peculiar tolerance of a racial slur

Former NMHA president Murray Taylor doesn't think that the Redmen nickname for the Newmarket hockey teams is offensive. He believes this because it wasn't meant to be connected to First Nations people when it was adopted. According to Taylor, the Redmen nickname refers to the colour of the jersey that the team wore back in the 1930's.

Taylor is obviously wrong in his support of the Redmen nickname.

Even though NMHA may have had other intentions back in the 1930's, in the context of 2016 the term "Redmen" is very much associated with a racial slur. And First Nations people should not have to tolerate pejorative nicknames any more.

In the same 1930's, Irish immigrants were derisively called a "Mick" or a "Paddy" after the popularity of naming male babies Michael or Patrick. (The Town of Newmarket still commemorates our local "Paddy Town" with a sign on Main Street north of Davis Drive). A socially conscious person wouldn't dare use these same terms to refer to a person of Irish descent today. That's because they are offensive.

Germans were once called "Krauts" after the pickled cabbage, sauerkraut, which was once a staple of the diet of many Europeans. In 2016, calling someone a Kraut is offensive.  

And Russians were pejoratively called "Comrade" during the Soviet era. We don't use that term any more because it is offensive.

Calling a sports team the "Indians", the "Redskins", or the "Redmen" in 2016 is wrong. These are all offensive, pejorative nicknames for First Nations people. Hopefully the parents who register for hockey will pressure the leaders of the NMHA to adopt a more appropriate name. I don't see how we can teach today's generation of young people to be tolerant of other cultures while we force them to wear racial epithets across their chests while playing hockey.  

And while we are at it, the Town of Newmarket should take down that damn Paddy Town sign too.