After a short time-out in St. Thomas, homeless advocate Jason McComb is back on the road — continuing his Walking in the Free World cross-Canada trek.
On his lay-over, he met with MP Joe Preston, MPP Jeff Yurek and St. Thomas Mayor Heather Jackson to draw attention to the plight of the homeless in order to get them back contributing to society.
He was encouraged to approach all candidates in the upcoming municipal vote to peg them down on homeless initiatives.
During a similar round table discussion back in January, Jason made the following observation about the city’s seasonal shelter, Inn out of the Cold.
“Get them in, get them fed, get them showered, get them to bed. Then it’s here’s your breakfast and now out you go.
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Tag Archives: 2010 Municipal election
Beware of guys with carnations in their lapels
A municipal election campaign that had all the excitement of watching paint dry exploded into life Tuesday with Cliff Barwick’s announcement he is seeking a return to the mayor’s office at city hall.
That pits the two primary combatants in the 2010 mayoral showdown — Mayor Heather Jackson and Barwick — in a rematch on Oct. 27.
But, it is going to get better.
Over the next week or so, expect either Ald. Jeff Kohler or Ald. Mark Cosens to join the fray.
If it’s the former, that sets up a tantalizing scenario pitting the last three St. Thomas mayors in a winner-take-all smackdown.
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The naked truth on conflict of interest
If you’ve read the Page 3 story in Saturday’s Times-Journal, you’ll discover determining when to declare a conflict of interest can become quite the ethical dilemma.
Mayor Heather Jackson is living that now after being challenged by former St. Thomas resident and 2010 aldermanic candidate, Bill Sandison in a letter forwarded to the T-J.
The mayor steadfastly believes she was not in a conflict situation – according to the Ontario Municipal Act – when she debated and voted on the awarding of an Information Technology contract to Ascent (formerly St. Thomas Energy) in spite of the fact she is romantically linked to an employee in that very same department.
We consulted with a pair of municipal governance experts who argue perception is reality to most constituents and taking the high road would be in order when there is the least whiff of a conflict.
“There is no question that the cautious thing to do would have been to not vote,” advised Western University political scientist, Andrew Sancton. Continue reading
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Not the time to mix-master the issues
So, what exactly is the art of ‘gentle persuasion’ as practiced by St. Thomas developer Bob McCaig?
That strategy to oppose construction of a new police station and the petition he is circulating around the city prompted this corner to call McCaig for clarification.
“We don’t need it, we can’t afford it and our community is in trouble financially,” Bob stresses.
While the petition surely will garner hundreds if not a couple thousand signatures, McCaig admits it likely will have little impact at city hall.
“There is nothing that will come of it (the petition) that will force anybody to do anything. It’s all about gentle persuasion. The time for tough talk is over. It’s time to lay the information on in terms of facts.”
And for Bob, the information points to renovation of the existing police station in the Colin McGregor Justice Building.
“This concept of a new police station should be dropped and the current one renovated. They should put off a new station for 20 years.”
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Buckle up, we’re approaching ram speed
The second meeting of the police building committee attracted a strange assortment of bedfellows Thursday morning at city hall.
Notables included former mayor Peter Ostojic, former alderman Marie Turvey and former Elgin County Board of Education chairman Bob McCaig.
Discussion of a new police headquarters, to be located on city-owned land adjacent to the Timken Centre, has generated such pushback the meeting had to be moved to a larger venue.
Deliberations had barely begun and McCaig couldn’t contain himself any longer.
“Why are you in such a hurray,” he blustered, as the committee attempted to establish a schedule for developing a request for proposal for architectural services.
“A group of people want to ram this through.” Continue reading
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Always room for one more in this club
The city’s most exclusive club saw its membership increase by four in 2013. We’re talking about the Sunshine Club at city hall — those employees who earned $100,000 or more under public sector salary disclosure.
Mind you, it was a modest increase from 58 select members in 2012 to 62 this past year.
A far cry from the door-crashing rush in 2012 when the rolls swelled to 58 from 39 in 2011.
Breaking the numbers down, in 2013 city administration counted 14 in the Sunshine Club, up from 13 the year previous.
The police department enrolment actually declined by one — from 17 to 16.
At the fire halls, the ranks increased to 32 in 2013 from 28 in 2012. That means the fire department membership is greater than the police and city administration combined.
Concentrating on administration salaries only, the top wage-earner last year was CAO Wendell Graves at $165,900, which is actually down from a year ago at $166,315. Continue reading
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What do downtown barriers portend?
It took a month, however we finally have had someone step up to the plate to declare their candidacy in the October municipal election.
Mayor Heather Jackson filed her nomination papers first thing Monday morning, although she has not finalized her campaign platform.
We talked with her Tuesday on what her strategy may be in a bid for a second term as mayor.
“I’m working with my team on finalizing the platform. We’ll be releasing that in the coming weeks. I don’t want to take the focus away from the work that needs to be done right now.
“We’ve been elected to a four-year term so we’ve got work to continue to do.”
The one thing she wants to avoid is a repeat of the down-and-dirty 2010 election campaign — a black eye for the city on several fronts.
“I can stand behind everything we’ve accomplished as a council and continue to do. It’s certainly not what I’m looking to do. I don’t believe that is in the best interest of anybody and I certainly hope that anybody else who runs for either alderman or mayor keeps that in mind.”
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October is a good month for pruning
Progressive by nature is a catchy marketing slogan employed by the County of Elgin that, unfortunately, is not readily applicable to all members of St. Thomas council.
That was painfully evident Monday when a motion to allow internet voting during a portion of the advance polling period in the October municipal election was defeated on a 4-4 vote.
Aldermen Cliff Barwick, Tom Johnston, Gord Campbell and Dave Warden presented some of the flimsiest arguments possible to maintain the status quo, i.e. the traditional paper ballot.
Had this been evidence in a court case it would have been dismissed as not germane.
The concern seniors would not vote because they prefer the traditional ballot over computer voting is a smoke screen since the paper ballot would remain as the primary method of casting one’s vote.
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Should we still use a pencil or can we now click here?
In the last municipal vote, a paltry 39% of eligible voters bothered to cast their ballot in what proved to be a bitter mayoral showdown.
The anybody-but-Barwick election of 2010 should have been motivation enough to flood the polling booths after one of the nastiest campaigns in many years.
But, when little more than a third of voters participate, you know the system is broken, or worse, irrelevant.
Is it a case of constituents who are so weary of lies and deception at all levels of government?
Do young people — especially those voting for the first time — feel politicians of all stripes are not reaching out to them?
Or, is it overall apathy on the part of voters who have given up at having their concerns dealt with?
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