There are sometimes in life where you get a stain on something and, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get it out. Or maybe it’s a church tune that you can’t get out of your head, and it’s gotten so bad that you find yourself whistling Be Not Afraid in the shower.
My point is that sometimes there are things that never go away, as much as you might like them to.
So there’s these cameras.
Continue reading “CAMERAS MAKE A COMEBACK. UNTIL THEY DON’T.”
The Downtown Renfrew Business Improvement Area — DRBIA.— is an arm’s length group that operates under the auspices of the Town of Renfrew, and as such receives a budget from the corporation to pursue initiatives and planning dedicated towards improvement and promotion of the town’s downtown core.
What makes such a group particularly effective is the fact that it’s composed exclusively of business owners and commercial property owners that all share a keen interest in the viability and economic success of downtown, the heart of almost any community. These business and commercial interests all contribute to the DRBIA operating budget as well, as they’re all assessed a membership levy, something that presents a bit of an issue on another topic, but not to this one.
The point is that we have people who are invested doing the day to day stuff, but there’s also a financial and legislative tether that means that Renfrew Town Council is the supreme authority when it comes to DRBIA decision-making.
Two items related to DRBIA caught my attention recently in a way that made me want to comment.
Continue reading “DRBIA SEEKS PERMISSION FOR HISTORICAL SIGN AND NATIVITY SCENE”
It started out as an Open House at the Information Booth on O’Brien Road.
It was an information session regarding Stevenson Crescent and the road work to be done there. There were charts, diagrams, drawings and all the other public-facing accoutrements on display, with the town itself represented by Andrea Bishop, at the time a manager in the Shovels and Rakes department, and Hannah MacMillan, the communications manager. A third individual, I assume from the engineering company, was also present. Being the only member of the public there at the time, it was kind of awkward, but the three representatives were only too happy to provide details and explanations as part of the Open House.
I’m not an engineer, nor am I an individual particularly concerned with road work here or anywhere else in town, but I think that night represents the top of the mountain for a project that, on paper anyways, looked like a slam dunk.
Continue reading “STEVENSON CRESCENT”
Communication gaps, or possibly even a flat-out dearth of information presents itself as a common theme in just about every Council meeting I’ve attended or watched online. And so it apparently goes for the road work being done on two local projects, one on Seventh Street and the other on Stevenson Crescent.
As has happened before, in fact too many times to mention, some unforeseen factor has been uncovered and has led to changes of scope around these projects and the attending increase in costs.
So it is with both Seventh and Stevenson, as projects originally intended to be “shave and pave” undertakings have ballooned in price because of things “discovered” that should have been in plain sight all along.
Continue reading “SEVENTH, STEVENSON, AND DEMANDS FOR INFORMATION”
“Ooops, my bad.”
While not a direct quote of Mayor Tom Sidney’s, it still sort of captures his communication with Council about his lack of communication with Council.
As in he dropped the ball, and apologizes for the oversight, both statements that can, in fact be attributed to the mayor.
This is all about the performance review of the Chief Administrative Officer Gloria Raybone, the CAO hired by Council as a whole some months ago to bring in some direction to an otherwise seemingly moribund ship. Evidently there’s this minor annoyance of needing to have her position confirmed, as if these past several months were some sort of probationary period. It’s a pro-forma thing, just part of a regular protocol, a regular part of the hiring process.
Continue reading “COUNCIL KEPT OUT OF LOOP ON CAO PERFORMANCE REVIEW”
Some might characterize it as being taken to task. Others might say it was more like being taken to the woodshed.
Whatever your choice, it amounts to pretty much the same thing, as the mayor (Tom Sidney) and the CAQ (Gloria Raybone) were both on the hot seat at the beginning of last Tuesday’s meeting of Renfrew Town Council.
The accountability piece in question had to do with the mayor cancelling the scheduled Council Meeting for September 9, the reasons given at the time being there were too many questions expected to come forward, and the staff needed additional time to prepare responses for those anticipated questions.
Continue reading “A MEETING GETS CANCELLED. OR POSTPONED.”
If you were looking for blood in the water, or a pound of flesh, then you’re likely a little on the disappointed side.
The Ma-Te-Way issue, the one where a construction project not just doubled, but essentially tripled in cost? It’s now officially closed, in all aspects, nothing more to be seen here, everybody move along.
And if you were looking for criminal culpability, put those desires away too, because the OPP has now announced that there will be no criminal charges levied against any of the actors involved in the biggest financial imbroglio to ever wash up on the banks of the mighty Bonnechere.
It’s done.
Continue reading “MA-TE-WAY IS DONE. EXCEPT FOR HAVING TO PAY FOR IT”
Semantics, sophistry, and a bag of pretzels.
This was the response Councillor John McDonald received when he suggested that staff ought to be compelled to respond to emails sent by residents for information or explanation.
Councillor McDonald was specifically referring to two emails, one sent by a Rose Curley and another by Charlene Riopelle, the former asking about procurement policies for capital projects and the latter having to do with Ma-Te-Way.
You should have seen them twisting in their seats.
But seat-twisting aside, Councillor McDonald was slapped-down in his request, for a number of reasons, some of them patently absurd.
Continue reading “COUNCIL TAKES A POWDER ON TWO CITIZEN EMAILS”
It’ll be two sessions, one starting mid-morning, the other at maybe 5 PM. Both sessions being limited to a maximum of four hours, since gatherings like these qualify as official council “meetings” and are therefore required to adhere to the procedural rules listed in Clerk Carolynn Errett’s Little Red Book of Municipal Procedure, available at fine bookstores nowhere.
That shouldn’t amount to any sort of problem, because, honestly, four hours is more than enough for an exercise in transparency and accountability, as well as simply putting faces to the various political and staff positions that are behind the day-to-day workings of the Corporation of the Town of Renfrew. Offering two such gatherings is, in my mind, more than generous, so I applaud the effort to hold an event such as this, to close any gaps between the citizens/taxpayers and the staff and political types who govern their municipal affairs.
I’m talking about what has been referred to as a Structured Town Hall, where residents can come out to learn more about how they’re governed and to provide some measure of background to various points of concern and/or curiosity people may have with policy, policy direction, decision-making, and all the other stuff that’s part of running a town, or any other place for that matter.
Continue reading “STRUCTURED TOWN HALL PLANNED FOR MID-OCTOBER”
Democracy is a frail and fragile thing. In fact, it’s absolutely precarious, something we’re seeing all over the world, and, perhaps most noteworthy and alarming, right next door in the great republic to the south.
But democracy is imperilled here in Canada as well, and yes, it clings to life right here in Renfrew, where municipal mandarins and an either weak or complicit, perhaps even incompetent mayor team together to deny democratic process in municipal government.
Owing to its fragile nature, it’s not terribly difficult for empire builders to trample all over its basic tenets, and people with personal or ambitious agendas represent the greatest threat to democracy, here and everywhere.
Continue reading “DEGRADATION OF LOCAL DEMOCRACY”
NEWSMAGRENFREW 