Tag: community

RENFREW’S IT DEBACLE

I guess there’s times in life where you just have to decide who it is you’d rather be sued by.

Imagine putting yourself in a position precarious enough that you can clearly see that, no matter what you do, somebody’s going to come at you with civil litigation.

Then, and simply for the point of making an argument, what if you were to put the corporation you work for in that precarious position?

At least to me, and I’m often alone in my thinking, none of anything above strikes me as good business, personal, corporate, or anything in between.

Getting sued, one way or another, is generally an indicator that something’s gone wrong, that somebody or group of somebodies messed up, that a grievance ensued, a grievance whose only remedy is cash.

The Town of Renfrew has signed an Information Technology (IT) service-provision contract with a company called OnServe, who by all accounts is a straight-up legitimate choice for the job had the award not been called into question, not by anything they did or might have done, but rather for the potentially and possibly fatally-flawed process that was utilized by town staff in awarding the contract in the first place.

That was a three-year contract worth approximately $85,000/year, which roughly extends out to $235,000 over the course of the deal.

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COUNCIL MEETING TONIGHT

If sparks fly tonight, I have to confess I have no idea where they may originate from.

Looking over the agenda of tonight’s Renfrew Town Council meeting, the content suggests a pro forma meeting where nothing terribly contentious seems to be on tap.

But one can never be certain, right?  Complacency is not something that I’d recommend, since it was only two weeks ago where I was fighting off sleep only to have a hockey fight break out.  Not that we approached anything you might see in the parliaments of places like Taiwan or Turkey or elsewhere where the gloves hit the ice and otherwise dignified parliamentarians clamber over furniture to get at their rivals, but still, you just never know if someone in the room has a motion hidden in their back pocket that they may brandish as a way to get some juice into the YouTube livestream broadcast.

My YouTube spotter informed me that there were over 300 people watching at one point last meeting, which is more people than simultaneously listen to Renfrew’s only radio station, something advertisers should take note of.

When we get to the point where we can sell ads on a municipal YouTube livestream, then we’ve really accomplished something of substance.  Additional scrutiny of those viewing metrics show that additional people watched the video after-the-fact, which is really something, and hopefully not an indictment of what’s on television on a Tuesday night.

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THE LIGHTS AT MA-TE-WAY

It was back in October 2024 when Councillor Andrew Dick announced at Council that the ballparks at Ma-Te-Way were going to be lit in the summer of 2025 and “It doesn’t matter what it costs.”

It’s February 2025 and baseball season is just a little over three months away, so we seem to be approaching a time of critical decision-making when it comes to this issue.

There is one thing that’s generally regarded as being certain and where agreement is unanimous.  The lights at Ma-Te-Way are a mess, and that mess is going to require some cash to fix.  And if the fix is to include the Dog Park and a parking lot, then the cash required will be more than to just light the three fields.

Councillor Dick is a ballplayer, so he’s close to the issue.  That’s not a problem in any way, as these ballparks are pretty heavily-used, and they do bring money into the community in terms of user fees and peripheral spending from ball teams on game day or on tournament weekends.  So, while calling the ball fields economic engines might be a stretch to a degree, any time a ball team comes to town or stays in town, that peripheral spending does have an impact on restaurants, convenience stores, motels, pizza shops, and yes, beer and liquor stores, although that last area can now be folded into grocery and corner stores as well.

The situation regarding lighting at Ma-Te-Way involves not a crumbling infrastructure, but rather a crumbled infrastructure.  In other words, the best-before date was, to put it bluntly, a long time ago, and perhaps mitigated by decisions that could have been made by past councils, but that’s a moot point in that they weren’t made, and so here we are, in the dark.

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PARKING GROUP IDENTIFIED

As I’ve indicated before, parking is a really big deal here in River City, and that impression has been more than validated by the creation of a parking working group, or a PWG, to grapple with the intricacies and complexities involved with parking in a community of some 8500 souls.

This appears to be a comprehensiveapproach to addressing parking issues, where stakeholders, vested interests, by-law enforcement, political actors, municipal staff, and industry experts gather to collaborate and weigh-in on subject that, if improperly handled, can lead to interventions by concerned citizens like Bonnie Mask and her photo album.

Under the general direction of Fire Chief Michael Guest, who also commands the parking desk over at Fort Renfrew, the committee, or working group, will likely sit down with a jug of Tim Horton’s coffee and some baked treats to identify parking needs in the community and hammer out a response that will please everyone.

Except if that were true, we’d be in no need of a working group in the first place, since all of this would have been resolved years ago.  But apparently, parking is a fluid issue, a shape-shifter of a thing, meaning it’s a son-of-a-gun of a thing to pin down.  Often it’s an exercise in the very best of intentions I suppose, but perhaps lacking the iron fist of enforcement in many cases, leading to a possible disconnect with respect to intentions and policy delivery.

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AN EXCHANGE OF PASSION

I have to think that it was bubbling under the surface, irrespective of anything I might have to say.

Tuesday night’s meeting of Renfrew Town Council was plodding along, from one report to the next, going in such a way that fighting off sleep was a legitimate issue of paramount concern.  The atmosphere was rescued somewhat by Director Eric Withers, who undertook the responsibility of improving the air quality by grappling with the air circulation system headquartered right behind his spot on the the outer ring.  Had he not done so, we were looking at the possibility of a mass casualty event where several participants may well have nodded off during a back and forth featuring properties on Mutual Street and the Kumbaya experience offered by the ROMA — Rural Ontario Municipal Association — conference down in Toronto a couple of weekends back.

But then the clock began to wind down towards what many might legitimately consider to be the final minutes, the last trumpet call before go-home time.  Suddenly, a match was struck, and it was too close to the powder keg, and in fairness I don’t believe anyone thought there was a keg of powder nearby, or that close.  But apparently there was.  A big one.

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IT CONTRACT AWARD UNDER SCRUTINY?

The agenda is out for Tuesday’s Renfrew Town Council Meeting and I didn’t get to the bottom of the first page of the thing before I saw something that made my political radar start to ping.

A certain Ian McFarlane will be making a deputation at the beginning of the meeting, and for ten minutes or less he’ll be speaking on something having to do with the procurement of IT services for the town.

At an earlier meeting back in December, a staff recommendation to give a tendered contract to OnServe was shot down by council since, as councillor Kyle Cybulski said, “I don’t know what it is that I’m voting for.”

So, as is the case for most things that are of high interest, it was resolved that the whole thing would be hashed out in-camera, behind the closed doors they love get behind when there’s any chance that somebody might end up looking stupid or appear to have done something not exactly according to Hoyle.

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RECUSALS AND LAME DUCK COUNCILS

Comments made by Councillor Andrew Dick in a previous council meeting resulted in an investigation by the town’s Integrity Commissioner, an investigation resulting in a recommendation that the councillor offer a public apology and receive a censure from Council.

I’ve seen Councillor Dick’s comments in text form, but have not reviewed the YouTube record of the meeting in question.

In question at the time was a contract tendered for renovations undertaken at the Town Hall, a project that ballooned in cost and went significantly over budget.

At issue was the fact that a councillor at the time, one Arlene Jamieson, owned a decor business in town, Venture Interiors, that had put a bid in to undertake some of the work on the Town Hall.  It’s important to point out that Councillor Jamieson declared herself to be in conflict, and did not participate in any approvals specific to her business. It should also be noted that former Councillor Jamieson did nothing wrong, nor anythng illegal or untoward.

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INTEGRITY COMMISSIONER REPORT

I’m going to hate writing this.

Mostly because it will fly in the face of what everyone else likely thinks.  It’s not like I’m looking to be contrary for the sake of being contrary.  And I don’t do it lightly.

This has been percolating in my mind for 36 hours now, and I know I could have left it alone and see it wash downstream, but then again, I also knew I couldn’t.

No offence intended towards anyone.

Tuesday night, Integrity Commissioner Tony Fleming attended Council via Zoom and delivered his findings on two separate complaints filed under the Council Code of Conduct.  His presentation was professional and coherent, and everything you’d want to see from someone tasked with the resolution of these complaints.

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COUNCIL BACK IN CHAMBERS

It’s been a long layoff, with council stuff sort of taking a back seat here over the course of the holidays, but with the arrival of the second full week of the month, open council meetings are now part of the crunch.

And they’ll start with a bit of a crunch if the most recent agenda is any indication of what may happen when we all convene in chambers this evening.

Two cases being investigated by the Integrity Commissioner will have reports delivered, one involving Councillor Andrew Dick, and the other Reeve Peter Emon.

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LISA ROBINSON: UGLINESS IN MUNICIPAL POLITICS

There’s probably a lot of different ways in which to view somebody like Lisa Robinson, and I have made that attempt, but in the end, it’s always pretty much the same for me.  That is to say that, if I were to ever meet the woman, I’m fairly confident I wouldn’t like her.  And I’m equally confident she wouldn’t be lining up to join my fan club either.

Lisa Robinson is a councillor for the City of Pickering, just northeast of Toronto.  When I see or hear about people like her, it makes me want to offer up prayers of thanks for the elected members of Renfrew Town Council that we have.  As critical as I can sometimes be, there is nothing on offer here in Renfrew that can be considered as approaching what Robinson is to Pickering.

In a charitable rendering, I’d put her on the same footing as your Marjorie Taylor-Greenes, or your Lauren Boberts, Sarah Palins, or Kari Lakes of the political universe.  Maybe even a Cheryl Gallant type of figure, although that’s cruel.

A mean-spirited, sneering, and unnecessarily provocative human being bent upon one thing and one thing alone, that being the political chaos she sews that serves as her preferred working environment.  There is nothing sacred when it comes to these women, in that they’ll attack you at the drop of a pin yet cry indignant persecution if ever confronted or challenged.

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