Vote…

There must be a new writer of the report cards! This is the worse our council has ever received collectively.

I have not been to a council meeting all year so I can’t really comment on anything but the overall environment. Now that my Mother’s house is sold and she is doing well in her apartment I can begin to follow things a bit better when the new term begins.

I agree that our council does not debate enough– there is a difference between grandstanding and debating the issues. The residents need to see councillors stand on things and if an issue is debated at the untelevised GGC meeting the same views should be expressed at the televised Council meeting.

This is due to having a long standing Mayor, Mississauga suffered from the same type of environment before their Parrish came to the table.

We have no challenger for Mayor and that is sad.

Someone told me our Mayor was in a meeting with a Cabinet Minister in the Harris Government and other Mayors , he did not like what he heard and got up and left. Isn’t that a bit hot headed ? Not very diplomatic. Our Mayor may stand against others in the Region but I still feel Ajax suffers from his personal relationships with those around us. A kindergarden teacher probably put on his report card “Does not play well with others”. It is possible to oppose what you don’t believe in and still be respected by your peers.

I loved this letter to the editor agreeing with Mr. Baker.

I wonder which way it really goes though, some town’s question the need for a CAO if they have a real hands on Mayor , I think this happened in Brock or some area in North Durham or York.

Does Ajax maybe have a condition of Staff doing what the Mayor wants ?

Do we have a CAO that is under the Mayor’s thumb or do we have a council under the CAO’s thumb ? (more…)

I gave my delegation, members of the Ontario Ombudsman office were there and no one even bothered to ask them any questions, councillors that voted to spend OUR tax dollars in the event there is an investigation at a cost of $1,250.00 per day plus expenses— no minimum or maximum are the following.
The Mayor, Colleen Jordan— no it is not the $300 per year that is the problem! — Joanne Dies, Pat Brown and the new guy– Renrick Ashby.

(more…)

I have been busy and with the weather being nice I will be slowing down my posting schedule of which I never really had one, I write when I feel like it, the day this blog becomes a burden to me is the day it gets shut down.

I am making a delegation again to our Council on Monday in regards to the Closed Meeting investigator and hopefully someone from the Ombudsman office and LAS will be in attendance.

Please read this previous post if you are unsure about what this issue really means.

I have no idea how this will go but I feel strongly the issue needs to be looked into again.

If you can come to the meeting that would be great.

And some people think all I do is complain, well I don’t. Last night I was at Whitby Council, I will let Scott be the first to blog about it! Holy Moley is all I am going to say.

Anyways, Citizens have 10 minutes to go state their concerns this is all before the business of Council gets going though.

Ajax gives citizens only 5 minutes but we have a question period at the end where a Citizen if they want to can actually ask a question- as long as it was on the evenings agenda.

This is good and maybe we are the only ones that do that because Pickering also gives citizens 10 minutes to speak on something.

I would rather have 5 minutes to address before the decisions are made then have the opportunity to ask a question if I wanted to.

Our next council meeting is March 25th and I plan to be there.

I said earlier today that I was going to explain this issue the best I could. Sometimes when you are involved in something it is not clear to you that others perhaps do not get what you talking about. Someone who I respect said they did not get the issue and I realized they are far from being alone. (more…)

This excerpt from the below post I now have some answers to and I want to address some email I have received.

Yet again this shows citizens that no matter what they do or even when they do it, minds are made up?
Did phone calls take place between Whitby Staff and Ajax Staff disregarding what the public, if only a few had to say?
Did staff call the City of Sarnia before our final council meeting to find out the outcome ? (more…)

Here is a link to the copy of the Staff Report. I download and save reports and I do not have the software to edit Adobe reports. I can only rename the file so I know what it is.

I have uploaded the file here so you can see it here. If this link does not work , email me and I will send you the report.

This is the report that Councillors had before they voted, note Whitby and Sarnia.

See below posts.

online petition to have this decision overturned go here. I want my property taxes back!

The following is a copy of an email I sent 24 hours ago to my Town of Ajax CAO and Clerk and for good measure all the councillors , 2 MPP,s , the Mayor of Sarnia plus 3 media contacts. Trust me, I never write a boring email.

At the bottom of the post you will see the single response I have had from “a” Mayor. (more…)

Well it is over now, Renrick Ashby is the sworn in Ward 2 councillor. Congratulations and best wishes.

Renrick is a lot of first but one thing that is not reported is that he is as far as I know the first “commuter” to be on Ajax Council. Renrick is currently a Senior Planner in the City of Toronto - Scarborough Division. He does not have to quit his job in the city, according to the Municipal Elections act, the word “the” in the act as opposed to “a” in the Candidates guide online at the Ministry means you can not work and be an elected official at the same time in the same Municipality. Renrick only needed to be on leave only during the campaign.

Some may want to make comparisons to the issue the Durham District School Board had in regards to a trustee that was not able to take the position after winning. The teacher was in a union so that made the situation different, legislation was not about her being in a union though, just the motivating concerns.

The job of an Ajax councillor is part time, we can’t expect people to quit full time jobs for life of an Ajax Councillor.

[edit] For the record, I sent an email asking if he was able to do both jobs, I was nowhere stating anywhere Renrick had to resign, I believed him when he said he was able to do both. I never got a response from anyone in the email but I have been informed by someone who did get a response - Thanks for passing the message on.