The Blue Agave Forum: The Blue Agave Forum -> The Mumpsimus Blog

Collingwood's budget process changed in 2010 after a recommendation from staff who found the budget committee the mayor had created arbitrarily at the start of his term to be cumbersome. The fragmented presentation of the budget at regular evening council meetings that resulted from his change was inefficient. The process went back to the previous all-council committee and daytime meetings.

During the recent budget discussions, however, I've noted a few discrepancies in policy and process - not necessarily those of the chair, but from other members of council.

Why was the budget so late in arriving at council when staff had draft budgets prepared in November? I seem to recall the mayor campaigned on changing the budget process and getting it presented in the fall of the year, not after the year had already started, as happened in the past. But now it's gone backwards.

Why did councillor McNabb demand a business plan from Georgian Bay Animal Rescue before considering their funding request, but did not demand a business plan form any other agency or organization, some asking for much more money - even asking for their funding to become an annual line item. Why this seeming bias against the humane society?

Why did Councillor Jeffrey comment that she did...

No, the Mumpsimus Blog isn't defunct, as Scoop sarcastically asked last night. I've just been rather busy and involved in several things that have kept me busy and preoccupied recently.

Blogging is work, too, and it sometimes takes several hours to concoct one of these rants. In the last week or two I have had little free time to do it - or I should say, little in which I've felt up to writing. Sometimes, too, the futility of railing against the madness wears me thin.

The store was quite active at the end of last month; too hectic to get the time to write there. Plus we've been in the midst of a rollercoaster trying to sell the store, the first solid offer in more than two years. Between offers and counter offers, legal huffing and puffing from the franchise HQ, deadlines to meet, and meetings with lawyers, it's been a bit of a stressful period, so I haven't felt like sitting down and writing much.

We had company recently, so I wasn't online a lot for three days while our friend was here. And there was the emotional push-me-pull-you of deciding what position to run for next election, replete with heart-to-heart talks with Susan and some friends.

I was working in the store a couple of Saturdays, too, then took one Sunday to visit my...

Collingwood's budget process has started and, as usual, the smallest amounts have proven the most contentious. Most of the larger items we'll breeze through because things like infrastructure are necessary expenses we'll usually agree on, collectively. But spending on community groups, charities, helping nonprofit agencies and community groups with small amounts seems to bring out the parsimonious in some people.

Let's start with the first bone of contention: council's own budget. Most of council's budget goes to wages, benefits and some money for "professional development" - attending conferences and events. But more than 11% - $35,500 - has been allocated this year for Councillors Sandberg and Jeffrey who are, respectively, on the AMO and FCM boards*. While I have been supportive of their efforts on these agencies, I questioned how much the average taxpayer go back for that money. **

I don't question our participation in those groups - I support membership - but I do question our financial support for two councillors who have taken roles on their boards. After all, this council won't give a nickel to the United Way, rejects several small requests from charities, and fights aggressively against spending money for...

A rather mysterious, small object whizzed by us this morning, less than a third the distance to the moon. That's about 130,000 kms (80,000 miles) away.

Named 2010 AL30, the object is a mystery to astronomers. No one is sure if it's an asteroid, or a bit of space junk. It's very small - from 10-18m across.

AL30 also highlights our improved tracking abilities. Scientists were able to find a small bit of space material two days out. That will be useful in the future when we try to identify potential space hazards that could impact the planet. Not that we have the technology to top them, however.

I heard about it on CBC's Ontario Morning today and made sure I was outside with the dog in the early morning (7:47 a.m.) to see if I could spot it. I did see a small, low-magnitude dot moving roughly NW-SSE in the western sky at the appropriate time, but have not confirmed it was AL30. It might have been a satellite (it was not a plane or the ISS). But it could have been AL30, too. I'll have to search more sites this week to see where it was recorded to confirm my own sighting.

I'm not sure if AL30 was bright enough to be seen by the naked eye. It was reported as magnitude 14 - which is too low to see (anything lower than 6 is hard to spot,...

What's this craziness about calling 2010 the "start" of a new decade? Since when does nine years make a decade? A calendar decade is 10 years, always has been, always will. The word decade comes from Latin decad-, decas, which in turn comes from Greek dekas, ten.

I've heard this silliness several times recently. On the Daily Planet, Discovery Channel, host Jay Ingram made this comment last week. Now either he had a brain fart and just counted wrong, or he actually believes that nine equals ten, which discredits his other comments about science and math. I really used to like and respect Jay, before that fatuous comment.

I've read similar comments online, even on my own forum, and our mayor called 2010 the "start" of a new decade yesterday, at the annual levee. But they're all wrong.

It's very, very simple math. In our calendar, a decade starts with year one, and goes to year ten. The first decade of the western calendar included years 1 through 10 CE. The first decade of the first century was 101 to 110 CE. The first decade of the first millennium was 1001 to 1010. So the first decade of the second millennium is 2001 to 2010. See? Simple!*

The problem for some, I believe, still lies in the confusion created...

I was appalled when I read the headline of the Enterprise Bulletin piece from January 7, titled "2009 a pretty unique year, newswise".

"Pretty" unique? Argh!

Unique is an absolute. It means "one of a kind."

It doesn't mean different, challenging, contentious, strange or anything like that (all of which 2009 was, newswise). 2009 may have arguably* been a "unique" year newswise, but certainly NOT "pretty unique." If you really mean different, unusual, strange, outstanding or challenging - say so.

It also means

• existing as the only one or as the sole example; single; solitary in type or characteristics: a unique copy of an ancient manuscript.
  
• having no like or equal; unparalleled; incomparable: Bach was unique in his handling of counterpoint.
  
• limited in occurrence to a given class, situation, or area: a species unique to Australia.
  
• limited to a single outcome or result; without alternative possibilities: Certain types of problems have unique solutions.
  
• the embodiment of unique characteristics; the only specimen of a given kind: The unique is also the improbable.

Unique does not brook any comparatives or superlatives. Something cannot be more or less "one of a...

One of the last questions I asked in our final 2009 council meeting was, "Where's the preliminary budget for 2010?" Sometime in January was the vague, and unsatisfactory, response. There was no explanation for its lateness given when I asked the question.

This term we were supposed to see a renewed, revised budget process, where we actually discussed and approved the budget BEFORE the year it was meant to serve. But although department heads had been told to prepare the 2010 budget for council to review in November 09, it still hasn't come to the table. A draft budget was submitted by staff, however, so I don't think staff are to blame for this delay.

The budget committee has not been called to meet and discuss this problem or to make a presentation to council. The committee is chaired by the mayor and he calls the meetings. As chair, he should have informed council of any delays or issues. We've heard nothing this year until I asked at the last council meeting of the year.*

The Deputy Mayor was, until this term, the traditional chair of the budget committee, and we had very good, productive budget discussions held during the day, not during our regular council meetings. Staff was present so council could raise issues, ask questions...

Remember the early planetary spaceships, Voyager 1 and 2? They were launched in summer, 1977, to explore the outer planets - Jupiter to Neptune. Their discoveries and photographs from those systems were among the most exciting events in science in our lifetimes. And they continue to surprise us.

Voyager 1 reached Jupiter in March, 1979, and went on to visit Saturn in November, 1980. The gravity of Saturn's moon, Titan, bent the craft's trajectory and it was flung outside the plane of the ecliptic, heading towards interstellar space. It is now more than 16.7 billion km, (10.4 billion miles) from the Sun, and still has several instruments functioning, and transmitting data back to Earth. It has almost reached the heliopause, the boundary of the solar system. Signals from Voyager 1 take almost 31 hours to make the round trip to Earth and back.*

Voyager 2 arrived at Jupiter not much later - July, 1979 - and then reached Saturn in August, 1981. Voyager 2 continued its grand tour, coming within 81,500 kms (50,600 miles) of Uranus occurred in January, 1986. It passed by Neptune in August, 1989, and headed out of the solar system. V2 passed through the termination shock into the heliosheath, at the end of August, 2007. It is currently more than 13.5...

I normally don't engage in he-said-I-said-he-said with other bloggers. That's a bit incestuous for each of us to be commenting on one another's opinions. But I was directed to read a comment on realtor Rick Crouch's blog* that seemed to demand a response. Not for whether or not we agree on an issue; more that it highlights some commonly held misconceptions about an institution dear to my heart: the library.

Rick was commenting on the new Collingwood library - a project approved by the previous council (well, some of us - the current mayor didn't approve of spending the money on a library, nor did Councillor Edwards). The building not only provides a much-needed expansion for the facility, but also will house the town's growing building and planning departments. And it's also coming in about $1.7 million under budget, from what I recall of the recent presentation by Ron Martin.

But that's not what caught my eye. Rick was concerned about the money spent on the building, but in his comments he attacks the purpose of libraries. That always puts me on the defensive.

He wrote:

Quote

There are times at council when I imagine that, in the Tuesday morning department heads meeting following a council session, eyes are rolled and heads shaken when our requests for staff reports are trotted out for discussion.

Council asks for a lot of reports. A lot. Many of these reports are information we need to do our political business, or to make informed decisions. Many requests ask for recommendations that we may consider - albeit not necessarily accept. Some, true, are requested to bolster a personal goal or agenda. Some are asked in order to delay making a decision.

Some requests, yes, are pretty flighty and are made for reasons beyond the normal ken of council watchers.

The cat licensing bylaw, for example, must have garnered more than a few shakes when it was first proposed, a few terms back. Aside from being basically unenforceable, it's a fatuous regulation. I'm sure there was renewed eye-rolling on the recent request to come up with a report on how to locate where feral cats were living so the property owners could be fined if a feral cat was trapped on some other resident's property.

I can see the bylaw officers crawling around in the hedges calling, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty," as they search for the nesting grounds...