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Six thirty. That's when last night's council meeting ended. Shortest meeting I can recall this term - 90 minutes. Almost a breeze.

Ninety per cent of the meeting was simply a continuation of Thursday's six-hour planning/zoning bylaw marathon. That means the main topic under discussion - letters of consideration, comment and concern about provisions in the new zoning bylaw - took roughly seven hours in total to hear and discuss. There was really only that one topic of discussion on the agenda, last night - no public planning meeting, no delegations, no correspondence, no motions.

Each letter was presented individually in a bound document, complete with the planning department's comments and suggested resolution. Thursday we barely got through half the letters in the inch-thick document. Last night we did the remaining half in an hour.

Maybe we weren't collectively in as cantankerous - or as voluble - a mood as we seem to have been, Thursday. Whatever the reason, last night we raced through the letters and were out of the chamber in record time. Maybe the tough issues were at the front of the binder. Very little controversy over the content last night (Thursday was far more interesting from that perspective).

Perhaps the only serious...

I was surprised there was any debate let alone opposition, over the request to provide free parking downtown during the reconstruction of the main street, last Monday. After all, as nice as the revitalization will be when it's finished, the construction is having a massive impact on downtown businesses. No one can drive through the centre block, nor park on it. For the first two weeks, the fencing separated east and west sides of the street, which further dampened sales.

Council should be doing everything it can to relieve the pain we caused. The vote, while not close, was 7-2, with Deputy Mayor Cooper and Councillor McNabb voting against.

People have been staying away from the downtown, unsure if businesses are open or where to park. I've personally spoken to at least a dozen customers in my store who admitted that, since construction began, they'd stopped going downtown. So where are they shopping? Elsewhere - the malls, big box stores, or even going to Wasaga Beach and Barrie. The downtown is hurting.

And of course there's the recession. Despite governmental claims that it's over, it can still be felt here. I haven't found a single Collingwood business person who says sales have recovered to previous years' levels.

There is a...

My, oh, my. Was I surprised when I read Councillor McNabb's vituperative column in today's Enterprise-Bulletin.

Titled, "Now is the time for mayor to roll up his sleeves," McNabb takes a double shot, one at his fellow councillors, the other at the mayor. The latter certainly takes the brunt of it.

What surprised me was not the criticism of the mayor, but criticism from someone who for the past three years has been described as "the mayor's man" - not merely an ardent supporter, but an apologist for and defender of the mayor at almost every turn.

These columns are a new feature cooked up by editor Ian Adams (aka Scoop) to give every member of council an opportunity to publicly and individually address issues, or simply outline his or her ideas and goals. I'm sure that annoys the mayor, because he sees himself as the sole voice of council and the town and has been very critical to date of my blog.

So far, council has responded with fairly mild content: none of the articles have been even vaguely controversial until now (well, I haven't had my turn yet, but I have this blog to vent my spleen, so I don't need the paper to do so). This changes the texture of the spot. It's now not merely a space for civilized...

It will be interesting to see how some members of Collingwood Council handle the inevitable requests for funding that arrive outside the town's budget process, next year. In the past, most councillors have stuck to the line that, if a request is made outside the budget process, no matter how worthy of consideration, it will be refused.*

Rules! they say; we have to stick to The Rules. We have to follow The Process!

But apparently it's okay with them that Simcoe County Council doesn't. Nor did it seem to concern several of my colleagues that $250,000 of your taxes for PR cosmetics was merely handed out, not tendered. The county ALREADY spends $1.1 million annually on a communications department, but the county's politicians deemed it necessary to go to an outside firm at added cost to the taxpayer for their election-year makeover.

Monday night we received a letter from Tiny Township council objecting to this expenditure. I asked to have the letter pulled and made a recommendation to endorse that resolution.

I wrote about the county's decision in a previous entry. Last month, when I posted that piece, I commented that, "...if we're going to spend taxpayers' money polishing someone's image after a...

A certain level of professional courtesy is required to keep things civil and fair at the council table. We should, in a perfect world, behave in a manner befitting of representatives of the public, defending our collective democracy, and not merely individuals or cliques spoiling for a fight, squabbling over territory and trying to make sure we gain the most advantage out of a meeting.

We should respect one another, even if we don't necessarily like one another. And we should respect the ideals of democracy and put them above personal agendas.

Should, not do.

Which is why I was deeply disappointed, Monday, when the mayor and his Stepford supporters refused to defer a motion put forward by the Deputy Mayor, even through she was ill, and could not be there to present and defend it.

Even though I quickly asked for a deferral, the mayor allowed the motion's opponents to speak at length against the motion, then vote against the deferral, and then vote against the motion.

In a political climate where civility, respect and courtesy reigned, the motion would have been deferred out of respect for the missing proponent. There would have been no procedural harm in waiting a week to hear it.

The motion as presented to council read:

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Do you think politicians should spend your tax dollars to make their image cleaner and sweeter? Basically to buy a makeover at your expense?

Neither do I. But apparently our mayor does.

According to a story in this week's Enterprise-Bulletin, the mayor supported a secret (in-camera) decision at the county last month to spend $250,000 of taxpayers' money on a PR consultant to make the county look good.

Which, in effect, means making the politicians look good.

Coincidence that next year is an election year? Hardly.

As the story points out, the county already budgeted $1,207,953 in 2009 to "operate its own in-house, four-person communications department." But a majority of county councillors - including your mayor - don't seem to think that's enough of your tax money being spent on their own image. Couldn't the already well-funded communications department handle that task? If not, why are we spending tax dollars on them?

No, it seems only a high-profile PR firm that cost an additional quarter-of-a-million dollars of taxpayers' money was the only answer.

As the EB reported,

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Number of times the audience applauded for speakers who spoke against the proposed zoning bylaw that would allow commercial vehicles in residential driveways at last night's public meeting: ten.

Number of times the mayor interrupted the audience to remind them that applause is not appropriate in a public meeting: none.

Number of times Councillor Chadwick reiterated issues raised by BIA members about having patios located on the far side of the new sidewalk: one.

Number of times the mayor interrupted Councillor Chadwick during his comments: one.

I had to wonder last night if the unusual reticence on the part of the mayor to tell the audience to shut up and behave - he's done it many times at public meetings in the past - was a show of partisanship over the issue. After all, there were VOTE members in the audience speaking out against the proposed zoning change. I could not otherwise fathom the reason he did not follow his normal course and interrupt their applause to chide the audience about their exuberant behaviour.

Was it preferential treatment? There have been precedents involving VOTE this term.*

On the other hand, he did interrupt me when I was asking questions about some design issues for the downtown revitalization (issues...