IS CPAC A COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL?

According to Dave Brenneman, CAO of Woolwich Township, it is indeed. Also according to Christine Broughton, municipal clerk, it is. As suggested by Chemtura and after being examined, section 238 of the Municipal Act states that a committee of council requires 50% of its' members be councillors. Another lawyer has suggested that section 238 is in reference to transparency and private meetings and therefore it is contrary to the Municipal Act for a committee of council comprised of 50% councillors to meet privately except for a very few reasons such as legal, personnel etc..

Chemtura's point in raising the matter was to point out to CPAC that CPAC would not be violating the Municipal Act if they met in private with Chemtura because CPAC's membership has only one councillor not 50%. While this is true nevertheless there is also the issue of CPAC's Terms of Reference. They also state that CPAC's meetings must be open, public and transparent. To confuse matters further let me add that Woolwich Township, Council and CPAC do not remotely abide by these Terms of Reference. They were poorly written and poorly rewritten two years ago and are ignored at will. I am strongly in agreement however with the intent to avoid private meetings or negotiations between CPAC and Chemtura, the Ministry of the Environment or any other parties.

One of the paragraphs that have been grossly ignored by Council and Woolwich Township deals with the membership of CPAC. Also the Terms of Reference deal with the maximum number of CPAC members, namely twelve. Currently they have five and once again the next public CPAC meeting (May 2/13) is in jeopardy due to members having legitimate conflicts. There may or may not be enough for a quorum and with only five members, three makes the quorum. Let me list the members to date that have left CPAC for any reason whatsoever in the last two years. Mayor Todd Cowan, Councillor Julie-Anne Herteis, David Marks, Lynne Hare, and yours truly Al Marshall. That's quite a list and the reasons are all over the map.

The somewhat good news is the establishment of the SWAT team. While SWAT could stand for special weapons and tactics, it actually stands for Soil, Water, Air and Technology. The SWAT team is headed by CPAC member, Ron Campbell. Current members include myself (Al Marshall), Rich Clausi, Dr. Henry Regier, Susanna Meteer and Graham Chevreau. In actual fact including Ron Campbell, this sub committee of CPAC has more members than CPAC itself. The solution to CPAC's membership problem appears obvious on the surface.

Yours truly may be the problem. I am the senior SWAT team member via time served, CPAC meetings attended and literally decades of involvement with UPAC, CPAC, Uniroyal/Chemtura and the Ontario M.O.E.. Here's the rub! POLITICS! Chemtura have lobbied hard to keep me off of CPAC starting over two years ago before the initial CPAC including myself was announced. They continued lobbying to have me removed after CPAC's membership was announced and their pleas fell upon sympathetic ears. For Mayor Cowan removing me two years ago was a win-win. He was personally ticked that I and three other CPAC members were pushing then CPAC Chair Councillor Herteis hard to get the CPAC show on the road. She, with the Mayor's support, was adamantly refusing to even give a date for the first public CPAC meeting more than six months after the late October 2010 municipal election.

At this point in time Chemtura will go ballistic if I am reappointed to CPAC. I am willing but the next problem is Woolwich Council. The Mayor has been approached repeatedly and has been difficult. Believe it or not he is demanding conditions and concessions from a citizen who is willing to volunteer his time and energy and continue working for free for all residents of Woolwich Township. The reason Chemtura will go ballistic is that I am by far the best informed and technically knowledgable citizen attending CPAC meetings and I'm not remotely intimidated by their ongoing junk science. I confront them regularily and make them look bad when they spin their tales. What possible honest and legitimate grounds could the Mayor have for blocking my move to a short handed CPAC? In my mind it is either personal pettiness or he is bowing to Chemtura pressure. Neither reason is honest nor legitimate.