Tuesday, August 4, 2015

CHEMTURA'S FIRE, SANDY'S ELECTION EXPENSES, TROLLS & MORE



O.K. yesterday was an interesting day. In over five years I've never had either the number of hits, views and comments as I did yesterday. I've maintained quite a steady batch of readers with some fluctuations up and down depending on the environmental issue of the day. Certainly this last month I've wandered into politics with the election expense scandals here in Woolwich. I deleted numerous comments yesterday especially the late ones after I'd advised that enough was enough. A couple of too clever by half commenters decided to hijack things with their neverending round and round philosophizing.

There was a small fire at Chemtura a week ago Sunday early in the morning. What is interesting is Chemtura's response or better yet non response to the community group (CPAC) appointed by the last Council to interact with Chemtura environmentally. This is in line with Chemtura's behaviour aided and abetted by our new Woolwich Council since last November. Unfortunately it is only a matter of time until Chemtura have another big one. It's not if it's when.

Indeed in my listing yesterday of both new and old election expense contraventions I left out one still unknown area. This is but one of many glaring weaknesses in the Municpal Elections Act 1996 (MEA). Donations of $100 or less are all lumped together without identification. In Mayor Shantz's case this allegedly is a minimum of seventeen anonymous donors each at $100 or less with a grand total of $1658. The obvious problem is that for example two embarassing $750 donations could be hidden in this large group quite easily and remain anonymous at least until a forensic Audit took place. Whether or not our Mayor is capable of such a "mistake" I leave up to you.

Including the campaign videos (12 of them) I listed eleven different contraventions yesterday although I made clear that number 10 (Brian Shantz) was speculative. Number twelve above ($1658 <$100) is also in the speculative category. Nevertheless what is the motivation for all these contraventions? Is it solely to save approximately $750 on the cost of the quickie audit Sandy finally produced on July 2/15? Are the multiple failures to post legitimate and legally mandated expenses due to embarassment at how much she overspent her three opponents combined campaign expenses? Is she actually hiding corporate or other embarassing donors illegally from the public's view? These questions will only possibly be answered truthfully if and when a full blown forensic audit takes place.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with everything Mr. Marshall is writing about. Next Council meeting is August 11th and the Chemtura fire should be discussed by our Fire Department Chief Rick Pederson since Chemtura is part of the community and people have a right to know.

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