Saturday, January 9, 2016

LOCAL MEDIA COVER THE MAYOR SHANTZ CASE BUT IGNORE CHEMTURA, RAC & TAG



First off kudos to both the Waterloo Region Record and the Woolwich Observer for there continued coverage of Mayor Shantz's election expense, dare I say, scandal. It is a scandal when I an untrained investigator with no resources, authority or access to her financials continue to unearth more and more undeclared election expenses. This as I repeatedly pointed out to the nincompoops, incompetents and pro Sandy biased MECAC members is neither my responsibility nor burden. My duty lay in reading and studying her February 2/15 Financial Statement and then after finding several inconsistencies, omissions and errors informing the Woolwich Clerk, Val Hummel. This I then presented prior to the July 2/15 MECAC meeting only to be ambushed ten minutes ahead of the meeting by thirty pages of new financials from the mayor. It was MECAC's duty to order a Compliance (Forensic) Audit in order to do the real investigative work and to determine if indeed the contraventions I found were simply the tip of the iceburg. MECAC utterly failed twice to fulfill their legislated mandate.

Regarding kudos to local newspapers and yes I do miss Gail Martin and the Elmira Independent, I must also praise the Observer for their excellent "2015 Year In Review". This includes their incisive November 2015 comment that "The poor election expense filings of three Woolwich councillors cost taxpayers $53,300 in 2015". Thank you Observer for putting the responsibility exactly where it should be. I must also comment upon their yet again wonderful cartoon showing embarassing newspaper headlines posted on the "Woolwich Bulletin Board". Indeed 2015 has been an "eventful" year for Woolwich and with the ongoing court proceedings for back to back mayors, we can only hope that it ends in 2016.

Regarding my above title, in fact the Observer did cover the recent second Chemtura release of BLE-25. This was the same product that did all the property damage back in 2010 just befor the municipal election. Also they accurately mentioned in their 2015 Review the axing of CPAC by Woolwich Council in favour of an allegedly kinder and gentler format, more to Chemtura's and the M.O.E.'s liking. Afterall we certainly wouldn't want to offend Woolwich's dirtiest polluter nor Ontario's most dishonest Ministry, now would we.

Both the Record article and its' link in my Thursday's posting plus the Observer's story by Liz Bevan titled "Shantz court case adjourned until Feb. 24" properly and accurately inform their readers as to how the case is progressing. Yesterday's opinion of mine here in the Advocate that Sandy Shantz has failed to abide by the conditions mandated in the Judgement of Justice David Broad (Superior Court July 23/15) has as yet not been published by our local papers. Time will tell when and whether they pick it up.

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