PRIVATE AUDIO RECORDINGS OF WOOLWICH COUNCIL MEETINGS

Council and senior Woolwich Staff are in charge of tape recording all Council meetings and all public meetings held in Council Chambers. I do not know if there is some legal requirement for them to do so but would not waste my time asking them and expecting an honest answer.

Besides the in house recording system, the media also routinely record all meetings which they attend. I had originally thought the purpose was to assist them in the preparation of their written stories. Now I know it is for more than that. It is to enable them to defend themselves against either litigation or knowingly false allegations of media inaccuracy arising from councillors or staff who are portrayed in a perfectly accurate but unflattering light in their stories.

Last Tuesday's Council meeting was audio recorded by the Woolwich Observer, the K-W Record and both audio and visually recorded by Rogers Cable TV Channel #20. Oh and by at least one other. Apparently somewhere in the ether (ie. a website) the recordings of both the March 22, 2016 Council meeting and the April 5, 2016 Council meeting are available for your listening pleasure. Imagine that! One stop shopping in order to verify that her ladyship, the pretend mayor of Woolwich Township, lied to the media, the public present in Chambers, and in fact all of Waterloo Region.

You might ask yourself as to why tape recordings (O.K. audio recordings) are so significant when the written Minutes are posted on the Township's website sometimes within days and other times within months. Well that's part of the reason right there, the delay factor. More importantly is the intentional deception factor. Woolwich Staff presumably under orders from the CAO Dave Brenneman fudge the Minutes when necessary. One would have to believe that this intentional fudging is at the direction of the only one or ones who could fire Mr. Brenneman and that would be Woolich Council.

Have they ever done such a thing? Am I looking at snow on the ground as I write this? Yes on April 9th we still have snow and yes Woolwich knowingly lie in their Minutes. I posted here in some detail the lengthy arguments and discussions I had with senior staff most especially including CAO Dave Brenneman in regards to the October 26, 2015 MECAC (Compliance Audit Committee) meeting. The Minutes intentionally put the psuedo mayor in a better light than the audio recordings indicated and me in a poorer light. Dave Brenneman was advised of specific instances where our psuedo mayor said one incriminating thing (ie. more expenses paid out of her pocket rather than through her campaign account) and the Minutes sanitized her statements.

Is any of the Township's behaviour illegal? Darned if I know, I'm not a lawyer and again no I'm not going to ask the Township's lawyer and expect a truthful answer. When the Ontario Ombudsman gets back to me you're darn tootin I'll be passing all of this along. Do I believe that certain bureaucrats or councillors deserve a short time to reflect on their sins, from say inside a jail cell? That's a tough one. Let's just say that they and the public deserve a very long time with those individuals on the outside of Woolwich Township, looking in.