MUNICIPAL LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

When push comes to shove, an elected municipal council, if they choose, can be totally unaccountable to any or all local citizens. At least that is the behaviour of our Woolwich Council and as well according to Jessie from the Provincial Ombudsman's office. Of course Jessie and or the folks at the Ontario Ombudsman's office don't seem to have the gonads to put that in writing. Perhaps they are at least a little bit accountable and a little bit gutless by only phoning this complainant and giving him the news verbally. Wow and we the taxpayers pay for these guys to look out for our interests supposedly. The old Ombudsman might not have been perfect but boy did he shake up various levels of government and various dead wood within them. Andre Marin you may recall did not have his last term extended by the Wynne government. Apparently he was too unpredictable in their opinion as he often had the temerity to resolve complaints based upon the real facts of the case versus the political facts. This is highly disturbing to those in power who feel that that gives them a mandate to fudge, amend or alter investigations more to their liking. After all this is a government that got caught red handed deleting e-mails and computer files in regards to the gas plant scandal.

In regards to Woolwich they have gutlessly chosen to refuse to answer 40 typed and carefully researched questions I sent them regarding methane gas problems in the former Bolender Landfill. The mere fact that I have more knowledge about the methane issues then the entire council and staff combined did not deter Council from burying their heads in the sand and hiding behind both their incompetent consultants as well as their staff. They were too ill informed to even be able to pose questions to me when I appeared as a Delegate before them last year. It seems that they have been told that this matter could be a hot potato and boy do they know how to avoid hot potatoes especially during an election year. Despite the knowledge I have by doing what Council are too lazy to do, namely reading the entire collection of consultants' reports going back to 1983; there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Often unanswered questions are the mark of those in charge having things to hide and that certainly seems apparent in this case. Nepotism, corruption, incompetence, negligence; any or all may be factors in Woolwich's fear of the truth. They have been hiding from and lying to the public for decades on other matters so I guess they figure why change what works now.