FEAR & LOATHING IN CHEMTURALAND

Hatchet job, smear campaign, bitchfest. These are some of the words describing Sandy Shantz's "Township of Woolwich Environmental Planning Discussion Meeting" of April 9, 2015 - 2:00 pm. Dodie Hummel Boardroom Township Administration Building 24 Church St W, Elmira. Other names for this meeting were Sandy's teaparty and or the "pretend" stakeholders meeting.

It's difficult to be certain but it seems likely that the powers that be at the Township would have at least gotten an opinion if they could be sucessfully sued for 1) writing filth 2) distributing filth . I wonder if their very careful distribution of this letter somewhat minimizes their legal liability. The other four Township Councillors finally received a copy days after it went to CPAC. As of this past Tuesday at Council they had not received it. Very strange. Similarily I still wonder if they distributed it not only to their allys at the meeting but also to everybody else. To the best of my knowledge nobody has sent it to the media. On the face of it this is strange unless Mayor Shantz has been advised that that would indeed open the door to legal liability. One can pretend that malicious, bitchy, false personal attacks are allegedly simply collecting information about a committee of Council but if distributed to persons other than those participants, perhaps it then becomes a legal matter.

Both Chemtura and the Ontario Ministry of Environment are terrified of real, honest public participation and consultation. Hence based upon the various proposals included in this five page "meeting notes" it becomes obvious as to what their game plan is. This game plan will be implemented via Mayor Shantz and Councillor Bauman carefully manipulating the other four Councillors via sweetalking these changes as to being beneficial while at the same time smearing CPAC & SWAT. I wonder exactly at what point Councillor Bauman will stick the knife into Sandy. His Mayoral chances in the next election depend upon Sandy's apparent self destruction. He needs to get her way out on a limb, depending on his support, before he cuts the limb off. Is CPAC the issue or will it be the next one?

Public CPAC meetings will be reduced to three or four per year. The Agenda will be controlled by Chemtura not CPAC. There will be private, by invitation only, "technical" meetings likely held at Chemtura. This is why the April 9/15 "meeting notes" ridiculously suggest that this CPAC are not technically competent or do not have access to that competence. In fact Chemtura want nothing more than toadies, incompetents and co-opted members of the public at these private meetings while two to four consultants run the show. Any psuedo expert representing either the Township or CPAC will be outnumbered, outgunned and carefully picked first for his deference, respect and very quiet civility in the face of bullshit.

Public transparency and accountability are desperately required. Mayor Shantz in conjunction with Chemtura and their corrupt regulator (M.O.E.) are removing both.