WOOLWICH TOWNSHIP COWARDICE & DISHONESTY

What follows are two e-mails between David Brenneman CAO of Woolwich Township and myself. They are in reverse order as that is how I copied them from my e-mail to put on this page. The first one (mine) went out at aprroximately 8:15 am. this morning and David's to me (2nd one) came in last evening at 7:58 pm..


David: Firstly you have failed to directly respond to my request for a copy of the tape recorded Minutes. A simple yes or no would suffice although you, staff (possibly), MECAC and most of Council would be more likely to jump out of a window rather than reveal the incompetence and bias of themselves as demonstrated by the Draft October 26/15 MECAC Minutes.

Secondly I and every other party to the legislated and mandated MECAC meeting, plus the public in general, were offerred an opportunity to comment on the Minutes of a public meeting which was held in a publicly owned, publicly financed building whose staff sometimes forget their place as they too are paid for from the public purse.

As you know members of the public including citizens who are members of committees (CPAC) or not (eg. SWAT) absolutely do provide feedback on Committee Minutes. This has occurred at CPAC meetings literally for decades. Most especially when a member of the public, whether or not a formal CPAC member, has been misquoted in the Minutes, they routinely provided feedback at the appropriate Agenda location at the next public meeting when Minutes were being discussed. In fact the last CPAC, with a new Secretary (Sport Specialist?) with zero training or experience regarding hydrogeological, chemical and other environmental issues and terminology; in order to save time at the public CPAC meetings was in the habit of sending this member of the public and non CPAC member, her Draft Minutes privately for my detailed review before they went anywhere. This was known and understood by all CPAC & SWAT members and nevertheless the Agenda of the next public meeting still had the opportunity for all participants at the meeting (Chemtura/M.O.E. etc.) plus the general public to comment.

By the way your use of the word "professional" twice in your brief note does not make it so. Interestingly the newest CPAC (TAG) Secretary (Sport Specialist?) regularily included spelling errors and similar sounding but incorrect words in her efforts, perhaps simply to amuse the reader.

So the very same "professional" staff who made a mess of the Draft Minutes are now going to revise them and again send them on to MECAC for approval. My comment stands regarding MECAC requiring a copy of the tape recorded Minutes in order for them to be able to honestly and accurately "approve" those Minutes. On second thought perhaps they have no need for the tape recorded Minutes afterall. I do apologize to sensitive (& informed) individuals for having included the words "honestly and accurately" in the same sentence as MECAC.

The "appropriate process" as you've described it is indeed appropriate if you're more concerned about rewriting history and facts than in capturing accurately what was said at the meeting two and half months ago. Provide me with the tape recordings of this public meeting immediately or else you are burying Woolwich Township credibility even deeper than it already is.

Alan Marshall


On Monday, January 11, 2016 7:58 PM, David Brenneman wrote:


Alan:

You were afforded, out of courtesy, an opportunity to comment on the draft MECAC minutes. It was not a required action.

As you know, members of the public do not provide feedback on Committee or Council minutes. Council reviews and approves the minutes prepared by professional staff. There's no back and forth discussion re: edits with any members of the public.

The revised minutes, as prepared by professional staff out of the Clerk's office, will be reviewed and approved by MECAC the approval authority. That's the appropriate process.

Regards,

David