WOOLWICH COUNCIL AIM TO PLEASE POLLUTERS, DEVELOPERS, PRIVATE INTERESTS etc.

The problem with this Council is their incompetence. Having them on your side is a real mixed bag of nuts. Right about now I suspect that Chemtura Canada are begging Woolwich Council to please stop "helping" them. It's pretty much a toss up as to whether it's Councillor Mark Bauman or Mayor Sandy Shantz who are doing the most damage to Chemtura's twenty-seven year campaign of misinformation and public relations fluff. Whomever it is please continue on Sandy and Mark, along with your three other posse members on Council. Those five (of 6) Council members through their nonsense, biases and ignorance are aiding and abetting the efforts of what I and other informed citizens have been trying to do.

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys the following front page story titled "Woolwich moves to limit delegations from speaking at meetings". The on-line version carrys a wonderful synopsis immediately beneath the picture of Dr. Dan Holt which goes like this "Elmira resident Dan Holt beside Canagagigue Creek which was polluted by the downstream chemical plant. Woolwich politicians have approved a motion banning delegates from speaking about Chemtura and contaminated water, unless they have already gone through a challenging, non-transparent committee process. There is nothing in the Municipal Act or the township's procedural bylaw that permits banning delegates."

Mayor Shantz is being disingenuous when she states that citizens can take Delegations to RAC and TAG. They can not. TAG flatly does not accept oral Delegations and in fact won't even accept written ones without conditions. The conditions are they must be technical and can not exceed one page in length. Then they must be vetted by the Chair of TAG before he will even send them on to his fellow TAG members. RAC do accept Delegations at their regular meetings. In other words citizens can only speak to RAC four times a year when they hold their meetings. To date that has been September (2015), December (2015) and March 2016 with the next meeting scheduled for June. What mayor Shantz and Councillor Bauman are clearly doing is moving the Chemtura/M.O.E. pretend cleanup out of sight of the public and of CPAC (Citizens Public Advisory Committee). They also wish to avoid the media listening in as well hence the banning of Delegations regarding Chemtura, drinking water and the creek at Council meetings attended by our local newspaper, the Woolwich Observer.

Then we have the ongoing issues of Council violating the Municipal Act regarding in camera (closed) meetings. They clearly had decided prior to last Tuesday's Council meeting to prohibit Dr. Dan Holt from speaking as Chair Murray Martin refused him before he'd even gotten out of his chair. No mention of that in camera meeting subject on the Council Agenda last week as it should have been. Then there is the even stickier issue of not inviting a fellow Councillor to a private, closed Council meeting. Councillor Merlihan clearly stated that he had no pre-warning that his Council colleagues were going to shut down Dr. Holt's Delegation. Shame on this Council yet again.