MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION, COLLUSION & COVERUPS

Yes Sandy, corruption, collusion and coverups are alive and well in Ontario municipalities including Woolwich, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. That said if I had corruption evidence of the brown paper bag variety that one of our Prime Minister's (B.M.) was the recipient of, yes I would take it to the nearest police or Crown Attorney. That is despite their recent penchant for cherry picking which laws they will or will not enforce such as the Municipal Elections Act. So rest assured, for the moment at least, you are in the clear. Our mayor, here in Woolwich, has publicly scoffed at the idea of corruption being part of the municipal experience locally. Well again try and recall the definition of corruption: it does not require brown paper bags filled with money.

A friend and colleague mentioned to me in passing that a well known Kitchener scandal (among many) involved a methane gas explosion at a home. The home was on Ralgreen Crescent. I was shocked as I had understood that the Ralgreen scandal was all about the City of Kitchener giving a builder/developer permission to build homes on a former landfill site. Potentially toxic sludges were oozing into the residents basements. Many citizens had rashes and other unexplained ailments as most or all did not know that their homes were built on top of a former landfill. The City of Kitchener's response to their residents was contemptible. Just like Uniroyal Chemical here in Elmira they didn't respond honestly until after they were sued by local residents. Then just like Uniroyal Chemical the gutless, lying politicians settled out of court because they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on. That Sandy dearest is but one form of CORRUPTION.

Of course we all know about another methane gas scandal in Kitchener. That was at the Ottawa St. Landfill. It turns out that both the City of Kitchener as well as the Ontario Ministry of Environment demonstrated their Corruption skills by ignoring provincial legislation prohibiting the building of homes on former landfill sites. Indeed for the longest time the City and builders claimed that they weren't actually on the landfill. Some expert researchers later declared otherwise.

According to a report published in 2001 by some local academics the City of Kitchener actually went to some lengths to keep the residential methane gas explosion a secret. They did one hell of a good job because I just found out about it. Obviously if the Ralgreen homeowners didn't know their homes were built on top of a garbage dump then they also didn't know that one of their neighbour's houses blew up many years earlier. Perhaps they either assumed or were told that it was a natural gas explosion as in a leaking gasline etc.. That was not the case.

I will be sending a copy of this report to Woolwich Councillors & mayor as well as to the Ontario Ministry of Environment. I expect that some of them already know about these facts. I will also send a copy to the local media. Older reporters in Kitchener-Waterloo may know about it but unlikely that the younger ones do.

Of what relevance is this information today to Woolwich Council? They and their predecessors on Council (including Sandy, Mark & Murray) have known about high methane gas readings at the Bolender Park Landfill for decades. They now know that the alleged methane gas collection system was essentially a crock and may have given up the ghost as early as two years after it was commissioned in 1984. This may explain why methane gas is still at explosive levels and much higher so many decades later. Afterall it was not extracted from the landfill as was expected in the 80s and 90s. Now they know that not only was their another methane crisis in nearby Kitchener but that it involved a house actually exploding from dangerous methane gas intrusion into the home. This is not a theoretical exercise.

Woolwich Councillors are exposing Woolwich taxpayers to a huge liability if they don't get off their asses and start taking the necessary steps including permanent methane detectors and alarms in nearby homes as well as settling with #86 Auto Recycling. Complete perimeter monitoring is required as well as an investigation as to where the landfill perimeter is actually located. City of Kitchener folks got it wrong and believe me you are no smarter than they are. Then you need to install an appropriate methane collection system, designed and built by competent individuals.