WOOLWICH TOWNSHIP POLITICS

O.K. I was offended once more by my reception at Woolwich Council Tuesday evening. This is not new although I will say that generally the more complimentary and flattering I am towards Council the better their response. This may be normal human behaviour but I've got news for Council. Not everyone, myself included, speaks to Council only when things are good and they have no concerns. You are going to be appropriately criticized from time to time and if you disagree then inform the Delegate before you of their possible misunderstanding of the facts. That being said it has been clarified for me that Councillor Bauman's criticism of my submitted document was based upon the inference that as a past Councillor he had a copy of the "sweetheart deal" between Uniroyal and the M.O.E.. Councillor Bauman vehemently denies this and as I have no evidence to the contrary I am prepared to accept him at his word. This brings up two issues. Certainly past Mayors had to have been informed of this deal. Afterall the document was in the Township's possession. The second point is that four weeks after this document was "discovered" our Mayor has not shared it with his own Council. He has not been keeping CPAC in the loop and up to date on this earthshattering gamechanger nor has he been keeping Council in the loop. This kind of explains his ridiculous remarks to me Tuesday night. I've let the cat out of the bag. The Mayor did vaguely repeat the magic hocus pocus word "process" a few times. Sorry Mayor Cowan but "process" is usually no more than a bureaucrat's excuse for not consulting or sharing pertinent information . Regarding CPAC you and you alone have blundered over and over again. You've lost my confidence and your continued penchant for secrecy and keeping them in the dark and out of the loop isn't going to restore it. They have been appointed by Council to deal with Chemtura /cleanup/M.O.E. issues. Consult with them regularily and often. Quite frankly even the newest and least experienced of them are way ahead of you and your CAO's knowledge on this subject. The most experienced of them combined with their access to outside knowledge totally dwarf anything you've got inside Woolwich Township. Quite frankly you are only as effective as the information available to you. Did you appoint me originally and the rest of CPAC, both experienced and inexperienced, simply to give the appearance of public consultation? Has this been an intentional one or two man show from the beginning?

SWEETHEART DEAL PRESENTED TO WOOLWICH COUNCIL

Very interesting. The only two Councillors who spoke in response to my Delegation last evening were the two with cards in the game. Councillor Mark Bauman as usual waited until I had sat down then he criticized my written report to Council. Councillor Bauman is the only returning Councillor to Council and he knows where the skeletons are buried. The Mayor Todd Cowan rambled on and made some ridiculous remarks about oh this document (sweetheart deal) wasn't really a secret and it probably was on-line somewhere. Give me a break! Basically Todd was trying to downplay my statements that this was a secret backroom sweetheart deal between the Ministry of the Environment and Uniroyal Chemical. That is exactly what it is and what planet is the Mayor from? As two CPAC members were sitting beside me last night including the one who discovered the document and shared it with CPAC, the Mayor's comments were unsettling. Is he already staking out a position for the Township with zero input from CPAC? Is he planning on stickhandling around his handpicked citizens committee? Even more interesting is the surprised looks on Council last night. It sure looked as if they had not been remotely briefed by the Mayor on this major, game changing development.

I have a twenty-three year history of being deceived and lied to by all levels of government involved in the Elmira "water crisis". Woolwich Township, the Region of Waterloo and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment have all deceived and manipulated the citizens of Woolwich and Elmira. Yes the M.O.E. are certainly the prizewinners but they've needed the ongoing support of the two lower tiers of government. I did get the Mayor to publicly state last night in front of both the Woolwich Observer and the Elmira Independent that negotiations with the M.O.E. would be conducted at public CPAC meetings. This is huge not because I believe it so much as because when it comes out that he and Township reps have been negotiating privately, we will have a better handle on our new Mayor's credibility. Mayor Cowan also referred to a "process" that he is going through. By implication he was criticizing my going public with the October 7, 1991 "sweetheart deal" between Uniroyal and the M.O.E.. Any "process" Mayor Cowan that excludes Council, CPAC and the public is not a process. It's simply more of what we've already had namely a litany of backroom, secret sweetheart deals that are not in the public interest.

TRANSPARENCY & M.O.E. SECRECY

Our courts may be hypocrites but at least they say the right things such as "Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done." Obviously this is small comfort to the wrongly convicted whose numbers both in Canada and the United States are becoming legion. Imagine when groups like Project Innocence and The Association for the Wrongly Convicted move on to freeing people for wrongful convictions other than murder. Does anyone seriously think our courts screw up so often and so badly only on murder charges?

Getting back to transparency and justice being seen to be done- political and bureaucratic bodies such as our Ontario Ministry of the Environment have a long history of talking out of both sides of their mouths. At the same time as they are either publicly or privately telling citizens and media that they are indeed going to hold the polluter to account, they are privately sitting down and negotiating "deals" to absolve the polluter of liability. These deals must of course be in the interests of the M.O.E.. If they are in the interests of the public that is sheer coincidence.

In the case of the Elmira "water crisis" the public demanded not only a cleanup and restoration of the Elmira Aquifers but that also the guilty parties be held publicly accountable. The "sweetheart deal" of October 7, 1991 not only absolved Uniroyal/Chemtura of all liability it also specifically stated that nothing in the deal was to be interpreted as admissions of guilt or wrongdoing by any party. Incredible. Perhaps Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka should have negotiated such an agreement between themselves. If they had it would have been held up to public ridicule and thrown out as offensive to common decency and morality. EXACTLY AS THE M.O.E. / UNIROYAL DEAL SHOULD BE.

It is therefore with this background that Woolwich Township and Council must break this cycle of secrecy and backroom negotiations. No you do not privately twist the M.O.E.'s arm and blackmail them into paying you off. No you do not twist their arm privately while promising them some face saving out. All that will do is reinforce their dispicable behaviour and ensure it continues. You deal with them publicly. This is exactly why you have CPAC. This is exactly why the M.O.E. lie and deceive the public because they are confident that if caught they can deal privately with the municipality and offer them some of their own taxpayers money back in exchange for confidentiality. Woolwich Council you need to break this cycle. This secrecy is what got us into this mess in the first place. Lift up the rock that the Ontario M.O.E. and polluters have been hiding under and air out their dirty laundry. Be forthcoming with your CPAC and discuss and negotiate at public CPAC meetings with the Ministry. They will scream bloody murder and that is the proof that you are on the right track.

DELEGATION TO TOMORROW NIGHT'S WOOLWICH COUNCIL MEETING

At this point in time I'm getting my ducks in a row and confirming that other than via four websites/blogs there has been no newspaper or other media reports dealing with the "sweetheart deal' signed by Uniroyal and the Ontario M.O.E. twenty-one years ago. I am also confirming that to date any actions/plans by Woolwich Township or the Mayor/CPAC Chair have not been shared with the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC). Keep clearly in mind that it was a CPAC member who first discovered this smoking gun.

Although the blame for this putrid document can not be laid at the feet of any Woolwich Council, what can be attributed to certain past members, is keeping it a secret from the public. In general, transparency and accountability in government action should always be paramount. Any time the public are told one thing while guilty parties negotiate privately and consumate deals with our government, democracy has been subverted. In this case the biggest and baddest polluter in town got a free pass from the Ministry of the Environment while all parties assurred the public of the following lies: 1) The Elmira aquifers will be cleaned up 2) The responsible parties will pay the freight. All parties include Uniroyal/Chemtura, M.O.E., Region of Waterloo and Woolwich Township. Tomorrow night at a public Council meeting I am booked as a Delegation. The media as always will be present. I will be respectfully putting the question to Woolwich Council. No more secrecy as in the past. What are you doing about this situation including the betrayal of the citizens of Woolwich Township by Chemtura and the Ministry of the Environment?

NEWSPAPER NOTICE FOR WOOLWICH DRINKING WATER REPORTS

Well that was a whole lot of nothing. I've been going over the Region's reports for the last few weeks and I knew they were missing some Woolwich Township locations such as Elmira and St. Jacobs. They were also missing Breslau and Heidelberg. After seeing the Drinking Water reports advertised in the Woolwich Observer; stating that they could be found on Woolwich's website (under Township Services- Engineering/Public Works) I looked them up. What a waste of time . All they say is SEE REGION OF WATERLOO. There is no data for these systems presented. You can either go to the Region of Waterloo website and look it all up or go to my archives for February. There you will find a link to the Region's Annual Water Reports on February 25/12. This is very peculiar because with the exception of Breslau, Elmira & St. Jacobs all the other small towns and villages have their own on site wells. Thanks a lot for nothing Woolwich. Apparently you can add crap to your website quickly but you can't seem to remove crap at all. I'm referring to your link to Chemtura mixed in with your CPAC link. This is especially annoying after the revelation of their backroom sweetheart deal with the Ministry of the Environment twenty-one years ago.

Just for the record Elmira/St.Jacobs' water comes up from Waterloo via a pipeline. It might not have NDMA in it but who really knows. The Province and the Region in their infinite wisdom don't advise us of any NDMA results good or bad in their drinking water reports. Incredibly stupid under the circumstances. All the other failures of these Annual reports apply equally to the Townships reports. Far too many ubiquitous chemicals simply aren't tested for. In Heidelberg with the old gas station present I wonder why they don't test for gasoline related compounds such as Toluene, Xylenes and Ethyl Benzene. Both the Conestogo Golf and West Montrose wells are affected by the Grand River. Again there are upriver sources of industrial chemicals that are not being tested for. Shame on all parties.

MAYOR'S SUPPORT IS FALLING

Normally the popular support of the Mayor of Woolwich Township is not that directly relevant to the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC). That however is the situation when the so called "Interim" Chair is none other than Mayor Cowan. Some CPAC members had felt last May that his stepping in to replace Councillor Julie-Ann Herteis would add prestige and weight to this committee of Council. At the time he enjoyed the tepid support of one local paper and very strong support from the other (Observer). Boy how things have changed. Right now the Observer on a weekly basis are lampooning the Mayor with their cartoons, including today, and also through their Editorials on occasion.

What concerns me regarding the mayor are his campaign promises. I believe he can take some credit for the sucess with the Saving of Victoria Glen. However the Hawk Ridge subdivision appears to be more than a done deal courtesy of provincial policies. Bio-En Fuels is dragging on and it shouldn't be. If this issue flops then excuses aren't going to cut it. The mayor will probably wear that going into the next election. Gravel pits are also still up in the air. Why do these issues literally take years to be resolved. I suggest that is intentional and usually works in that citizens , unlike politicians, are not being paid for their time and efforts. It then becomes a battle of attrition. Finally we come to CPAC. The Mayor had a lot to say about getting a new CPAC back on course to clean up Elmira's Aquifers by 2028. He and CPAC had momentum and both the M.O.E. and Chemtura on the defensive and on the run last fall. Since then nothing. And I do mean NOTHING. No meetings, no press releases, no pressure. The Township are sitting on their butts right now giving Chemtura breathing room. They are giving Chemtura and the M.O.E. respect they do not deserve. Both those parties are taking full advantage. Zero promised monitoring results from the Ministry since last fall and zero lab results promised by Chemtura regarding their Dioxins have benn forthcoming. Also the Township should have PUBLICLY roundly condemned both parties for their disgusting and contemptible Sweetheart deal of October 7, 1991. Instead NOTHING. CPAC it is make or break time now. Seize control from your Interim Chair. Go publicly to Woolwich Council and tell them exactly what your Chair is NOT doing. Yes Council have the option of booting all of you off CPAC. If they do that then they will have condemned themselves to public ridicule and outrage. That is better than Mayor Cowan and his advisers continuing to do nothing and condemning the Elmira cleanup . It has been a sham for twenty years and this Council and Mayor promised to turn it around. To date their promises have been wind and hot air.

REAL LOCAL CONSULTATION ON GREEN ENERGY

Clearly the provincial Liberals must be feeling the sting of no longer having a majority. Premier McGuinty was speaking at the Rural Ontario Municipalities Association (ROMA) in regards to green energy when several politicians walked out on him. McGuinty then advised the remaining audience that local municipalities would soon have more say over wind and solar energy projects. This article was in Tuesday's (Feb. 28/12) Waterloo Region (K-W) Record under the title "Municipalities to be given more say on wind, solar farms, McGuinty says". Both opposition parties in the legislature have attacked the Liberals position and their forcing through projects that local municipalities and citizens do not support. Here locally in Elmira we are still awaiting word on the location of Bio-En Fuels which is proposed for Martins Lane in Elmira. Opposition has been strong including the Stop The Stink website that the BFCC or Bio Fuels Concerned Citizens have had for some time. It seems more than strange to me that our local citizens remain in limbo waiting for a no-brainer decision from the province. There is an alternate site available and the Mayor has been pushing it for some time. Usually stalling is a sign that the authorities do not have good news. One of the local activists, Dr. Dan Holt, has been engaging a M.O.E. technical adviser, trying to get a firm answer. To date it appears as if everything is still on hold.