IS SANDY SHANTZ HOLDING THE MAYOR'S CHAIR ILLEGALLY?

It would be even more shocking than it is except that she's already done exactly that from March 27/15, the filing deadline for Financial Statements and Auditors Reports until Thursday, July 23/15, the date that Justice David Broad reinstated her to the mayor's chair. She had forfeited her position automatically when she failed to file her Reports by the legal deadline of March 27/15, imposed by the Municipal Election Act (MEA).

Justice Broad wrote both an Endorsement and a Judgement on July 23/15. The Judgement is quite specific and quite clear. It uses the term "full and complete Financial Statement and Auditor's Report" in four of the seven numbered paragraphs, namely paragraph's 1, 2, 3, and 6. These paragraphs set out one of the major conditions that Sandy Shantz had to satisfy in order to be reinstated as mayor of Woolwich Township. In addition paragraph 6 also states the following "...the Applicant (Sandy Shantz) shall file ... all expenses incurred during the campaign period (from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014)...".

I will quote paragraph 3 in its' entirety as it deals with the automatic forfeiture. The other paragraphs deal with things like extending the filing deadline, ordering the Municipal Clerk to accept the new "full and complete" Statements and also ordering that a Supplementary Financial Statement be included. Paragraph 3 states "This Court Orders that, upon filing with the clerk the full and complete Financial Statement and Auditor's Report prior to the close of the extended filing period, the Applicant shall not be subject to any forfeiture or penalty imposed pursuant to sections 80(1) and 80(2) of the Municipal Elections Act".

Based upon the Judgement of Justice David Broad as well as both past expenses not declared as well as new expenses just recently uncovered and sent on to the Crown prosecuter this past Monday, it is my opinion that Sandy Shantz is not the legally constituted mayor of Woolwich Township. I will be sending copies of this writeup today to Woolwich's CAO, Woolwich Councillors and the media.

HOW MUCH MORE WOULD A FORENSIC AUDIT HAVE FOUND?

The impression that I have been slowly getting is that while mayor Shantz appropriately had one campaign bank account for her expenses and donations; unfortunately she was also paying her expenses from other sources thus keeping them hidden. This conclusion is based upon her admittance at the October 26,2015 MECAC meeting that she paid for additional stakes for her campaign signs, out of her own pocket. This delicate fact has been inaccurately reported on the Woolwich website under Draft (MECAC) Minutes since December 7/15 despite Township Staff having been informed in writing by myself regarding the error. Furthermore on the Financial Spreadsheet that she provided to MECAC on July 2/15 she has indicated that her Thank You Notices (Appreciation Notices) published in the Woolwich Observer and Elmira Independent were originally entered as legitimate expenses however she reversed that correct decision and removed them from her campaign account and paid for them privately. That of course is contrary to the Elections Act and she has since in her Amended Financial Statement (August 20/15) put them back in again as campaign expenses. Finally the recently discovered undeclared expenses that have been sent on to the prosecuter have not appeared on any of the mayor's two Financial Spreadsheets. One must conclude that all or part of them, depending on the staus of donations or not, would have been paid either by cash or from the mayor's private bank accounts. Keep in mind that a Compliance Audit (forensic audit) would include an examination of the mayor's private accounts as well as her campaign account. This might find other personal payments for campaign expenses contrary to the Municpal Elections act (MEA). MECAC however made certain that mayor Shantz avoided that scenario.

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys a story by Paige Desmond titled "Woolwich mayor's expense issue to be reviewed by out of town Crown". As I indicated in yesterday's posting, mayor Shantz is both a local mayor as well as a Regional Councillor. While Regional Council has responsibility for the Regional Police budget and some other police matters, the relationship between Regional government and the local courts is less clear to me. That said I do believe that there are certainly financial implications such as Regional government receiving things like Highway Traffic Act fines etc. after conviction in our local courts. It would also seem likely to me that our Regional government bears some responsibility for things like maintenance and even construction/renovation costs for these buildings.

Here is another delicate matter to mull over. Also on the Township's website are the Endorsement and Judgement of Justice David Broad (Superior Court) from last July 23, 2015. Woolwich Township are so pleased with them both that they have been posted on their website for months. These documents/decisions are not remotely an examination of the mayor's Financial Statements despite certain parties so misrepresenting them. They are simply and solely stating that under the circumstances outlined by one party, mayor Shantz, that the penalty of automatic forfeiture of her office was too severe. Even then Justice Broad's decision stated that her reinstatement was conditional. She had to agree to follow a number of prescribed steps in order to be reinstated. Justice Broad repeatedly stated that she must file "full and complete" Amended and Supplementary Financial Statements by a certain date. She complied with the date. But... the "full and complete" aspect of her conditional reinstatement is in extreme doubt. Exactly how has she filed "full and complete" Financial Statements, namely the Amended and the Supplementary Financial Statements, dated August 20, 2015 when hundreds of dollars of new undeclared expenses have just been uncovered? Mayor Shantz was reinstated as mayor from her automatic forfeiture for failing to file an Auditor's Report by March 27/15, on condition that she come clean and file "full and complete" Financial Statements. I believe that she has failed to follow the conditions imposed upon her by Justice Broad in order for her to be reinstated as mayor of Woolwich Township. Woolwich Council, senior Staff and MECAC can all take credit for this still expanding mess.

THE COURTS & THE CROWN ARE TAKING MAYOR SHANTZ'S MEA CHARGES SERIOUSLY

As I understand it there is a cetain amount of confidentiality involved regarding private sit down discussions with the Crown. That said I am of course all about transparency and accountability. Both of those have been sadly lacking to date in regards to the three incompetents on Woolwich Council who feel that the only authorities they need to keep on board are those at the municipal or regional level. I met with the Crown Prosecuter privately for two and a half hours just before Christmas. It was educational, informative, respectful, two way dialogue with both parties expressing the facts, their opinions and their challenges in regards to this case. It was an astonishingly frank and open discussion between two parties and has quite frankly reinvigorated my confidence that there are excellent people in places of responsibility within our judicial system.

Today in court was a surprise for me. That said the prosecuter did give me a heads up in his office immediately prior to court. I believe that Sandy's defence lawyer was running a little late but nevertheless he also received the same courtesy prior to Sandy's case being openly discussed in court. Sandy's former lawyer Mr. Randall Martin is retiring (Best Wishes!) and her new lawyer is a Mr. Assaf whom I did meet and say hello to.

The Crown has requested an adjournement until February 24/16 (presumably at 9 am.) in Provincial Offences Court but not for the same reason as the previous two. He requested and received this adjournement in order that an outside Crown independently review the charges. Now Mr. Andres (prosecuter) did state that there was not a conflict (?). I suspect that he meant to say conflict of interest although I will state that between one annoying person seated in court constantly squeaking his chair plus people coming and going through the doors behind me as if it was a bus station versus a courtroom; that I may have misheard conflict versus conflict of interest. Regardless I did clearly hear Mr. Andres state that the purpose of an outside Crown would be to make sure that justice would be apparent to all parties.

Also of interest was that the J.P. in charge of the courtroom was the same Justice of the Peace who accepted the ten Municpal Election Act (MEA) charges in the first place, namely Justice Marquette. He did so advise all counsels present of this fact and recused himself from any further dealings with this case. Of interest to me is that in the intervening months he has probably literally dealt with hundreds of cases yet immediately recognized myself and the case itself.

Whether this decision to go to an outside Crown is very recent I do not know. This morning was the very first that I heard of it. Possibly the two and a half hour meeting was a factor, possibly my continued suit and tie presence at all the court dates contrary to any sign of our mayor, or even possibly the very latest information sent on to the Crown prosecuter regarding new undeclared election expenses; I simply do not know. What is giving me hope however is that the Crown are seriously listening, learning and studying this case. I view the sending of it to an outside Crown as a positive development. Afterall let's be blunt here. Mayor Shantz is more than simply a mayor of Woolwich Township; she is also a regional councillor. I applaud this decision today while having no knowledge as to what decision the outside Crown will come to.

MORE UNDECLARED EXPENSES UNEARTHED FROM MAYOR SHANTZ'S ELECTION

These previously unreported and unknown election expenses as defined by the Municipal Elections Act (MEA) were discovered by myself shortly before Christmas. Fortunately I found them hiding in plain sight prior to my scheduled and appropriate and proper meeting with the judicial authorities and hence was able to pass them along. That said I can understand some of the obstacles in the path of sucessfully prosecuting these MEA charges. They are procedural and they are real.

On October 26, 2015 at the last MECAC meeting Chairman Carl Zehr put it to mayor Shantz directly. Far more directly than the inaccurate (& dishonest?) Draft Minutes posted on the Woolwich Township website indicate. Chairman Zehr categorically and clearly asked mayor Shantz if there were any remaining expenses, major or minor that she had to date failed to declare in her Amended and Supplementary Financial Statements. Mayor Shantz just as categorically and clearly stated that she absolutely had not omitted any expenses from her latest election campaign financials.

At that final MECAC meeting, the MECAC members repeatedly put it to me to come up with yet more and more undeclared expenses by mayor Shantz. I repeatedly made it very clear that the threshold for them to order a forensic audit was my reasonable belief of but one contravention of the MEA. The onus was not on me to prove anything. The onus was not on me to find multiple contraventions of the Elections Act as I had prior to the July 2/15 MECAC meeting and then continue to find further contraventions with each and every new Financial Statement that either the courts (Superior) or MECAC allowed the mayor to refile. This was the scam that MECAC pulled on me and the public with the able assistance of Woolwich Township throughout the process. Those parties twisted beyond all recognition the initial responsibility of the candidate (mayor Shantz) to provide a full and complete Financial Statement and Auditor's Report by the March 27/15 filing deadline. They came up with all kinds of irrelevant excuses, deflections and distractions as a smokescreen to avoid ordering a forensic audit.

These currently undeclared expenses by mayor Shantz are substantial as in several hundreds of dollars more. While her expenses already exceeded the $10,000 threshold (for an audit) even before any of her subsequently completed privately done audits; the obvious problem from the very first Financial Statement she submitted back in February 2015 was that she has never filed a full and complete Financial Statement. This I pounded home to MECAC, over and over, and told them that the only possible way to learn exactly how much she received in donations and how much she spent, was through an ordered Forensic Audit. A Forensic Audit compared to her privately done audit is the difference between a jet fighter and a rubber band airplane.

In approximately 25 1/2 hours I will be at Provincial Offences Court 77 Queen St. Kitchener. At that time I will learn the fate of the current ten MEA charges laid against mayor Shantz. It is out of my hands until then.

FIGURES CAN LIE & LIARS CAN FIGURE

I've been looking through the "Chief Drinking Water Inspector Annual Report 2014-2015". At first blush it seems pretty impressive. Afterall when you read words such as "multi-barrier approach", "stringent health-based standards"and highly trained operators", it certainly gives a good impression. Then a glance at the opening statistics claiming that 99.8% of half a million drinking water tests "...met Ontario's strict drinking water quality standards."and one should feel confident in our water systems.

There are a couple of problems however. Firstly Ontario does not have "strict drinking water quality standards". Glyphosate's has a detection limit of 25 parts per billion (ppb.) which is ridiculously high. Many other chemicals have detection limits of .5 ppb. or higher. Trichloroethylene here in Waterloo Region is in our drinking water at 1-3 ppb. in a number of different wellfields. Our drinking water standard says that's O.K. but there are American jurisdictions whose standards do not allow that. Also the annual Region of Waterloo well reports do not even tell us what the standards are. They give a less than figure (<) and a number and simply advise if it is an exceedance or not. How close it is to the standard we are left to guess.

Another basic problem is that each and every drinking standard for a chemical is based upon the false and unrealistic assumption that that chemical alone is in a litre of pure water. It is not; it is mixed in with numerous different contaminants all allegedly below their individual standards. No one anywhere has any idea of the synergistic effects of differing contaminants on human health.

The number of chemical compounds are increasing exponentially and Ontario's drinking water standards have not kept pace. We simply are only testing for a miniscule number of the possible industrial chemicals released into the air, water and soil every year. Even common industrial chemicals such as NDMA, toluene and xylenes are not reported on here in Waterloo region's Annual Drinking water reports.

All this information was presented to Woolwich Council early in 2015. They publicly promised to take these concerns to both the Region of Waterloo and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. I have had zero feedback from the Township since and that is par for the course.

WE DESERVE BETTER FROM OUR GOVERNMENTS AT ALL LEVELS

Last Thursday I briefly mentioned this week's Editorial in the Woolwich Observer. I had decided that my ongoing support and admiration of Steve Kannon's writings would no longer be expressed here after his biased and non balanced writeup of the last MECAC meeting back in late October. The problem is that except for their apparent bias against myself possibly in regards to a threatened lawsuit they received from a Uniroyal consultant decades ago; overall they do good work and Steve Kannon does excellent work. Is it possible that that threatened lawsuit which they settled quickly has been part of their lack of coverage of Uniroyal/Chemtura issues ever since?

To the present! Steve Kannon's Editorial this week is excellent. "We should resolve to expect more of governments" is right on the money. Quoting Steve: "Speaking of budgets, early on we'll be seeing those from all levels of government. Expect nothing but disappointment-taxes will rise, profligate spending will abound, corruption and waste will flourish." From there Steve advises that most politicians are all about lining their own pockets one way or the other including "...plum board appointments or lobbying gigs that skirt laughingly inadequate regulations-ethics being only a suggestion.".

A further quote from Steve: "...we've come to the conclusion that they're all pretty much the same in working against the public interest. Governments serve only their financial backers and themselves, so it just doesn't matter what we do.".

Steve that is the stuff of revolution. He does advise that we the public should add "more involved" to our list of New Year's resolutions. I must agree wholeheartedly and thank you Steve for publicly, in my opinion, expressing criticism of politicians' commenting critically about "conspiracy theorists". The fact is politics is nothing but conspiracies and lying and misleading the public. We need more not less "conspiracy theorists".

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL