Okay, much has been made of Mayor Smith holding an in camera meeting for “Educational purposes” to discuss WDI.

my first thought is education? What does council need two hours to be educated on Wasaga Distribution? Its sort of there. Its has Brian Smith on its board and after a year I’m pretty sure they all should be familiar with its workings.

Next, if indeed there are slope headed councillors who need to learn the workings of WDI, why would this session be either confidential or require a council meeting? Surely just sitting in an office with a whiteboard would work even for Joe?

No. This isn’t education unless it’s Brian educating council about how they will vote. This is all the dominoes being lined up for the sale that Brian failed to shoehorn through last time. You remember, the one where the whole town (and I do mean whole) shook its fist in his face and said “don’t you dare”.

Well its back.

Brian isn’t the bumbling oaf he was last time though. The changes made in there last month ensure there will be none of that unfortunate “public participation” in the process this time. The discussions even amongst council are either off the books or “educational” in camera meetings. Given that Brian vets the notes I rather think the two hours will be rather sparsely covered, and since one of the first things THIS council did was end audio recordings, the only record will be written (and redacted).

I tell you this not to halt the sale. I have been there done that. It’s to inform you it’s happening RIGHT NOW. It may take weeks or months, but you won’t know until the day of the vote when it will be too late to attend the presentation, make notes, contact the union representing power workers, get signs printed, organize demonstrations, create a petition and inset ads in the newspaper. No, hard to do that on an hours notice. Nor do we have any representation or voice of sober second thought on council. It’s a slate and it’s Brian’s slate.

Brian Smith will of course make a nice speech on CTV standing in front of town hall about the town needing the money because of the Arena (it doesn’t) and this being the right time to do it (it isn’t) and the benefits Wasaga will see (as Collingwood discovered; NONE). Wasaga will get a few tens of millions of dollars, much of that will be spent buying hideously expensive land on Main Street. That is owned by faceless numbered companies for the purpose of building a new town hall. Exactly the same as his previous term, NOTHING is done but the spending of money that achieves nothing.

one thing he will do though is ensure WDI is gone. He hates that his fail was rubbed in his face.

lets discuss!

https://www.ontario.ca/document/ontario-municipal-councillors-guide/3-meetings

https://wasagadist.ca/about-us/board-of-directors/