Some specifics on the vote posted on the Sun-Times, and curiously it says nothing about Gwen being absent due to a funeral, but rather that she excused herself from the vote for obvious reasons.

Lamont said he voted in favour of the audit request based on information provided by Harron, ... that Gilbert had informed her she had no problem with the audit proceeding. ... Harron said she voted in favour of an audit to avoid the request going to court ... Wunderlich said he voted in favour with the understanding Gilbert wanted the audit to proceed so her name could be cleared.
[ Rift over audit ]

Right on! Trippin' the Rift! For Honour above all! Anyone giving odds on King vs Lamont?

Clearly the conflict resolution counseling is doing wonders for our councilors, and while one might want to compare them to the Meech Lake Senate (Aye now, lads, there was a show!) I think this is a jolly good bit of farce, and my only regret is that it is not carried on cable! Although I expect the rest of the world could care less, there's no doubt from my newswire trawlers that the media thinks our council is the most colourful escapade they've had on the municipal politics beat in a long time.

Now, y'know, rather than be embarrassed by it or bemoan it or even reform it, just like the Groundhog Thing, I think we should run with it! What is it the Town Plan says? Oh yeah, "Milk it for all its worth" is the phrase they use. We should have a Chambers Drummer who does badda-bing rimshots at key moments, councellors should practice distinctive who? me? poses and all members should attend meetings in colourful WWF wrestling masks and capes, frame interviews as closeups in gruffy voices of how they're going to clean up da floor wid 'em on the next round ...

We're really missing an opportunity here. Everybody knows the WWF guys all really dig each other, its the humour and grace of their internal digs that makes the show, and that's what makes it so much fun, because we know its just a show, and that makes it fun for everyone. Surely there's a lesson for council in all that and if I were their conflict councillor, the lesson I would teach them all is how to laugh.

At minimum, I am expecting all key players to offer themselves up for rivalry fundraising photo-ops at the Sandfest Dunktank this summer. Mano y mano! Battle of the century! Be there!

Ok the here I am again with some nonsensical analogy that makes noes no sense whatsoever, but I am here to amuse my self and no one else cuz its all about me, especially since some how a damn "chat" monitor program somehow got installed on my computer.?.?...
speakin of the ground hog, when I was a boy growing up in the hills of Paisley, where we could see the Paisley Inn slowly degrade over the years btw, Poppa use to say get out there and get some supper, I would grab the rifle and he would say no way take the shotgun.
So I would wander through the fields and finally see a plump groundhog that with a bit of ketchup would be a feast for us po' folk and pull the trigger and let fly.
I would come home and plop the varmit on the table for Ma to clean and cook and I would say looky here, I gots us some viddles.
Now Ma being a Tender sort would scream I got two phone calls from the neighbours saying when you fired off that shotgun you may of hit the Groundhog but you killed thier dog, smashed out two windows, put a hole in the water tower, cut off the whole town of cable tv, the hens won't lay and the last remaining keg of beer in town has a hole in it.
Can you for the love of all things sane Wayne please get to the point.
The way things are it seems the ol' scatter gun approach is being used time and time again by both sides. I may pleasee the family and fill the table but without looking into the distance and firing out a blast its the residual damage that causes concern and long term ill feelings.
You may agree and endorse a councillor who has "gone to bat" about something and looks like a hero but because of the shockwave over the horizon some guy is sittin in his Muskoka, mindin his own business, enjoying a beverage and suddenly the glass explodes in his hand.
for every action the reaction thing happens. And everytime a councillor makes a soundbyte for a good thing you agree to people grab it and you promote them with the fact they are good stuff and honest and dadadada, yet they have made a few glasses explode and those people haven't a clue where the pellet came from.
Ok is this analogy just to heavy, cuz abaout half way through even I couldnt figure out where I was going.

From the minutes of SBP council meeting on June 27, 2007

6. RECONSTRUCTION OF BRUCE ROAD 8 IN HEPWORTH/COUNTY OF BRUCE

Discussion took place with regard to the reconstruction of County Road 8 by Bruce County for 2008. Councillor Wunderlich suggested that the water and sewer pipes be put in the road while construction is taking place as it would be a cost savings. Councillor Vukovic commented that we may be putting the cart before the horse. Councillor Harron said that we need to at least look at it. The C.A.O indicated Council had taken the pipeline off the table as they were looking at Sauble Beach, he questioned whether Council was now reconsidering the project and asked for clarification. Subsequent to discussion, Committee recommended as follows:

Recommendation: That the C.A.O. obtains cost estimates as soon as possible from our engineers. That the current Environmental Assessment be reviewed to see what is applicable. And that the County Engineer be advised of the possible Town interest.

these idiots just don't get it ... we don't want a pipeline from wiarton to sauble beach ... get over it. why are they still wasting time and money on carl (ig)noble's pipe dream? isn't there anything we can do to stop the madness? aren't there more important issues to deal with? i'm going to call yvonne now and give her a piece of my mind; she certainly is not performing on council like she indicated in her pre-election campaign.

mkltpzyx

A lot of wishful thinking on Wunderlich's part. I am sure this will go against him in 2010 if he runs.

Interesting bit of Council minutes. First there is no current Environmental Assessment and the CAO should have made that clear right off. It expired in June 2006 and has not been renewed. Over a year has passed and Henderson Padden has not moved forward with this and H-P (under Council direction) is now moving in a direction to change the focus. The possibility of renewing the EA is almost nil unless the focus is changed to a small Sauble waste treatment system that is cost managable. The ill fated 2006 addendendum to renew ran into some conceptual problems......

If you look at the photo of Sauble Falls on page 46 of the locally available tourism promo magazine "The Beautiful Bruce Peninsula" you will fully understand the reasons why dumping treated effluent into the Sauble River above the falls during peak summmer utilization periods seems like such a dumb idea.

Any money paid for 8 miles of large diameter forcemain between Hepworth and Sauble Beach would be risk money with poor odds of getting any return for the money spent. This gamble is certain to fail without a valid complete EA that covers this section of trunk line and that EA does not exist. One of the things each Councillor has a responsibility for is not to take risks with the funds they are entrusted to manage. They cannot gamble with public money. Wunderlich and Harron are well aware of these basic principles of good government. They choose to ignore them.

My conclusion is it is just more non productive time wasting and grandstanding only this time the non productive time has spread to staff. CAO has been authorized to spend money for estimates and he could not provide simple information about the status of the EA or what it covered. CAO does not demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the EA process in his comment and in the past he has not taken much interest, preferring to leave matters to MPW Jones who is no longer on staff. Can we expect the CAO to be leaving soon also? A more informed CAO would have reigned this in before it got beyond the 30 second mark in discussion.

well, i called yvonne and asked her about the item i found in the minutes. her reply was that she will never vote for a water sewer pipeline between wiarton and hepworth. i asked why they were wasting time continuing to pursue placement of pipes in the ground. she said she gets just as many calls pro water/sewer as she does against (i would like to know the real statistics). she said it is councils responsibility to at least examine the costs because it would be irresponsible to not at least find out the cost. i asked what she would do if the costs were considered to be reasonable but she skirted the question. the part of our conversation that really got me going was when she said ten years from now we dont know what will be going on but that wether we like it or not there will eventually be a pipeline. my reply to her was that as long as i am able i will do whatever i can to prevent that from happening. she and other councillors seem to have conceded to the idea of a pipeline at some point in the future. i asked about discussing with the Saugeen Nation the possibility of extending their service from french bay to sauble. she said the natives dont want to work with the municipality .. i dont blame them really. i asked why our septic bylaws are not being enforced ... no money was the reply to which i responded the $250,000 paid to power budd would have paid a lot of septic inspectors. please, please call your representative and tell them what you think and take them to task with their answers. we must put an end to this madness. my next exercise will be to create a grid of this councils recorded votes to see how they line up and i told yvonne that she is starting to be painted with the same brush as wunderlich and crew. too bad i didnt have any other choice at election time except duplicitous mockler.
kltpzyxm

Now I aint sure of the how things are done on the web. But I remeber how I had to be careful doing Phone interviews for radio...
All I can say is when you phone someone I hope you have that recording you hear all the time
" Your call will be rcorded to assure quality assurance".
In real speak it means, "watch what you say to me because this conversation is being recorded you, it will be used later somewhere down the line.

i reviewed all the 2007 council minutes available on the sbp web site. the picture below is a summary of the recorded votes. it is quite evident that harron, hoath, kerr, and lamont almost always vote the same regardless of the issue. i leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.



kltpzyxm

hi dan o, my purpose for the chart was to show voting patterns, regardless of the issue. what they were voting on was irrelavent for the purpose of my chart. for interest sake, i just opened each of the council minutes available on the sbp web site in reverse chronological order searching for 'recorded vote'. for the interested reader it should be pretty easy to find the voting records matching the chart. what really caught my eye was how often wunderlich does not vote with the gang of four. i was most interested in harron as she is my representative. it is pretty clear to me now that she is part of the old guard no matter how much she tries to deny it when confronted.
kltpzyxm

Seems high but the cost of running dead pipe from Hepworth to Sauble Beach is $500 per foot or $21,000,000 for 8 miles. To add to this there is talk that someone might suggest that since they are already adding new service to the south end of Wiarton they might as well run the water line on down to Hepworth. Debentures anyone?

Do you suppose anyone has thought of hooking them together?

hi dodge, where did you get the number? the higher the better as far as i am concerned since it should make it harder to justify the dead pipe.
kltpzyxm