No Matter what happens now with the Old School House in Colchester it is one of those “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t” files. Did council learn anything? When will we stop approaching files in a way that pit councillor against councillor and divide our community?
The answer to that is easy, when we have leadership that stops trying to divide council and the community. We as a council and administration also need to improve on our record keeping and report tracking which will prevent council being in lose-lose situations in the future. A motion on report tracking was brought forward in 2020 and that was a 4-4 vote which means it failed to pass. There is a recap of that vote on my website as well under 2020 Recorded Votes. It really is bad for our community when motions from council fall off the radar and this file is just one example. There are many others.
The School House File – Where did we first go wrong?
First Mistake- bad record keeping. This motion below NEVER made it to budget. December 16, 2019
Moved By Councillor Bondy
Seconded By Councillor Bjorkman
(R19-12-501) That the PowerPoint presentation regarding the proposed
John R. Park Homestead Heritage Centre given by Kevin Money, Director
of Conservation Services and Kris Ives, Curator of the Essex Region
Conservation Authority, together with the letter of request, letters of
support and request for financial support to assist with the construction of
the Heritage Centre be received and that administration look at different
funding mechanisms as part of the Town’s budget process in order to
determine the feasibility of financial assistance for this project.
Had that motion made it into budget, we would have never had Councillor Bjorkman’s motion to sell surplus properties to give ERCA a donation for their visitors center. Why did it not make it to the budget? Good question and this is not the first time we have had a motion drop from the books. When will it be the last? I am hoping Oct 24th 2022.
Next Mistake, April 6th 2020
Moved By Councillor Bjorkman
Seconded By Councillor Verbeek
(R20-04-112) That the Council of the Town of Essex discuss ways
to appropriate funds through, but not limited to the sale of existing
properties including part of the Colchester School House property
and other developable properties in Colchester.
Council never had a further discussion about what we wanted to sell in the Village. We never talked about selling the actual Old School House in fact the motion says Old School House Property NOT OLD SCHOOL.
Our staff interpreted council’s motion as direction to sell it.. WHY?? That is the million dollar question and the answer might be more of a WHO. We failed in record keeping, we failed in giving direction, we failed in communicating with our community. We just plain failed and now everyone pays when what could of been a win-win has turned into a big mess. Somehow we threw the baby out with the bath water.
Next Mistake – Lack of Public consultation
Council needs to represent the public and be open and transparent as per our Code of Conduct. We failed in that regard too, in my opinion.
Code of Conduct –
2.06 Openness
Members have a duty to be as open as possible about their decisions and actions. This
means communicating appropriate information openly to the public about decision making processes and issues being considered, encouraging appropriate public participation, communicating clearly, and providing an appropriate means for recourse and feedback.
As you have seen with my other posts, not all of council encourages public feedback, it slows the process down “they say”… well where are we now fellow councillors? Slowed down and tearing our community apart when it could have been different.
Council could have, should have, and still needs to identify public properties it wishes to sell and consult the public when doing so. I asked the CAO for a list of properties that town staff are showing developers and this is the answer I got, “Councillor Bondy, there is no map that is provided to developers, relationship building with developers and property owners has provided insight into available properties in Essex, many of which are not publicly listed but could potentially be open to offers”. Council, in it’s motion, DID NOT SAY sell the OLD SCHOOL HOUSE. Council has not yet in it’s third year of it’s term get a strategy or even have a discussion on surplus properties, what they mean to us, and which ones we would like to sell.
As a councillor, I can only speak for myself. I am definitely open for business but it must be development done with integrity. If it is not, it will appear to be a back room deal and that is something I just can not support.
