It’s Time for Maureen Adams to Give up on Cornwall MPAC Lawsuit by Jamie Gilcig 110718

Cornwall Ontario –  Sometimes adults make mistakes.   There is an old saying….

 

The difference between winners and losers is how they deal with adversity.

Maureen Adams was the city’s Chief Financial Officer before becoming its CAO.  Under her leadership, or lack thereof, the city’s finances have crumbled.   She’s part of a circle jerk between herself and newly elected Mayor Bernadette Clement, Councilor Elaine MacDonald and their sycophants, chiefly backed by organized labour and the senile seniors of the community who vote in large numbers and enjoy smiling happy faces greeting them with all too empty sweet nothings.

The biggest boondoggle facing the tax raped of Cornwall has been the mishandling of the MPAC file.

It normally would be grounds for political tar and feathering.  Here in Cornwall it resulted in one of its chief proponents getting elected to mayor to support her CAO.  Only in Cornwall….

At root was the clear knowledge that MPAC valuations for high priced properties like our Distribution centres would be contested and most likely lost.

Instead of not touching those cash windfalls the dosh was spent…on scandals, high priced legal bills beyond the pale, empty bank buildings for fantastical art centres that most likely will never be built, and high priced vanity videos for fire chiefs.

You really can’t make this stuff up.    Elaine MacDonald went on CBC radio and actually stated that taxes had to go up to cover the MPAC losses.   They didn’t.

Listen to the radio clip below to see Ms MacDonald look very foolish, but then again she said that raising taxes was a good thing which normally would see the retired school teacher and her pension pushed out the door politically.

You simply don’t raise taxes for single incident issues. 

That’s bad management.

$6+ million is a lot for a city to make up that clearly is on the decline fiscally.   There’s not much being invested or built in Cornwall because of acute fiscal mismanagement and really really bad Economic Development.  High taxes and high hydro rates do not make for an investment environment.

Cornwall still refuses to even answer if they knew about, never mind tried to land the Giant Tiger or Amazon Distribution Centres when they had a turnkey facility ready that both companies clearly passed on.   That facility sits empty while the city spent wads of cash buying more land it really didn’t need.  Who invests in expansion on the whims of an option that gives the buyer a 90% return if they wiggle away?  Is that good fiscal management?

Is it any wonder that taxes may go up 7% in 2019?

And then we come to the MPAC lawsuit.   Another $200K plus legal loss on the way.

Skipping the minutiae of the lawsuit, of which the city has already lost a motion, the skinny is that the City of Cornwall has to prove that somehow it was treated differently than MPAC treats the entire province or….that somehow the entire MPAC system is at fault.

A quick read of the act clearly shows remedies for issues.   This is a no chance of winning case.

So when another outlet runs a piece that MPAC and the city are waiting for final numbers from evaluations it should be sober time to save some face, but more importantly city cash and exit the lawsuit as gracefully as possible.

If the city doesn’t withdraw and rolls craps at the legal table then clearly Ms Adams deserves to be fired with prejudice and frankly any  member of council that supported this circus continuing should resign from council because the judgement of anyone that would push for this sort of waste of public money clearly isn’t interested in what’s best for those that pay the bills.

What do you think dear CFN viewers?  You can post your comments below.




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