Cornwall ON – City Council is a huge responsibility. Essentially part time jobs are given to people in the community to make decisions about how tax dollars are spent.
Tonight in Cornwall Ontario, like many communities, Arts and Culture are being discussed. Cornwall is making overtures to evolve the role of Arts and Culture in the community; ultimately to help evolve Tourism, visitors, and for people and business to move to this exciting and growing city along the St. Lawrence River.
A presentation was made by a small committee that seems to have City Council blessings; Mr. Graham Greer, a musician of some fame and success, Ms. Keitha Fisher who had a cooking show on community TV, and Mr. Todd Bennett who ran for City Council himself.
Definitions of conflict of interest on the Web:
a situation in which a public official’s decisions are influenced by the official’s personal interests
Which brings us to Councilor Andre Rivette who elected to stand up and speak during their presentation to council to bring up another Cultural group which his son is an executive of. Now there’s nothing wrong with having more than one group. It’s wonderful actually. I hear there may be as many as six groups in this riding alone!
But surely a city councilor making an impact speech in council with a presentation to council of the nature he made surely rings of something that should be addressed and not repeated? Even without his son being a member of another group was it fair dinkum for Mr. Rivette to be bringing in other groups during a presentation?
If you saw the councilor’s statement please post your comments below?
Doesn,t surprize me one bit about anything that comes out of Andre Rivettes mouth or a few other councillers.
Considering the fiasco that went on during the election with Le Journal “seemingly” (yeah right) endorsing certain councilors for Cornwall city council, and then retracting it after the fact over the Logo use and stuff when it was pointed out, I’m really not surprised.. all part of the existing old boys club which we got back, plus another couple additions to the club… Doesn’t Andre Rivette own Le Journal? And look at who got re-elected as part of it all..
But he shouldn’t be speaking up for any committee his son is part of and same with recent club addition Mr. Murphy about the Benson center… They all think no one notices, but people do…
I thought the fact that Councilor Rivette even mentioned the other committee his son is involved in was in poor taste. The comment came off as a father defending his 8 yr old to the school bully rather than a councilor speaking about what is in the best interest of his city. If he wanted to draw attention to the fact that his son was in a similar group perhaps another course of action would have been to suggest that the two groups work together.
He should apologize in writing to the group that was presenting, while he should get up and apologize in front of all of council for disturbing the group’s presentation while they were presenting..
I do not know how the title of this article relates to this article however I would like to leave my comments to the question asked in the title. There are several groups in and around Cornwall who have a view for a Multi-Purpose Arts Center. My personal belief is that these groups have a better chance of accomplishing this goal by working together for the benefit of Cornwall, S.D.&G and Akwesasne. Council cannot ignore a unified body….you know the old saying “united we stand, divided we fall”. My personal hope is that these groups find a way to move forward together…united.
Sincerely, Jacqueline Milner, RTA
Photographer, Visual Artist, Environmentalist, concerned community member wanting something that will serve and be accessible to all.