CORNWALL Ontario – Mayor Bob Kilger of Cornwall Ontario did it again. Rumors are that the local Corus Radio station and he are not on speaking terms because of a staffer that let him have it on his last day. ERIC SPENCE STORY
Bobby holds grudges. He loves to spend city dollars on his grudges too. This week he took his apparent grudge against myself and CFN to some new lows by first, supporting a motion at the Waterfront Whatever they are calling themselves, meeting to strike CFN off the minutes as attending as media.
Then he voted again to support a motion to move the committee meeting presentation by Woodhouse Museum Curator Ian Bowering in camera or closed even though it was on the agenda as open and the presentation did not qualify for closed meeting requirements.
From the Free Holder story:
“It was totally illegal, they had no grounds and they know it,” Parisien said, adding “I’m not blaming the chair (Cassidy),” acknowledging she is simply a volunteer trying to contribute to the community.
“My point is with the mayor and with his extensive background in the House of Commons, he knows the rules better than anybody.”
Kilger said the meeting’s shortcomings shows the city should be more proactive about training volunteer committee members.
But the Mayor and long time councilor Glen Grant were present at the meeting and either or both could have corrected or educated the chair.
Both voted to support the motion to strike CFN as media and both immediately voted to support moving the meeting to in camera status.
As you can see in the video Chair Lee Cassidy did ask for advice after Councilor Grant suggested moving into a closed session. It’s quite clear.
Secondly Mr. Bowering stated that he could not present because of my presence, not the public, and he stated it was because of our lawsuit which was not what his presentation was about.
Our lawsuit is about Mr. Bowering striking our camera. His presentation had nothing to do with that.
If the meeting were at city council, which a committee is an extension of; would council move into a closed session and ask the crowd and media to leave? I think not; yet here was one of our most senior councilors advising the chair to move into closed session and the mayor himself sticking his hand up first. Surely there is no spin on this as the video clearly shows.
Again, Kilger’s words:
Kilger said the meeting’s shortcomings shows the city should be more proactive about training volunteer committee members.
Again, Ms Cassidy asked for advice and was given so by Councilor Grant, supported by Mayor Kilger, who you would think after what had happened in this term when it comes to Stephen Fournier and other closed sessions would know better.
Frankly in 2014 to see elected officials taking their hate for media that they don’t like to the point of having them stricken from minutes and then closing a session in this manner it totally unacceptable? Even Rob Ford didn’t try to pull that on the Toronto Star and he’s been on Crack!
There is no plausible or reasonable excuse. There is no spin. The only thing that should happen at this point is that Mayor Kilger and Councilor Grant should resign, and if they refuse to on their own Council should ask them to.
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I’ll leave the final words of this to Hugo Rodrigues, new Editor in Chief of the Freeholder who wrote an opinion piece covering some of what happened. Mr. Rodrigues is also the Fearless Leader of the Canadian Association of Journalists.
What it smells of instead is the desire of one presenter and perhaps a committee member or two or three, to exclude an individual from a public meeting because they don’t like his work. That’s egregious.
When attending a public meeting of your government is based on whether or not those running the meeting like you, we’re in serious trouble.
This deserves another complaint to the closed-meeting investigator and a proper spanking if he determines the committee broke the rules. We’ll make sure that happens.
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This is the same museum curator who ran Standard Freeholder Marcel Quenneville photographs in publications all over the region without giving him a byline credit.
Marcel(RIP)was one of the best photojournalists in Canada and putting a cornwall historical society credit on the bottom of his photos is just wrong on so many levels.
Even the PontCornwallBridge people made the correct call
IMAGES FROM THE PAST
1959-60 photos taken by Marcel Quenneville, photographer at the Cornwall Standard Freeholder at the time, were provided to The Seaway International Bridge Corporation, Ltd. by the Cornwall Community Museum
PS..This was long before Mr Quenneville’s daughter donated his collection to this group
“Just the good ole boyz drinking whiskey and rye…” LOL LOL. Yes from the Dukes of Hazard and this is exactly what they all are “hillbillies”. When you are not part of the “clan” then you mean nothing to them and they will continue on and on until they drive you out of town Jamie. You can’t change the damage that they all did to Cornwall and they drove many good people out of town literally. One of the things about your paper is that it is very amusing to look at these hillbillies around the table thinking that they are doing some good while all the time they are doing nothing. It is good for many laughs just to look at them.
When Mayor Kilger said that the meeting’s shortcomings shows the city should be more proactive about training volunteer committee members, he was probably halucinating that he could have more “yes-men” on the committee to do his bidding. You don’t need to be trained if you volunteer!
I covered city council and school boards for 30 years and found anything could be put in closed session. How? Simple — items dealing with property and human resources were always cited as qualifying for closed session. Now…think about it. If council wanted to buy a clock for council chambers, its property….so it could go into closed session. I think you see where I am going with this. The problem with the whole closed session thing is the definition of what can go into closed session. I believe the only way to solve the problem is to be more specific, but the powers that be would never allow that because they would then be more accountable and, horror of horrors, they would have to make real decisions in public and the public would know what is going on. We can’t allow that, can we?