The Municipality of Clarington will receive $3,466,299 from the Province of Ontario under the Creating Jobs, Building Ontario funding.  These funds will be used for capital projects including the Newcastle Fire Hall, the Darlington Sports Centre, the Orono Arena, the Bowmanville Museum, the Municipal Administrative Centre and the Orono Branch of the Clarington Public Library.

alphainventions

My attention was drawn to a Toronto Star article concerning Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion and her son Peter, a local real estate entrepreneur.  This article goes over “the decision by Mississauga council to launch a judicial inquiry into a controversial $14.4 million land deal he initiated – which will also probe conflict-of-interest allegations involving the mayor.”

We have seen in Oakville where decisions were being made concerning allegations of illegal wiring putting children’s lives at risk and former Mayor Ann Mulvale, whose mentor is Hazel McCalliion, was in negotiations for a Mattamy donation.  Was that a conflict of interest?  I will let you decide.

But the bigger picture to us all, is something brought forward to me by another reader.  Without the facts, I can’t make a specific allegation but, we should be monitoring our councillors in preparation to make our voting decisions come November 2010.

This just isn’t an Oakville problem (as seen my an earlier blog that gave donation statistics for Toronto politicians and the Vaughan problem) but, we should be aware that politicians will be making decisions now to ensure their power base (money) is consolidated for the next election.

Look at the Edgemere decision.  Even though the developer was legally obligated to hand over the shorefront strip, he argued and got some density concessions.  Why even bother when he had to dedicate the land?

Another interesting area was up in Milton – or Mattamy-Ville,  as other reader has aptly named it.  Big argument over Development Charges and Mattamy led the Complaint Brigade – with a plethora of Voluntolds in support.  After new homeowners were threatened with an almost $8000 increase due to the levy, it seems now that they don’t have to pay. 

But who will?  I stand to be corrected on this but it seems that Halton will get a loan from the developers to build the necessary infrastructure and then will give future concessions of some sort. 

WHO WILL PAY THIS LOAN BACK???   THE TAXPAYER? 

We are already paying for the water pipeline that allowed Peter Gilgan et al to make their fortunes developing the Milton area.  And who voted to make these changes and why?  At first Halton was strong on the new development paying for itself, even saying so in an online report- since removed.  It will be interesting to see who gets the developer’s support the next election.

Appears that, as someone pointed out to me, Mattamy rules the roost in Halton.  I hope the Milton taxpayer is happy with the free bus rides they might get for Christmas, courtesy of Mattamy.  Nothing like buying someone off with cheap trinkets. 

BLOG  EDIT:  SEE NOVEMBER 30TH  FOR CLARIFICATION

http://condron.us/index.php?i=6
condron.us

alphainventions

href=”http://blogitti.blogiche.com/”>Blogitti

Nov.24,2009

BY: KATELYN FARRIS

The  Summerside Christmas parade went very well, said the executive director of the Downtown Business Association.

Ron Casey originally helped start the Summerside Christmas parade in 1992 and was a volunteer for seven years.

It was great weather for the parade this year, Casey said.

“It’s hard to get good weather, but it was the biggest parade we’ve had yet.”

There were tons of people, Casey said.

“I was at three different places and people were everywhere.”

The parade is always held early, Casey said.

“We try to have it around the Downtown Open House, which is Nov. 26. Back before they passed the new law, the malls were only allowed to be open four Sunday’s before Christmas, which is why we had it so early.”

It was a big parade, Casey said,

“We had seven floats back in 1992. Last night, we had 40 floats.”

Sandra MacNevin of Summerside,said the parade had been better.

“I think it has been better in other years. But I did like the Transportation and Public Works float. It was well lit up.”

Please be advised that during the following dates the Pad B entrance located at the Garnet B. Rickard Recreation Complex will temporarily closed due to construction.

Monday November 30 until Friday December 4 2009.

You can enter the facility at the Pad B side- via the temporary entrance located to the South/East of the building.

Accessibility entrance will be located at the west entrance into Pad A.

REMOVE: DECEMBER 7, 2009

Una vez más, tenemos que dar las gracias a la Unión Europea: si no fuera por su financiación de la mayor parte del I Plan de Igualdad, es muy posible que no existiría.
Después de la presentación, tuve la oportunidad de exponer la realidad presupuestaria al Viceconsejero Fernández:
Los presupuestos Regionales para el año 2010 prevean una reducción del 60% en transferencias a los ayuntamientos para los jóvenes [precisamente ahí donde tiene que empezar la reeducación para la igualdad], 30% menos para su formación, 3% menos para su propia consejería… La justificación del Viceconsejero Fernández: “estamos con restricciones presupuestarias….”
Mi réplica: “Para lo que importa sí, pero para la publicidad y el autobombo del PP, no hay límite: libran 4 millones para publicidad en la Consejería de Juventud, 3 millones en la Consejería de Educación (para Telemadrid, naturalmente)….” El Sr. Viceconsejero -y su anfitrión gualiseño- parecía incómodo ante la crítica, o tal vez ante el hecho de que estamos al tanto de las tácticas pre-electorales del PP.
Gracias a lXs compañerXs de IU-municipal y Reyes Montiel (diputada de Izquierda Unida en al Asamblea de Madrid) por su rápido análisis de los datos presupuestarios.

FUNDAÇÃO MUNICIPAL DE EDUCAÇÃO DE NITERÓI – Dez -l996

Grupo de alunos adolescentes de escolas municipais e estaduais, que faziam parte do grupo de Teatro do SEMEC, sob minha coordenação.Momento de descontração, pouco tempo antes, da apresentação da Perfomance Teatral “Beco dos Excuídos”.A apresentação da Perfomance foi realizada no Auditório da Fundação Municipal de Educação para profissionais de educação e comunidade em geral.

Let’s Have a Discussion….
Improving our Built Environment and the Planning Process

The Municipality of Clarington is pleased to invite you to attend a Public Information Session regarding the recently release discussion paper Let’s Have a Discussion…. Improving our Built Environment and the Planning Process.
What is going to be different? The site plan control process now allows municipalities to consider the external design and sustainable design elements of buildings. This means that the Municipality will have greater control over the quality of the built environment to create lively, safe, pedestrian-friendly public spaces which are integral to healthy, sustainable communities. Help us formulate the policy directions to ensure a ‘pedestrian and exterior design first’ approach.

This session provides a great opportunity for citizens to participate in their local planning processes, to help shape policy and to have their say as to what development they think is important for their community in the future. Exterior, sustainable design and the site plan control process are just two of the many topics to be explored at the Public Information Session.
The purpose of this meeting is to consult with the public about the proposed directions contained in the Discussion Paper. The desired outcome of the meeting is to determine if the proposed directions are supported. If so, they will inform in the preparation of the Official Plan policy amendments needed to implement the changes to implement the Provincial and Regional planning policies.
This meeting is scheduled for:

DATE: Wednesday, December 9, 2009
TIME: 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
PLACE: Garnet B. Rickard Recreation Complex
2440 Durham Highway 2, Bowmanville

For further information about this meeting, please contact:

Lisa Backus
Senior Planner,
Community Planning and Design
Municipality of Clarington
Tel. (905) 623-3379, Extension 418
Email: lbackus@clarington.net

Carlos Salazar
Manager,
Community Planning and Design
Municipality of Clarington
Tel. (905) 623-3379, Extension 353
Email: csalazar@clarington.net

Da. Ana Botella (PP, Teniente alcaldesa de Madrid):  “Las reivindicaciones a favor de la igualdad de la mujer ya son innecesarias“.
En el contexto de este pronunciamiento de la cónyuge de un olvidable expresidente del gobierno, resultó curioso asistir el viernes pasado a la presentación del I Plan de Igualdad de Oportunidades y el Catálogo de Servicios para la Conciliación en nuestra Mancomunidad de Servicios Sociales (Guadalix, Pedrezuela, El Molar) en el Salón de Plenos de Guadalix. Entre los asistentes, muchos cargos públicos del PP, trabajadores sociales y voluntarios de todo tipo, pero solo un concejal de la oposición (yo).
El Plan, que arranca sobre los sólidos cimientos de un análisis y diagnóstico en profundidad de la situación real en nuestra comarca, utilizará todos los recursos disponibles para fomentar la oportunidad de participación de mujeres y hombres por igual en la vida económica, política y social. Desde IU, le damos nuestra enhorabuena.

La presentación empezó con una representación teatral del contexto conflictivo, no de agrado en su totalidad para el Ilmo. Viceconsejero de Empleo y Mujer, José Ignacio Fernández,  un exalcalde del PP perseguido por una denuncia de prevaricación. Comprendo su incomodidad. Mientras que oficialmente, su Consejería y los cargos públicos municipales del PP  respaldan esta iniciativa (totalmente necesaria desde mi punto de vista personal -también para Izquierda Unida-), nada menos que la Teniente Alcaldesa de Madrid , Da. Ana Botella, ha cargado las tintas contra la lucha por la igualdad porque las “reivindicaciones a favor de la igualdad de la mujer hoy, afortunadamente, ya son innecesarias“.
O una de dos: o existe un alto grado de cinismo entre las autoridades públicas del PP en nuestra zona, o la Sa. Botella, que por desgracia vive en un país donde 62 mujeres han perdido la vida este año a manos de sus parejas presentes o futuras, no puso el cerebro en marcha antes de emitir su parecer.

Lundi s’est déroulé le débat d’orientations budgétaires de l’exercice 2010 sur fond de projet de réforme territoriale, de réforme de la Taxe Professionnelle et de transfert de responsabilités de l’Etat sur les collectivités locales.

Cette séance de Conseil municipal avait comme un air de déjà-vu ce lundi, chacun restait campé sur ses positions, comme il y a un an. Normal me direz-vous, majorité et opposition dos-à-dos dans un débat stérile, avec des critiques maintes fois entendues et des réponses redondantes contrant ces mêmes reproches, entre petits coups de griffes et phrases pseudo humoristiques. Des échanges verbaux rappelant les discours d’entraîneur de football dans les vestiaires, toujours la même litanie, le même verbiage, les mêmes remontrances, les victoires et les échecs passés… une sorte de bouillie verbale indigeste pour certains et appétant pour d’autres.

Morceaux choisis de ces passes d’armes à fleuret moucheté.

-Jean-Marc Roze (UMP) : « Comment pouvons-nous débattre, nous n’avons pas tous les éléments comptables pour apprécier votre gestion (…),  27 pages de chiffres pour éclairer le débat, mais il n’y a pas la lumière à tous les étages (…). Investir sans nous endetter relève de la science-fiction ».

-Adeline Hazan : « Comme d’habitude pour suivre Monsieur Roze, il faut se munir d’une calculatrice. Depuis plusieurs mois, vous affirmez que les dépenses de personnel vont augmenter de 13%, ce chiffre est purement fantaisiste et peu sérieux. La hausse n’est que de 0,5% ».

-Jean-Marie Beaupuy (MoDem) : « Vous jouez avec les variations de compétence entre la ville et la CAR, il est difficile de comparer d’une année sur l’autre (…)  Il manque un plan de relance(…)  Il faut aller plus vite, plus fort, plus loin (…) Madame la Maire, vous parlez des errements du passé et en même temps de la richesse culturelle et sportive de Reims, mais il faut mettre en exergue le grand écart entre les errements et ce dont vous vous rendez fiere (…) c’est sans doute un pêché de jeunesse ».

-Adeline Hazan : « Vous avez utilisé le terme de schizophrène, restons courtois (…)Vous parler de pêché de jeunesse Monsieur Beaupuy, tout le monde ne peut pas se le permettre (…) Je n’ai aucun état d’âme d’avoir soutenu certains projets sous la précédente municipalité, mais je dénonce certaines gestions financières antérieures (…) Le projet de tramway était dans mon programme en 2001, contrairement à la liste concurrente. En 2008, j’ai soutenu ce projet dès le début, ce n’est pas le cas de certains membres de l’opposition actuelle ».

-Stéphane Joly (Verts) : « Avec ce débat d’orientations budgétaires, en sortant de la salle, nous serons moins inquiets et rassurés ».

-Catherine Vautrin (UMP) reprochant le manque d’un véritable plan de relance et l’instauration d’une taxe sur les enseignes des commerçants…

-Serge Pugeault : « Concernant les enseignes Madame Vautrin, nous appliquons la loi que vous avez votée (…). Puisque l’on parle de plan de relance, l’Etat avait alloué 8 M € en 1996 pour la rénovation des Halles, cette même somme plusieurs années après est allouée à l’édifice au titre de plan de relance de l’Etat ! ».
Finalement, pourquoi créer un festival culturel « Reims Scènes d’Europe », quand une séance de Conseil municipal peut parfois se muer en vaudeville.

O.M-L

Source: http://www.lhebdoduvendredi.com/Conseil-Municipal-un-air-de-deja

It was refreshing to see.

A class of 23 university journalism students getting into the spirit of a mock municipal election.

When I first pitched the idea to half the class that showed up one day, it got only a few votes. When it was over, students sent me emails saying they had really enjoyed it, calling it a “fun exercise.”

An election fun?

Well, they can be. I had told the class earlier that covering an election as a reporter is fun, especially when the adrenaline starts flowing when working to deadline on election night. And especially if you’re following a nail-bitingly close race that goes back and forth. I don’t know if they believed me. Elections can also be fun for candidates and, dare I say it, voters.

The format for our little mock election, spread over two classes, was simple. Two students vied for mayor, eight fought over four council seats, four played the role of reporters and the rest were residents. It was set up like an all-candidates meeting. Candidates prepared short platforms, while the media and citizens posed two questions each. At the end, everyone got to vote, stuffing their ballots into a box I dug out of my garage.

There was a din of talk as the ballots were hand counted and numbers put on the white board beside each candidate’s name. The mayor’s job was decided by one vote. That probably should have resulted in an automatic recount, but I didn’t think of it and there was no one from the UN to remind me.

During the all-candidates meeting, there were plenty of good election platforms unveiled and many intelligent questions. Residents and the media wanted to know:

• How would candidates clean up the downtown?
• How would they help the unemployed?
• How would they make the downtown safer?
• What would they do to settle the native land claims dispute?
• How would they protect the Grand River from pollution?
• Would they spend more on child care?
• Would they continue to fund Wilfrid Laurier University?
• And where would they find the money to pay for their platforms?

Studies have shown that young people tend to be apathetic when it comes to elections. I saw figures that only 37% of voters in the 18-24 age group cast ballots in the 2004 federal election — well below the average. Overall, 54% of Canadians voted in the 2008 federal election.

Voter turnout in municipal elections tend to be even worse. In Brantford’s last election, in 2006, only 44.5% turned out. And probably few of those were in the age group of my students.

But judging from the platforms, questions and, most of all, enthusiasm I saw on election day, there’s reason to be optimistic about the future.

209427     ชลศาสตร์เทศบาล     Municipal Hydraulics

วิศวกรรมเทศบาล การจัดการเมือง กฎระเบียบและการขออนุญาต การรวบรวมและบํ าบัดนํ้ าเสีย การประมาณปริมาณนํ้ าเสีย ชลศาสตร์การไหลในระบบรวบรวมนํ้ าเสีย การออกแบบระบบรวบรวมนํ้ าเสีย การไหลในทางนํ้ าเปิดและชลศาสตร์ของกระบวนการบํ าบัดนํ้ าเสีย การดํ าเนินการและการบํ ารุงรักษาระบบรวมรวมและบํ าบัดนํ้ าเสีย

(Municipal engineering, city management, regulations and permits,wastewater collection and treatment, estimates of amounts of wastewater, hydraulics of sewer flows, design of wastewater collection systems, open channel flows and hydraulics of treatment processes, operation and maintenance of wastewater collection system and treatment plant.)

(209427 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

Several projects having to do with open-access data from governmental and municipal sources have been announced in the past few months. Governments are, of course, already using analytics for a lot of things – this post from A Smarter Planet talks about how the Social Security Administration in the US is “using analytics and predictive modeling to make quicker determinations on disability applications for those in need” and how the US Postal Service is “extracting valuable insights from information on mail delivery to improve on-time delivery performance” (a postal service that improves – now that’s a novelty!), but now (part of) these data will be available to anyone.

In the US, federal data are or will be made available at data.gov. The site seems pretty well-designed, with data sets being queriable online and raw data being downloadable in XML, comma-separated file and other formats. Among the data sets at data.gov, there are some interesting health-related ones like the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database.

The City of San Francisco has its own data clearinghouse, dataSF. Strongly supported by mayor Gavin Newsom, it was launched in August. Given the huge population of programmers in SF, it’s no surprise that mash-up applications using the data started to appear quickly, e.g. “Routesy, which offers directions based on real-time city transport feeds; and EcoFinder, which points you to the nearest recycling site for a given item” (see this Guardian article for more.) New York City has its own NYC Data Mine, which has come under some criticism. It is hosting the BigApps competition, which is meant to “stimulate innovation in the information technology and media industries, and attract and support developer talent to develop web and mobile applications (apps) by using City data.”

The real pioneer in open government data, though, seems to be not the US but Australia. The Australian government recently arranged a “hack day” named GovHack, where they invited programmers to develop mashups and applications around government data during 24h intense hours. Some of the projects that came out of this event were:

The overall winners LobbyClue, by a team comprising members many of whom had never met before the event. LobbyClue is an in-depth visualisation of lobbying groups’ relations to government agencies, including tenders awarded, links between the various agencies, and physical office locations

It’s buggered, mate, In true Australian style, allows you to report buggered toilets, roads, etc, with an easy-to-use graphical interface overlayed on a map. Their idea was to combine this with local government services to fix issues in the community. Built by a team of developers from Lonely Planet.

Know where you live, a stylish presentation of ABS data (along with Flickr Geocoded photos), pulling in relevant information for a particular postcode: rental rates, average income, crime rates, and more. Built by a team of developers who work at News Digital Media.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?

12h04 – É Seu Direito – Acidentes de Trabalho

12h35 – Plano Geral – Incentivo à Cultura

13h30 – CCJ ao vivo

14h30 – Sessão ao vivo

17h00 – PR399 – Sengés

– Serviços Públicos – Guarda Municipal

– O Dono da Rua – Mitsuzo Taguchi

– Sabe Como? – Doação de Sangue

– Tempero da Terra – Queijo Colonial

– Tá na Lei – Sociologia e Filosofia nas escolas

– Essa Casa Tem História – Solar do Rosário

– Aqui é Assim – Trâmite de Projetos

18h00 – TelejornAL ao vivo

18h30 – Marca Paraná – Emprego Temporário

19h30 – É Seu Direito – Acidentes de Trabalho

20h05 – Reprise Sessão

22h30 – PR399 – Sengés

– Serviços Públicos – Guarda Municipal

– O Dono da Rua – Mitsuzo Taguchi

– Sabe Como? – Doação de Sangue

– Tempero da Terra – Queijo Colonial

– Tá na Lei – Sociologia e Filosofia nas escolas

– Essa Casa Tem História – Solar do Rosário

– Aqui é Assim – Trâmite de Projetos

23h30 – Reprise TelejornAL

– Perfil Parlamentar – Teruo Kato, Valdir Rossoni