My Pledge to the People of Oshawa

City politicians will not be able to hide anonymously behind their votes in regards to a change to the general vote.

This site will publish the names of those voting for the general vote bylaw as a staple every day until the next election so that voters will become very familiar with the self-serving Councillors undeserving of voter support, and the site will "marshall" and “excite” voter opinion to insure the defeat of those who feel that serving their own interest is more important than serving the city’s interest.

Without a daily newspaper, politicians may have thought they were going to keep their votes secret from the public. They were successful in keeping the plebiscite to return to the general vote secret even from those, like myself, who follow City Council actions quite closely. Unfortunately, I also relied on the local press to keep me informed. I missed the extremely minimal coverage of the proposed change that was immersed in the overloads of advertising flyers accompanying the paper.

Council’s strategy in refusing to inform the public by a professionally prepared brochure sent to all houses in Oshawa, as I suggested to Council before the vote, demonstrated the fact that Council did not want to arouse any public interest or debate about the issue prior to the vote and thus were able to catch the public “cold” in the voting booth never before considering the question. An informed public is the most basic requirement of democracy…yet Council kept us uninformed! Why?

Further voters were confronted with a question that Council “gerrymandered” several times until they refined the question that they thought would “trick” the public with a question where they had to vote “NO” to retain the ward system. Beyond the convoluted difficulty of the question, they knew that the majority of people naturally vote “YES” rather than “NO” on ballot questions, and a ”YES” response would result in an “apparent” but “not real” support for turning to the general vote. Why did Council want to confuse the public with a convoluted question that they had kept secret from the public? Why?

The General Vote in the past had devastating results in Oshawa. It protected incumbent’s council seats from the threat of real competition. It resulted in an aging council with no new ideas where all change took place through death or resignation. It produced an unproductive and very fractious city council where all politicians had to fight for name recognition with their peers which they did by backbiting, bitching, bickering, and grandstanding at the expense of real leadership for the city and its people. General Vote politicians were even reluctant to support “brilliant” ideas arising from their peers out of fear that their politician competitor would grab the press with the good idea. It resulted in a council where all of the politicians came from a few of the wealthier areas of Oshawa leaving many areas unrepresented at council over the entire history of the general vote councils. How could this be a system that is best for Oshawa? If the General Vote was a better system, wouldn’t it be used by municipalities everywhere? Well, wouldn’t it?

So which of your council members want the general vote? Councillors Pidwerbecki, Kolodzie, Parkes, and Henry, the "Gang of Four," are unwavering in their support for the change. They have voted to support the change in every way from limiting information to the public, to voting against hearing presentations from the VOTES Chairman, to voting to limit public meetings to get citizen input re the change to the general vote, to voting to retain present wards while moving to the general vote simply to avoid any appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board which would take an independent and impartial second look at the change to insure it was in Oshawa’s interests---This “Gang of Four” have their minds made up and have to go with the next election if they are successful in bringing in the general vote.

Mayor Gray and Councillors Sholdra and Marimpietri have voted to uphold the plebiscite result even though they have stated they don’t believe it to be best for Oshawa. I believe Oshawa voters want politicians who vote for what they know to be best for Oshawa. Don’t you?

Councillors Nicholson, Neal, Cullen, and Lutczk have been steadfastly against the change to the general vote and have voted this way in all motions related to the question.

Councillors will not be able to hide behind any anonymous votes due to the lack of a daily press in Oshawa. Once the vote is held on the general vote permitting bylaw, this vote will be highlighted on this site daily for the duration of the council term leading all the way to the next municipal elections.

Our Pledge to You---We will insure that the public is fully aware of politician’s voting records and that self-serving politicians will pay the price at the next election.

Hey Oshawa…Take those blinders off!

City Council has blindly pulled the wool over your eyes to satisfy their own blind self-interest. They have robbed you blind. In the process their greed has blinded them to the basic principles of democracy. They have put their own blind interests above the interests of the City of Oshawa and its people.

So how do you feel when council blindsides you in the voter’s booth with a very important change to the system of electing them…a system they so blindly want to guarantee their lifetime seats on council? To make sure you had not previously considered or discussed the question, they virtually kept it a secret from the public. They kept you blind to the facts.

The general vote is a very real possibility. It is up to the Ontario Municipal Board to judge the merits of the change, but council has blocked the main course of appeal under recently revised legislation by keeping the ward boundaries intact but not using them for voting and political purposes, the only purpose for their existence.

Thankfully we have two additional arguments for appeal but these cannot be revealed until the permitting bylaw is passed by council.

Council has called a public meeting on the issue but for all intents and purposes this meeting will be another sham perpetrated by council on the public. Council has made up its mind on the issue and the "Gang of Four", Councillors Pidwerbecki, Kolodzie, Parkes and Henry have publicly stated as much. Even the city solicitor has called it a done deal. We call it a dumb deal. With minds so strongly made up about this already, how can the public meeting be other than a sham meeting.

Yank those blinders off Oshawa. Open your eyes, and protest the self-serving lunacy council is perpetrating on the people The time for letter writing to the mayor and council can’t wait. We need it now and the email address is on the right sidebar or you can simply "click" the highlighted words "mayor and council" just above.

Why did the general vote question arise out of the blue from the politicians? Why did council not provide information about the change to every household? Why did council not make this an important issue for public debate before the vote? What are the benefits to Oshawa of the change? What is the rationale for the change? Why did some council members press so hard for the change?...How will the change help Oshawa? Why? Why? Why? Too many questions….and not one answer!

And council is still being silent on the issue. Why?

We’re not blind, and we’re not fools. And don’t let the council take you for fools, Oshawa. Fight back!! The politicians have to hear from you!

I for one want politicians serving the city and the people…not themselves.

I’m mad as hell! I won’t stand to be taken a fool by the politicians. And I’m doing something about it…how about you?