Details

I see that a Special Committee of the Whole will be held on Tuesday 22 April at 1.30pm where councillors will receive an update on Marianneville’s plans to destroy the quiet and attractive neighbourhood of Glenway, changing it forever. The developer is intent on “infilling” the former fairways and putting greens with hundreds of new residential units. If past practice is any guide, this meeting will be held in closed session.

On the very same day, at 10am, the OMB phase 2 hearing was due to consider evidence on the technicalities and practicalities of inserting so many new homes into the middle of a hitherto quiet and stable residential area. However, buried deep in the OMB website, I see that the start date has been pushed back to 10am on Wednesday 23 April 2014.

No witness lists. No Witness statements. No issues list.

To the best of my knowledge, no witness statements or witness lists have been exchanged between the two Parties  - Marianneville and the Town of Newmarket – and there seems to be no issues list either. Despite being pressed on several occasions, the OMB has yet to confirm if documents have been exchanged.

I conclude from all this that the outlines of a deal have been agreed between the Town’s professional staff (and their outside consultant advisers) and the developer, Marianneville. It seems councillors will be asked to give it their imprimatur at Tuesday’s special meeting. The following day, if all goes according to the script, the Town and the Developer will tell Susan Schiller, the OMB Adjudicator, that they have negotiated a settlement and they will announce its terms.

Ventriloquists’ dummies

I’d love to believe our councillors are more than ventriloquists’ dummies whose words come from the Town’s professional bureaucracy that has its own agenda. But I am waiting to see the evidence.

First of all, on Tuesday, our councillors need to get into the right mindset. This means putting themselves in the position of Glenway residents whose world is about to be dramatically turned upside down.

They must challenge the advice they will get from their own planners and from the outside consultant brought in to handle the Glenway file, Ruth Victor, if they think that advice is a load of old cobblers. They should relentlessly quiz the Town’s counsel, Mary Bull, who has yet to show she has fully mastered her brief.

Will our councillors be offered options? And fall back positions? Or are they going to be presented with a fait accompli? Is this deal, negotiated with Marianneville’s hard-nosed Ira Kagan, all or nothing?

Did our councillors in the earlier secret sessions of the Committee of the Whole give authority to Town staff to negotiate on their behalf and settle with the developer? Or were the Town’s senior staff given parameters within which they could negotiate and settle?

Slessor Square and the OMB

Over a year ago, our councillors gave “approval in principle” to Slessor Square as recommended by staff.  Yet a thousand and one issues remain to be resolved. At the time, Joe Sponga told his colleagues: “Either we decide or the OMB decides for us and that may land us with a worse development.” Other councillors expressed, in their own way, a weary defeatism. Going to the OMB is too costly and, in any event, we’d lose.

Is that still the prevailing view?

Malign Influence

Certainly, the OMB is a malign influence on the planning system. Its very existence produces decisions that, as Joe Sponga rightly said, might otherwise never have been made.

People all over the Province are up in arms about the OMB. And last Thursday, the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs at the Provincial Legislature took evidence on Bill 20 that would remove Toronto from the authority of the OMB.

The president of the Wellington Place Neighbourhood Association, Ken Greenberg, in an excellent critique, tells MPPs that the current dysfunctional system produces in communities

“a high level of uncertainty, cynicism and alienation”

I think that is an understatement.

Try asking people in Glenway.

 

Details

What on earth possessed Newmarket’s increasingly fragile and tormented Maddie Di Muccio to spend $1,181 on a half page advertisement in the “It’s You” Community Section of the local Newmarket Era newspaper denouncing her Party Leader, Tim Hudak, for blocking her attempt to win the PC MPP nomination for Newmarket Aurora?

I hope the cost of this absurd advertisement is not borne by taxpayers – as was the case with the earlier one when she used public money to condemn the Mayor’s alleged fondness for tax hikes. Spending public money to pursue a personal vendetta is a scandalous misuse of public funds.

The latest ad is a dense slab of text like something out of a 19th century newspaper. Di Muccio curiously writes in the third person to compare and contrast her record with that of her fellow councillor and Progressive Conservative MPP hopeful, Jane Twinney.

She aims to wound Twinney but misses the target by a mile. Di Muccio comes across as someone consumed by bitterness. She despises Twinney but can’t bring herself to say so directly.

In case any of her 2,688 Twitter followers missed the ad (which was buried on page 5 of the second section) Di Muccio helpfully tweets this link 

Maddie Di Muccio ‏@MaddieDiMuccio Apr 11

Last week @timhudak told @YorkRegion news that I "didn't meet pc party standards." Here's what I told them this week: http://twitdoc.com/2U8H 

Instead of howling into the wind, why doesn’t Di Muccio sue Hudak for defamation?

She claims he misled people, saying things that were simply untrue, undermining her reputation.

It is unusual, but not unheard of, for politicians to sue one another for defamation. Indeed, Kathleen Wynne has just sued Hudak for libel. So why can’t Di Muccio follow suit?

She threatened Court action against me a few months ago but that died a death. Then she went after Era journalist Chris Simon alleging she had been defamed, saying his tactics were “contemptible and outrageous”. That, too, fizzled out.

She routinely threatens Court action against those who upset her but nothing ever materialises. A Newmarket councillor tells me that over a dozen of us are still waiting for her lawyers’ papers.

But now she has a chance to make her mark on a much bigger canvas. If she were to sue Hudak (whom she loathes) she would be guaranteed lots of publicity (which she loves) and celebrity (which she craves) and notoriety (which she revels in).

It would, of course, mean the end of her political career as a Progressive Conservative.

But that, I suspect, is as good as over.

She acknowledged as much last month when she tweeted

Maddie Di Muccio ‏@MaddieDiMuccio  Mar 14. 10.06pm

We need Wildrose Ontario

 She has given herself another reason for settling old scores with Tim Hudak.

Update Tuesday 15 April 2014: Lots of publicity for Liberal Party MP wannabe, Christine Innes, who has launched an action for defamation against Justin Trudeau who blocked her from running as a Liberal candidate in the Trinity Spadina by election. It all sounds terribly familiar.

 

Details

The OMB confirms that Phase 2 of the Glenway hearing is scheduled to start on April 22 and conclude on April 25.  The hearing on April 22 will start at 10:00 AM and, as before, will be held at the Best Western Voyageur Place Hotel at 17565 Yonge Street in Newmarket.

I hope there will be a big turnout.

And councillors shouldn't stay away. They too should turn up to see the lawyers and planners at work, doing the Town's business on our dime.

Update on Saturday 12 April: The GPA has now posted details of what it would like to see come out of Phase 2.

 

Details

The OMB tells me it may be in a position tomorrow, Friday, to say when it expects the Glenway Phase 2 Hearing to start (if indeed it starts at all).

I am told the Town and Marianneville are still wrestling with various unspecified technical issues including ones brought up by the Glenway Preservation Association.

As a result, the “issues list” and the witness lists and statements have not been exchanged between the Parties (ie Town and Marianneville) as they would be in the normal course of events.

And, astonishingly, I am told that the Parties may agree to dispense with these fusty old lists altogether! 

This suggests you couldn’t put a cigarette paper between the two of them.

I am sure the developers, Marianneville, can hardly believe their good luck. Land bought for a song ($10m) and now worth an absolute fortune. And everything delivered to them by the Town of Newmarket on a gold plate.

 

Details

The Town looks set to do a deal with Marianneville Developments and decide the future of Glenway behind closed doors, telling people afterwards what was decided over their heads and on their behalf.

Of all the many ironies associated with the Glenway saga this, perhaps, is the most exquisite.

Marianneville's lawyer, Ira Kagan has made a habit of putting so-called “settlement offers” into the public domain to allow the Town to consult residents before any decision was made. He used this ploy with Slessor Square and again, twice, with Glenway. In the case of the former, the settlement offer was accepted by the Town. The two on Glenway were rejected.

In his concluding statement in the Glenway Hearing, Kagan told the adjudicator, Susan Schiller:

“… the fact that both of these settlement offers were intentionally made public and specifically provided to the GPA is further evidence of just how far Marianneville went to ensure a proper consultative process.”

Kagan is fond of telling us he was breaking with convention in putting the settlement offers into the public domain. He would tell us that, usually, councillors and developers would meet in closed session, do a deal and then tell the public afterwards.

Is this what is happening now? Are Glenway people – and their leaders – being cut right out of things?

Take a look at the video of the Special Council meeting at 5pm on Monday 7 April 2014 when the Mayor asks councillors to ratify the minutes of meetings held in camera. It is painful to watch. Staff are charged to implement decisions of councillors taken in closed session. Advice to them from Ruth Victor and the less-than-impressive Mary Bull is, for the moment, secret.

Of course, at the end of the day the Town has got to make a decision on how best to close the matter and move forward.

But if the Town is abandoning Phase 2 of the OMB Hearing in favour of negotiating a settlement with the developer, why can’t the terms of any settlement with Marianneville be put into the public domain before a final decision is taken?

Glenway people may appreciate such a gesture.

And Kagan, for one, can hardly object.

 

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