PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: Wednesday November 24, 2021
Echoing the exhortation in the opening lines of the French revolutionary anthem, the organizers of the Stop the Ked! Petition call out to the people of Sudbury warning of the deeply disturbing stench of entitlement and noblesse oblige emanating from our own little version of Versailles overlooking Paris (Street).
In a deliberately dismissive and provocative gesture, Sudbury Council last night snubbed the public choosing to ignore the voices of over 3000 individuals, passionately appealing to them over the deeply divisive issue of the so-called Kingsway Entertainment District – a cynical scam perpetrated by a local property developer to trick the people of Sudbury into paying over a hundred million dollars to essentially have his unsellable acres by the dump serviced with hydro, water and yes, sewers.
The Petition is a wake up call to Council that they have acted with shocking disregard for public consultation and that the people are passionate about the future of their city and its urban downtown. A large proportion of them are angry at a Council that has mismanaged city affairs with taxes having increased over 70% in less than ten years without any corresponding improvement or expansion in public services.
The Petition organizers are also all part of a recent letter to the provincial Minister of Municipalities calling on him to intervene with a Council that will no longer listen to its electorate.
Sudbury Council meetings tend not to be highly entertaining affairs and the proceedings on Tuesday night did not disappoint in that regard. But rather than respect the wishes of literally thousands of deeply concerned citizens, the Council debated for over one and a half hours the minutiae of septic tank waste disposal for recreation vehicles in Val Caron. Later in the evening the observers in the virtual gallery were witness to the obscene spectacle of the well-provisioned Councillor Alltman-Landry ardently promoting a cap on social assistance to desperate homeless people living on City streets. Council later voted a pittance for a women’s shelter but not much for the rest of the estimated 350 people currently sheltering on our streets. It would seem that nothing must get in the way of building a superfluous pleasure palace for the middle classes even while desperate people, dying of drugs and disease, huddle for warmth, to escape frostbite in the bitterly cold night streets of our troubled city.
Nobody in Council wanted to discuss how their contempt for the taxpayers and the poor correlates to their support for the City’s greatest-by-far recipient of public financial aid: Dario Zulich - a wealthy developer upon whom over a hundred million dollars are fixed with literally no cap whatsoever.
Exactly three hours after beginning their deliberations, Council voted to not extend their meeting in order to simply accept without debate the “We want Sudbury’s new arena built downtown to fuel our city’s urban renaissance” Petition– an undertaking of which they were well aware – published three days in advance in local media both in print and online. This deferment of duty would be understandable after a long meeting (three whole hours) were they not all comfortably seated in their own homes facing no late night commute whatever. Let’s remember that these people are well remunerated for their services - the Mayor especially whose salary has increased by 65% over that of his predecessor.
Patrick Crowe, Keith Clarkson, Hazel Ecclestone and Arthur Peach – the Petition organizers were dismayed though not surprised by this cynical manoeuvre. The Council has operated consistently with disregard for public input into this issue on which several of them are deeply conflicted – indeed actually under investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police for corruption and bribery.
Although the City Clerk indicated that the Petition will be deferred to the next Council meeting, with the Agenda consistently filled with as many items as Council deems fit, debate often extended beyond all reasonable use of public time, and the Agenda item for Petitions always scheduled last, there is little chance that the Council will be inconvenienced by the need to attend to the actual opinions of the taxpayers of this city any time soon.
“Who do these jokers think they are?” demanded an outraged Crowe, rhetorically. “They are public servants, not our masters!”
One thing is for sure--their action has energized the Petition. “Dozens of new signatures have been added in the last few days and we will continue to collect them. The Council members are all well aware of the Petition. They all know what it says and they could not care less,” commented Peach.
The organizers are anticipating that Council will attempt to dismiss the Petition on a technicality but it won’t make it any less real an expression of public opinion. “Councillor Robert Kerwan accepted a petition from children even though the City regulations require signatories be 18, because he thought it was cute and within the spirit of democracy” commented Crowe, “ but he’s gone out of his way to undermine our Petition on many occasions and literally blocked emails from all of the Petition organizers like Odysseus plugging the ears of his sailors with wax to prevent them from hearing the sirens’ song but these mermaids won’t stop singing.”
I wrote to the City Councillors full of hope on Tuesday” said Ecclestone, “appealing to them to listen to the citizens and rebuild our trust in Council but they have destroyed any hope of this with their contemptuous action.”
“Without hyperbole, these literally are the tactics of tyrants seeking to rule by edict while maintaining a thin veneer or semblance of democracy,” commented Clarkson. “The people of this city should be angry at another attempt to frustrate the participation of the public in the democratic process.”
“There's more than a huge debt and superfluous budget items that need cutting here,” observed Peach in conclusion.
For more information contact
Hazel Ecclestone
tel: 705 920 1408
email: ecclestonehazel@gmail.com