JANUARY 25, 2022
Happy New Year Anti-KEDsters who we prefer to think of as For Sudbury!
We’ve made some great progress in 2021, working to open people’s eyes to the real costs and dangers of the KED scheme and our call for a referendum is gaining widespread support. Councillor Montpellier has indicated his intention to put forward a motion tonight in Council January 25, 2022, calling for a referendum on the KED in the Fall municipal election!
So TODAY would be a good day to contact your Councillor and let them know how you’d like them to support democracy in this city by calling for a referendum over the divisive KED proposal.
Below is their contact info. Let them know what you think as early in the day as possible. The meeting is at 6pm. Sorry for the late notice. They need to know how the electorate feel especially as we are in the run up to an election this year.
Here’s a ward map of the City for reference: https://www.greatersudbury.ca/city-hall/mayor-and-council/12-ward-model/council-ward-map-pdf/
City of Greater Sudbury Councillors
Ward 1 - Mark Signoretti
Tel: 705-698-5579
Email: mark.signoretti@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 2 - Michael Vagnini
Tel: 705-822-2997
Email: michael.vagnini@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 3 - Gerry Montpellier
Tel: 705-698-2759
Email: gerry.montpellier@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 4 - Geoff McCausland
Tel: 705-626-6022
Email: geoff.mccausland@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 5 - Robert Kirwan
Tel: 705-929-2778
Email: robert.kirwan@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 6 - René Lapierre
Tel: 705-923-5669
Email: rene.lapierre@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 7 - Mike Jakubo
Tel: 705-923-9252
Email: mike.jakubo@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 8 - Al Sizer
Telephone: 705-592-2029
Email: al.sizer@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 9 - Deb McIntosh
Tel: 705-929-2517
Email: deb.mcintosh@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 10 - Fern Cormier
Tel: 705-698-7407
Email: fern.cormier@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 11 - Bill Leduc
Tel: 705-665-5873
Email: bill.leduc@greatersudbury.ca
Ward 12 - Joscelyne Landry-Altmann
Tel: 705-674-1212
Email: joscelyne.landry-altmann@greatersudbury.ca
Falsehoods and Flame Wars
Our Stop the KED Petition has brought together the biggest group of citizens opposing the KED, and along with other groups and individuals, we have demanded a re-examination of this contentious issue that the City was trying to push forward without any evidence of broad support.
As an aside, I wanted to relate a situation spawned by a newcomer to our community, a cub reporter for an online publication who has recently set out to attack many of the KED opponents who he says are spreading misinformation. Unfortunately, he himself is not in possession of the big picture of what is going down in this city, especially its historical context, and he’s expressed his views in very ungentlemanly ways. He’s also basically attacking people for stating their opinions, which may or not be supported by fact. It doesn’t need to be. It could be a feeling or an unstated predilection if they want to see the KED quashed. It is their opinion and valid.
This reporter and his colleagues have judged information to be false by equivocating over what constitutes a fully financed project and whether salt is a form of poisoning and other semantic manoeuvres in order to assassinate the characters and reputations of many of the citizens speaking out and daring to give their opinions freely. He went out of his way to make the absurd demand that one KED critic provide proof of the possibility of cost overruns. And when she did, he told her she was practicing confirmation bias. But how do you categorize the exaggerations and unlikely claims of the KED proponents then?
In general, the only hard stats the KED opponents reference are the very ones that the KED promoters put forth: the KED will generate $4M in new tax revenue and 1,000 new jobs –overly optimistic projections based on grossly inflated tax data where the value of the taxes has been called into question by an independent business analyst, and a lack of business analysis in general permeates the “value proposition” behind the KED. These are fanciful assertions based on very little evidence and it’s fair game to question how these numbers were generated.
We are a self-appointed private interest group and we do not represent all the groups opposed to the KED – of which there are several – but we are all united by our belief sharing the goal that the KED is not good for Sudbury and should be stopped or a the very least put to a referendum as our petition proposes.
We have already come to the conclusion that the KED is bad for Sudbury for many reasons - he most cogent being:
· The KED will contribute to urban sprawl, environmental degradation and vastly increased CO2 emissions at a critical juncture in the Global Climate Emergency
· The KED will take money, jobs and vitality out of the urban downtown.
· The KED’s huge, ballooning costs, lack of transparency and lack of public input into its planning all make it a dangerous proposition for the taxpayers of the city who will be left paying the costs for decades to come.
For us, it is not about two equally valid proposals, KED or no KED. It is about debunking a scam that provides dubious benefits for the people of Sudbury though it’s clear that the deal is in the best interest of the property developers promoting it.
Our opinions are derived from logic and a knowledge of best practices in urban planning and sustainable design and understanding that we are not insulated from the climate emergency threatening our planet.
Requiring the KED opponents to statistically prove why the KED is bad is absurd. The onus must be on the proponents of the KED to prove their business case and to defend their statistics even before they set out to excite the imagination of the public. They are the ones who have the burden of proof upon them since they are the ones who a promoting this whole endevour.
Seeking to discredit the opinions of thousands of passionate people who we represent is a very strange role for a journalist. Isn’t that the job of a political adversary?