Tomlinson Shows That He Can Suck And Blow At The Same Time

Have a look at this article in the Almaguin News and see how many contradictions you can spot.

Looking for Volunteers

Kearney Councillor Louise Wadsworth's blog says that council is looking for volunteers for various committees. 

But, even if you've already been a well-established volunteer, you'll have to be screened by Mayor Tomlinson and his Proudfoot masters before you're allowed to continue. Sure, your years of selfless service to your community will count for something, but ultimately if the Proudfoot Four don't feel that you're worthy, you'll be out, Townie!

Let's consider the Town Beautification Committee. This committee has boasted the most volunteers of all of Kearney's committees. Volunteers provided everything from architectural drawings for the town dock to the watering of flower planters on main street. to panoramic photos that adourn the Community Centre. Maybe Wadsworth didn't notice, but at the last council meeting Mayor Paul Tomlinson disbanded the Town Beautification Committee stating that Public Works can do the job better. So it you end up wondering why the potholes aren't being filled it's because the roads department is watering flower pots or putting up seasonal decorations at the Community Centre. Awesome use of resources, Paul! 

But hey! Mayor Johnston used to help with the decorations, so maybe Mayor Tomlinson will cover that. Yah. Right.

So the dissolution of the Beatification Committee must be what Wadsworth means (in Proudfoot-speak) by:

"The council had some interesting discussions regarding the makeup and number of committees."

And let's not forget that Wadsworth and Tomlinson were the only ones to vote AGAINST a $300 donation from the Town toward a plaque honouring Kearney's Veterans, to be presented at the 2010 Volunteer Appreciation Dinner (An event that Tomlinson has never attended). Wow! A whole $300!?! Jeez, Paul, next time, just ask us; We'll write you a cheque.

And don't overlook the small print on Wadsworth's blog:

"The committees can be revised as council see[sic] the need."

In other words, if the volunteers, or their committees, don't march to Tomlinson's drum, they're out!

No wonder they can't find volunteers.

Are you surprised?

Former Mayor Johnston Speaks Out

Quite fittingly, this was just posted on the CottageCountryNow (Almaguin News) website:

To the Editor:

Comments by newly elected Mayor of Kearney, Paul Tomlinson have always been critical of the previous council, both pre and post election. Some take great offence to Tomlinson’s negative and nasty style, and in the Almaguin News Editorial of Oct. 28, “To those who chose to run, we thank you,” the Editor was so disgusted with Tomlinson, he rose to the defence of former council members and wrote some very supportive and deserving words.

Before I go on I would like to echo some of the Editorial’s sentiments and say that members of the former council, excluding those on the current council, are some of the most dedicated, fair-minded, and caring individuals I have ever had the pleasure to know. Their efforts, coupled with wonderful staff and our many, many volunteers, have resulted in a significant betterment of our community.

What was accomplished over the past four years is history so, you may ask, why bother at this point to respond to Mayor Tomlinson’s consistently destructive diatribes? Well, there are several reasons:

§   As stated above, the dedicated councillors of the 2006-2010 Council, staff, and volunteers do not deserve the treatment they have and are receiving form Mayor Tomlinson. He has claimed he was misquoted, or misunderstood, in the Oct. 28, Almaguin News article (Seasonals clinch mayor’s race). Well Mayor Tomlinson, you have had every opportunity to correct the record and have not done so. Your silence speaks volumes.

§   The new council has begun with a fair amount of misinformation regarding property taxes, financial management, and the town’s organizational structure. Tomlinson has been in office one month (but his council experience is four years) and his total focus has been at the micromanagement level; dictating to staff what should be in their budgets, time and motion studies to determine office efficiencies, and internal procedures. There is no vision. The macro view is nonexistent, and critical areas of importance such as economic development and betterment of the community are, at best, on the backburner. Tomlinson has not learned from his 2009 experience when he was chair of the budget committee and racked up a significant and unnecessary cost to the taxpayers. In 2010, we kept Tomlinson out of the process and budget meetings went from 14 to three and property taxes in 2010 were reduced by 3%.

§   There were a number of initiatives underway by the previous council, which, by gauging Tomlinson’s attitude, these initiatives will be allowed an early death. Such initiatives include;

a)     Financial assistance from the Province for Kearney road maintenance. Kearney is the only municipality in the area whose arterial roads are not funded or partially funded by the Province. This means all costs are borne by the property taxpayer and to mitigate this, it is critical that the Mayor establish and maintain a working relationship with various provincial ministries and to encourage continuing discussions on partnering and cost sharing.

b)    Pursuit of a wind turbine farm in Butt Township. The Ministry of Northern Development, Mines, and Forestry have expressed interest and have assigned staff to work on the project. Tomlinson will now be front and centre to move this project forward. Key benefits are economic, environmental, growth.

c)     Property Tax Review. The Property Tax Ad Hoc Committee (2007) needs to be resurrected to pursue issues of provincial downloading and to explore revenue generating ideas, eg fees and fines, sale of shore road allowances, community festivals, economic development. Trying to address property tax issues through the budget process is a fool’s errand and more of an exercise in slash and burn.

d)    Town Beautification. Main Street has been revitalized and the town dock is being replaced. Landscaping opportunities including the Kearney Community Centre and town dock area, expansion out to other parts of Town, replace Sand Lake boat ramp and dock, general community vibrancy need to be maintained. Funding opportunities need to be pursued.

e)     Expansion of fire protection and emergency service facilities to Proudfoot.

f)     Economic Development and Community Prosperity – new businesses are opening, existing businesses are expanding, new and upgrade construction is active, and it is time for Kearney to actively promote to the world.

Unfortunately Tomlinson’s Campaign material and any of his remarks, and frankly his behaviour over the past four years, do not bode well for the above. With the exception of wanting to “promote… retail and manufacturing…” Tomlinson’s focus has been entirely on administrative issues/micromanagement, restoring the mail-in vote, budgets, time and motion studies. No vision. No grasp of the big picture.

I hope Mayor Tomlinson proves me wrong, and he can do so by starting with a public apology to former councillors. I, of course, will be more than willing to help him if he is willing, and to guide him along the way.


Jeff Johnston

Former Mayor of Kearney

Jim Skelton Offers Up Another 2 Cents

Jim Shelton writes:

It would be helpful to many if the editor(s)/author(s) of this so-called BLOG would reveal his, her or their names. While a BLOG can be a useful vehicle for the democratic expression of views, thoughts or ideas, if misused it can be a vehicle for defamatory or near defamatory statements.

For example, the comment in the most recent BLOG on the 2011 Budget as follows: "Tomlinson also mentions how "the committee" handled the purchase of the firetruck. Does he mean the same firetruck HIS ad hoc budgetary committee held for ransom when Council moved to have Tomlinson's buddy, Jim Skelton resign from that same committee for publicly libelling the town's fire chief? That firetruck, Paul?"

In fact, Council defeated the requested motion. Council obviously disagreed with the interpretation of one individual volunteer firefighter complainant. The Fire Dept. acquired a better truck, more suited to its needs at the time. The work done by a private citizen [Jim's talking about himself here], on his own time and at his own expense, should be applauded rather than denigrated.

What is important to realize in 2008-2009, the state of Kearney's financial management was in complete and utter disarray. Staff had not kept proper records and/or implemented all required budgetary and financial management tools. This is why it took so long to produce final financial statements for 2 to 3 years running!

And that brings me to my main point. This BLOG appears to be nothing more than a clandestine vehicle for a future re-run by a past Mayor, to flog the same old horse(s) and to publicly disparage any current Mayor, Councillor or member of the community (whether permanent or seasonal) should he or she happen to disagree with his agenda! Campaign material can be distributed in an election period only. This BLOG is a clear attempt to circumvent the rules....sooner or later the good citizens of Kearney are going to catch on to the real purpose of this so-called BLOG and it will disappear! The BLOGGER(S) should just come to Council like everyone else did in the last term of Council to voice their concerns, to advise his, her or their comments directly and to receive on-the-record responses from the current "elected" Council. Until he, she or they do this, their remains a real or perceived lack of legitimacy to this BLOG!

Well, yes Jim, Council did defeat the motion to demand your resignation, because your buddy Paul threatened to withhold funding from the budget for the new firetruck. Council didn't agree with your libellous statement; They simply didn't want to jeopardize the safety of the people of Kearney just to punish you for being an asshole. (Didn't we cover this already?)

As for being a "clandestine vehicle for a future re-run by a past Mayor", "a clear attempt to circumvent the rules", blah, blah, blah: We suggest you ask Sheriff Tomlinson how his "RCMP investigation" into our blog is coming along. We expect our door to be kicked in any minute now, so we suggest you relax and go back to working on your next genealogical update that we're sure everyone in town is breathlessly awaiting.

And Hey! Thanks for writing!

And Tomlinson says WE'RE "full of shit"?

Despite his demand that councillors not read our blog, it was fairly evident from the December 30th, 2010 edition of the Almaguin News that Mayor Paul Tomlinson reads us. Virtually everything Tomlinson had to say was an effort to counter many of the issues we've reported on here; Tomlinson's past handling of the budget, the firetruck, weekend council meetings, etc. 

Let's go through Tomlinson's statements together, shall we?

Tomlinson says: 

"[Weekend meetings] was a big issue that was in my campaign platform and we heard from the public, in no uncertain terms, if we are to [be] open and transparent Wednesday afternoon at 1 pm does not allow residents of Kearney to attend the council meetings."

"...Heard from the public..."? Unless we missed the poll, the only ones we ever heard from, about the council meetings, were Tomlinson's Proudfoot Cottage Association puppet-masters. And if 16% of the popular vote is "no uncertain terms", then it's pretty obvious that Tomlinson is only listening to a very select group of people.

Then there's, "...allow residents of Kearney to attend..."? Uh, Paul... The residents of Kearney actually live in Kearney and are in town on Wednesdays. If Tomlinson was concerned about the residents who might be at work during the day, he simply could have proposed that the time be changed. And, during the last four years, it was only every second meeting that was held on Wednesdays, while alternating meetings were held on the weekend. Having every meeting on the weekend is not about the residents, but the Proudfoot seasonal and part-time property owners who funded Tomlinson's campaign. Are we really supposed to believe it's just coincidence that two of Tomlinson's Proudfoot buddies, and his newly selected deputy mayor aren't in town during the week?

The previous council voted to alternate the meetings to reduce the overtime costs and safety risks of having staff working late into their Friday evenings and driving home in the dark after a long day. This balanced the needs of seasonal residents with fiscal responsibility and staff well-being. The latter being something that Tomlinson has repeatedly demonstrated he cares nothing about (You do remember when Councillor Tomlinson had to be barred from the town office after he repeatedly  harassed town staff, don't you?). Actually, Tomlinson has repeatedly demonstrated that he cares nothing for fiscal responsibility, too!

Then there's "...open and transparent..." This coming from the man who, not having yet been sworn in as mayor, was holding a secret "council" meeting at his home on November 5th. When can we expect to see the minutes for that meeting?

On to the 2011 budget:

Tomlinson has abolished the Financial Management Advisory Committee in favour of an "ad hoc budgetary committee".

In 2009, the town of Kearney had an ad hoc budgetary committee, chaired by Paul Tomlinson. He held fourteen meetings with a privately contracted financial adviser attending each meeting just to do data-entry. As we so often mention, this financial advisor cost the Kearney taxpayer $50,000 (which is 2% of your property taxes). The reason there were so many meetings was that under Tomlinson's micromanagement the committee built the budget, addressed every single line, made arbitrary changes, and virtually wiped out every reconstructive project already in progress. This cost the Kearney taxpayer because these projects had to be completed under the 2010 budget at additional costs. One example was repairing partially reconstructed roads that badly deteriorated because Tomlinson's ad hoc budgetary committee cancelled funding to complete the work in 2009. This meant that all the partially reconstructed roads had to be rebuilt from scratch in 2010.

In 2010, with Tomlinson no longer involved, the Financial Management Advisory Committee was mandated to only became involved after the town staff had prepared a practical and defensible draft budget for the FMAC and Council to approve. This was accomplished after just three meetings instead of fourteen (without hiring a financial advisor), restored the five-year reconstruction program, and reduced municipal property taxes by 3%. Tomlinson tried to interfere with the committee, but was prevented by then Mayor Johnston. Now that he's in charge, Tomlinson wants to return to the costly, ineffective, and micromanaging style of 2009.

2009: With Tomlinson: An unnecessary 2% property tax increase and decreased infrastructure funding.

2010: Without Tomlinson: A 3% property tax decrease and increased infrastructure funding.

2011: With Tomlinson: ???

Tomlinson also mentions how "the committee" handled the purchase of the firetruck. Does he mean the same firetruck HIS ad hoc budgetary committee held for ransom when Council moved to have Tomlinson's buddy, Jim Skelton resign from that same committee for publicly libelling the town's fire chief? That firetruck, Paul?

And finally, Tomlinson says:

"[Town staff creating the budget] will either agree with the direction of council or make a case with why they can't". 

In 2010, town staff proved that they could create a budget, that reduced taxes while increasing services, to a man who in 2009 proved that he didn't have a clue. But now they'll have to use their time, not serving the taxpayers of Kearney, but writing up business cases for Tomlinson and his Proudfoot cronies who still think that municipal taxes went up last year. (Louise Wadsworth says taxes went down 3%, while Barry Dingwall says they went up... Oh wait, he did finally admit that he wasn't talking about municipal taxes after all, didn't he). So, how much staff time and cost will be consumed building business cases to arrive at a budget that staff is very capable of creating from the beginning? Tomlinson doesn't care... just so long as he can impose his will and the will of his Proudfoot masters.

 Are you surprised?