Queen's Park Briefing (Toronto Star) Reporter Writes Us

Hello,

I’m a reporter with Queen’s Park Briefing, a daily subscription-only newsletter covering Ontario politics published by the Toronto Star.

I came across your blog through a news report, and I’m wondering if you could answer a few quick questions for me:

1)     Why did you start the site?

2)     Why is it anonymous?

3)     Town council has claimed you’re bad for business, but I see from your posts you think the opposite is true. Have they tried to shut the site down at all?

4)     Have there been any changes since you started the blog?

5)     How long ago did you start it? How many people work on it?

6)     How long has the person/people who started the blog lived in Kearney?

7)     Are the corruption allegations specific to this administration, or is there a history?

8)     When your next election?

Feel free to answer these questions via email or give me a shout at one of the numbers below. I understand your desire to be anonymous and will respect it.

Thanks. Hope to hear back from you soon.

Ashley Csanady

Reporter, QP Briefing

Queen's Park Press Gallery

qpbriefing.com

p: 416-212-5913

c: 647-448-7577

@AshleyCsanady

Here's what we wrote in response:

Why did you start the site?

We were deeply concerned that a small group of people, under the banners of the Grass and Loon Lake Residents Group (GLLRG) and the now-defunct Proudfoot Township Property Owners Association, appeared to be setting things up to take control of the town. GLLRG members Steve Sainsbury and Barry Dingwall had already successfully petitioned the Ontario Municipal Board to abolish the ward system in Kearney (despite a majority of voters wanting to retain the ward system). Then-Councillor Paul Tomlinson (founder of the GLLRG) and Councillor Louise Wadsworth had been clearly demonstrating that they had very partisan interests favouring Proudfoot Township, especially the Grass and Loon Lakes areas. With the four (since dubbed the Proudfoot Four) of them occupying a majority of the seven seats on council they could effectively control the town of Kearney. When we realized that the Proudfoot Four were using the residents associations and their websites and mailing lists to influence seasonal residents’ votes we tried to balance that with the Concerned Citizens of Kearney blog.


Why is it anonymous?

Originally, we didn’t plan for our identities to be a big secret, we just wanted our message to be about the message, not the messenger. But after seeing the ongoing campaign of threats, harassment, photo & video surveillance, assault, and very public smear campaign against former mayor Jeff Johnston (who has been a spokesperson, well versed in municipal affairs, for many of the local townspeople) and his family, we felt even more strongly that we should remain anonymous. Following the attack on Jeff Johnston’s son, who Mayor Tomlinson has publicly accused of running the Concerned Citizens of Kearney blog, we offered to shut down our site, but the former mayor’s son asked us to continue. For the record, Mayor Johnston and his son have sent us stuff, as do many others, but their contributions posted on the blog always bear their names.


Town council has claimed you’re bad for business, but I see from your posts you think the opposite is true. Have they tried to shut the site down at all?

Mayor Tomlinson and the Town of Kearney have frequently threatened us with the OPP, the RCMP, and lawyers, and there has been harassment and an assault, by friends of the mayor, on those the mayor has publicly declared are responsible for our blog, but no other action that we know of. As for being bad for business: Is a newspaper responsible for falling investments in Ontario if it reports on provincial budget concerns? We editorialize to maintain interest and we’ve received a lot of positive feedback. In fact, the only negative feedback we ever get is from Mayor Tomlinson or his ardent supporters. News sources don’t cause people to become bigots, or suddenly develop a violent nature; that bigotry or violent nature already existed. We’ve reported on businesses leaving Kearney, but they’re not leaving because of the Concerned Citizens of Kearney blog; they’re leaving because the current council and the CBO they hired have made life miserable for them. Why jump through hurdle after hurdle in Kearney when a neighbouring township will welcome them with open arms and help them instead of hinder them? Then there’s the horrendous state of Kearney’s finances, which we’ve reported on at length. Is that scaring away investors? Most likely. But the Concerned Citizens of Kearney aren’t bleeding the town’s Reserves dry, we’re just reporting it. And we’re not coming to these conclusions alone. Most of our information comes from informed citizens of Kearney, such as a local certified accountant who first rang the alarm about the town’s finances. We just reported it.


Have there been any changes since you started the blog?

Many! In our humble opinions, because of the Concerned Citizens of Kearney blog, we’re seeing a better educated public in Kearney. The Proudfoot Four (Mayor Tomlinson, Deputy Mayor Wadsworth, Councillor Dingwall and Councillor Sainsbury) very clearly expected to run things as they saw fit and we’ve been casting the light of day on their questionable ethics and motives. For example, we exposed Dingwall and Sainsbury’s campaign manager/fund-raiser Tim Brown when he sent (on several occasions) a third-party to council looking for a $1000 rezoning fee waiver, variance waivers, and an environmental impact assessment waiver. Councillors Dingwall and Sainsbury (and Mayor Tomlinson) failed to declare a pecuniary interest and even tried to deny knowing Mr. Brown, although his name appeared on the two councillors’ 2010 campaign brochures, he’s a fellow member of the GLLRG, and he’s been a guest in Mayor Tomlinson’s home.

We’ve also critiqued several by-laws (with the help of contributing citizens), including one that would require the elderly and disabled to shovel snow from municipal sidewalks. Our exposé caused council enough embarrassment that the by-law was rescinded. Several other by-laws we reported on were similarly rescinded, or significantly amended.

And, of course, there’s the town’s finances. Others created awareness of the financial crisis in Kearney, but the Concerned Citizens of Kearney blog has given them a forum. Mayor Tomlinson doesn’t like that. The Proudfoot Four even had the police remove a citizen from a recent budget meeting after he tried to video the auditor’s criticisms. Videotaping of meetings has always been allowed in Kearney, but the Proudfoot Four wanted the budget problems suppressed. Actually, the removal of the citizen helped get the message out! If the videographer had been ignored there would have been about two hours of boring cellphone video with barely audible discussion of stuff hardly anyone understands anyway. Instead, the town of Kearney got an exciting video of council and town staff making fools of themselves (Mayor Tomlinson sticking his tongue in the face of the videographer), a martyr for the cause, and townspeople asking council what they were trying to hide. But, we’re bad for business?


How long ago did you start it? How many people work on it?

We started the blog just before the municipal election in 2012.

The number of people working on the Concerned Citizens of Kearney blog has varied. Some contribute information, others photos and video, or simply edit, but the regulars are a fairly small group. Very often we get insider information from anonymous sources. At the moment, there are four of us who edit and maintain the blog, although one of us acts as a sort of de facto “chief editor”. Entries are often tweaked even after being posted if one of the editors catches something or wants to add a photo, etc.


How long has the person/people who started the blog lived in Kearney?

Again, it varies.


Are the corruption allegations specific to this administration, or is there a history?

There’s no history before this council took office, and we leave it to the reader to decide if there’s “corruption”. We would describe the actions of the “Proudfoot Four” and their supporters as extreme partisan politics, coupled with arrogance and an obvious lack of ethics. It has been very obvious that the GLLRG (or at least several of its members) thought they could take control of the town of Kearney, do favours for their friends, manipulate municipal taxes to offset the provincial property tax increase in Proudfoot, and do it all behind the backs of the townspeople they’ve publicly referred to as “inbred”, “trash”, etc. The Concerned Citizens of Kearney blog has been exposing the Proudfoot Four and it’s been very embarrassing for them. Many of Mayor Tomlinson’s voters have publicly told him that they’ll never vote for him again, there’s a petition for the mayor’s resignation circulating that already has hundreds of signatures, and more townspeople are attending town meetings and asking council hard questions. Even more telling is that Kearney’s MP and MPP, who used to be regular guests (along with the Lieutenant-Governor of Canada) of the previous mayor, now avoid Kearney. Politicians don’t cower in that face of controversial press, especially from a small town blog, so why aren’t they coming around anymore?


When your next election?

2014.