Thursday, September 17, 2009

Try something different-TELL THE TRUTH-UPDATED

I snickered last week when I was watching A-Channel News. The bottom news ticker mentioned the County of Simcoe may hire a Toronto PR firm to undo some of the bad publicity and fallout from Site 41. While I was at the Springwater Township Council meeting on September 21, two of the Site 41 committee mentioned this is old news. The decision to spend another $250,000 with a PR firm was apparently passed in closed session on August 25th.
I have a better idea and it would save the County and me a lot of money. Just do what Maple Leaf Foods did with the listeria contamination. The Chairman went on the media and said they did not follow procedure and apologized for the terrible consequences of that action and promised to fix it. Most people believed him. It is a new concept in today's world. It used to be common practice. It is called telling the TRUTH!!!
Instead of wasting money on attempting to put a spin on a bad situation, Warden Guergis could do the following. First he could apologize for the actions of the CAO, Manager of Environmental Services and himself for undertaking an injunction, laying charges against some senior citizens and threatening a lawsuit on two of the protesters if in fact this was done without direction from County Council as most people suspect. He could then apologize for procrastinating on the release of the modflow reports and admit that yes there is a downward gradient at certain times of the year at the site that has been denied for three years. He could admit that senior staff had been negligent by not informing council of other means of disposal using shared resources such as incineration technology in neighboring counties that would negate the need for site 41. He could also admit, based on the success of the organics and recycling programs, that the life span of the existing County landfill sites had been extended many years negating the need for site 41. Of course that would require courage, credibility and honesty.
It is not the County that is being held in contempt Mr. Guergis, it is you and some of your out of control senior bureaucrats. You have embarrassed the County, some of the Councillors and dedicated staff who are all trying to do their job to the best of their ability.
It is time to stand up and take responsibility for an ill conceived project that started 20 years ago and one you could stop. If you did that you could be a man that people would respect.
There, I saved the County $250,000 and gave the Warden a plan that would be effective.
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