A plane flies into Collingwood Airport.
OPINION
By Steve Berman
The Collingwood Airport has been a hot topic of discussion lately, at the council tables in Collingwood, Clearview and Wasaga Beach; in area newspapers and even the local blogosphere.
Before I weigh in on this, how many of you knew that Collingwood had an airport? Did you know that it's not actually in Collingwood? Have you ever used it? Did you know that Collingwood taxpayers pay approximately $150-200K a year just to keep it up and running?
I've been closely following the goings on at the airport since the spring of 2013 when rumors surfaced of men with "bags of cash" going around and trying to buy up the land surrounding the airport.
Since that time, there have been a number of actual land purchases, business proposals, and changes in the makeup of the municipal councils, staff and boards involved.
One thing that does not seem to have changed, is the direction that Collingwood politicians have taken throughout this entire process.
Keep in mind that things like roads, bridges, water and wastewater, are examples of assets that a municipality must have. An airport or a hydro company, are examples of "discretionary" assets, meaning that it is not required by the Municipal Act that your town actually owns one.
The previous council showed that they were receptive to the idea of selling off airport lands by passing a motion in that regard, unanimously, back in September, 2013.
That same council also had the foresight in January 2014, to vote unanimously against supporting the Fairview Wind Farm Project near the airport, due to safety concerns. This current council echoed that sentiment with a unanimous vote of their own at the last council meeting.
The previous council recognized the need for an actual business plan for our airport, and voted to spend $20K on one, back in March, 2014. Unfortunately that plan never took flight, as it turned out that the cost of doing a plan costs roughly five times that amount.
I think these were all good steps that needed to be taken, in order for Collingwood get an idea of the true potential of our airport, rather than blindly throwing money at it during each budget season.
Our current council appears to have has picked up where the previous one left off with the airport, and is pursuing a course of action that will best serve our residents.
The most important part of any potential transaction of this size, is due diligence.
While the public is not privy to in-camera meetings that discuss things like legal advice or land appraisals, it is obvious from the amount of times council has discussed this topic, that they are doing their due diligence on the airport, regardless of whether they chose to keep it, or look to sell it.
The 7-1 vote by council last week, against signing a letter of intent for Mr. Bonwick and the CCAC development, was the right thing to do, in my opinion, even though it looks as though it's being used as a red herring by some of the interested parties.
They say that when you post something on the internet, it can haunt you forever. I believe that this was the risk for Collingwood had they signed a letter of intent. There is no benefit to Collingwood to sign a letter of intent, especially when they haven't yet decided what they want to do. To put something in writing, binding or not, can come back to bite them in the tail somewhere down the road.
Last term, council made two decisions that involved almost $30 million dollars of your money between them.
The first, was the sale of 50% of Collus Hydro, and the second was the purchase of the two Sprung structures. Both of those decisions were made quickly, and without nearly enough due diligence. Both were subsequently named in the CBC report "Corruption in Collingwood?", as being under investigation by the OPP.
I don't want that to happen with our airport, and believe that we need to encourage this council to take all the time they need, to finally do it right the first time.
When council went in-camera to discuss the airport at their last meeting, Councillor Kevin Lloyd publicly refused to participate. The rest of council (minus Mayor Cooper, who had to recuse herself as her brother Paul Bonwick is involved in the potential deal), spent an hour in-camera listening to critical legal information they needed to know, in order to make any further decisions.
I don't know why Kevin Lloyd felt that he didn't need to hear this information, but I have no doubt that he should have. It's in all of our best interests for councillors to have as much information as possible before they cast their votes.
Lloyd chose not to do this, yet when the rest of council came back to the table to vote, he felt that he knew all he needed to know, and cast the lone vote in favor of giving Mr. Bonwick his letter of intent.
Did he do his due diligence? I'll leave it up to you.
Steve Berman is a husband and father of two, and a municipal politics junkie. Feel free to contact him with questions, comments or concerns by emailing collingwoodbermans@gmail.com.
-Original article can be found here: http://www.theenterprisebulletin.com
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