Daily Archives: May 13, 2012
Scenes of a crime?
A local mayor called police on a resident for filming council meetings, raising questions about transparency and public accountability.
By Jonathan Sher, The London Free Press
That’s one reason the mayor of a township west of London says he called cops last week to stop a critic from videotaping a council meeting.
For years, you see, no citizens attended council meetings at the tiny township office of Adelaide Metcalfe, pop. 3,000. They just didn’t.
But that changed after energy companies proposed building up to 70 wind turbines. Since January, dozens have packed a makeshift gallery and a young woman who once babysat the mayor’s kids has been setting up a camera and posting videos to YouTube.
Videographer Esther Wrightman kept calm during the clash Monday, asking police what law she was breaking and turning the camera off after a police officer said he would otherwise physically remove her.
But when the meeting ended and Wrightman made her way outside, her racing heart gave way to tears.
“I did cry — it just hit me what we have all tried to do, and what we didn’t have left — how powerless we were,” she recalls.
Mayor David Bolton defends his call to the cops, saying after weeks of videos being posted on YouTube, some council members had grown frightened of speaking at all, lest they say something stupid.
“That was preventing an open and full discussion,” Bolton said.
But that’s not how another council member, Kurtis Smith, sees it.
“If it is something that the individual doesn’t want recorded on video, it likely shouldn’t be said at all,” he told The Free Press. “Without the public engagement . . . council members cannot make informed decision.”
Smith says he had no problems with the videotaping and was caught off-guard when Bolton called police.
“I was not aware of the (mayor’s) plan,” he said.
The fight over wind turbines in rural Ontario played a big role last fall when voters turfed the McGuinty Liberals from those ridings in the provincial election.
But in Adelaide Metcalfe, the issue boiled over in January after council set building permit fees for turbines lower than critics had called for and did so at a meeting when that topic wasn’t on the public agenda. Read the rest of this entry
Mark your calendar: MLWAG info meetings June 12,13,14!
Strathroy Wind Turbine Info Meeting
Date: June 12
Time: 7:00PM
Place: Strathroy District Collegiate Institute, 361 Second St. Strathroy MAP
Speakers: Doug Pedlar, Richard Wakefield, Monica Elmes, Harvey Wrightman
Parkhill Wind Turbine Info Meeting
Date: June 13
Time: 7:00PM
Place: North Middlesex District Community Centre, 225 McLeod St., Parkhill MAP
Speakers: Doug Pedlar, Richard Wakefield, Barbara Ashbee, Lorrie Gillis
Forest Wind Turbine Info Meeting
Date: June 14
Time: 7:00PM
Place: Forest Legion, 58 Albert Street, Forest MAP
Speakers: Doug Pedlar, Richard Wakefield, Barbara Ashbee, Lorrie Gillis
SPREAD THE WORD!
Wind Turbines Need To Be Stopped Says Opponent
by Chris Cooke, First Monday
Wind turbines are bad for health and bad for the economy. And the Middlesex – Lambton Wind Action Group is calling on municipal and provincial politicians to stop the proliferation of wind projects in Lambton County.
Group spokesman Mike Mahood of Thedford told the Rotary Club of Sarnia Bluewaterland that if left unchallenged Suncor Energy will build 250 turbines 600 feet high along Lake Huron in Lambton Shores. And he says another 150 will dot the County from Forest through to Watford and into Plympton Wyoming.
Four of the giant turbines known as the Zephyr Wind Plant are under construction at Watford and Mahood says that’s just the beginning.
He predicts “nothing good will come from this,” and insists the government of Dalton McGuinty “needs to be stopped.”
Mahood says McGuinty continues to ignore world – wide research that points to negative human and animal health impacts. Low frequency noise, shadow flicker and stray voltage are causing sleep disturbances, dizziness and nausea in humans along with low milk and egg production in farm animals he says.
Turbine blades are killing birds, bats and insects as the proliferation of wind turbines continues unabated. Read article