Gordon Prentice at Large - Politics in Newmarket
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
Mayor Tony Van Bynen has many fine qualities but leading from the front is not one of them.
He is a process and procedure man above all.
He is good at chairing meetings. I marvel at the exaggerated civility he deploys when dealing with his bête noire, Maddie Di Muccio. He loathes her but (mostly) does not let it show. To most people (and I include myself) he comes across as agreeable and avuncular.
But, in Newmarket Council’s many closed session meetings from which the public is barred, there may be another Van Bynen I don’t recognise. A Van Bynen with a vision for the Town, with firm views and a sense of urgency, giving clear direction to staff. But I doubt it.
Glenway: a key example
Take Glenway as the premier, gold plated example of Van Bynen’s modus operandi.
Glenway isn’t yesterday’s story. It is part of a continuing drama that is still playing out and it tells us volumes about Van Bynen’s approach.
Glenway isn’t a marginal or trivial issue of little consequence. I don't live in Glenway - nowhere near - but I imagine myself in the position of the many who do. Hundreds of Glenway people are going to see their lives turned upside down next year when the bull dozers and dumper trucks start appearing in the middle of their hitherto quiet residential neighbourhood. Property values will be hit. The quality of life will be dramatically impacted.
And the person most directly responsible for this tragedy is the Mayor, Tony Van Bynen.
In 2011, we learned the Town’s Planning Department allegedly couldn’t cope with the workload of the secondary plan. An outside planning consultant, Ruth Victor, was hired to handle the Glenway file - with disastrous consequences.
She sided with the developer, Marianneville, arguing there were no planning reasons why the former golf course could not be developed. She was hired to give a her professional opinion. But her recommendation to allow development became a de facto decision.
By the time councillors belatedly decided to back the Glenway residents (25 November 2013) and with the OMB Hearing looming, the die was cast.
Town paid consultant planner sides with developer
Victor, paid by taxpayers’ dollars, was summoned to the OMB Hearing by the developer, Marianneville, and became their star witness. The developer’s lawyer, Ira Kagan, told the adjudicator on 27 March 2014 that he was tempted just to call one witness, Ruth Victor, so compelling was her testimony.
“If I was really bold I would not have called another witness but I was scared not to.”
Kagan told the adjudicator that Victor had told him that Town planning staff “shared her opinions”. This, of course, was never tested because planning staff boycotted the Hearing.
The hands-off Mayor
Which brings me back to the Mayor.
When did the Mayor first learn that Ruth Victor was minded to write a report backing the developer, Marianneville?
What did he do about it? Did he have a view? Did he try to give her a steer? What discussions did he have with the Director of Planning, Rick Nethery, to decide the best way forward? Did he discuss the implications with other council members?
Was Van Bynen content to let Ruth Victor, in effect, determine the Town’s policy on Glenway?
The blunt truth is yes.
Van Bynen is famously hands-off leaving the professional staff to do the spade work, and call the shots. As a retired banker of 30 years standing, he is fixated on process and procedure. He follows the rules. And we know he contracts out to the professional staff key policy decisions that should be his and those of elected officials.
And he parrots, uncritically, the scripts written by others.
The Clock Tower on Main Street South
Hundreds of hours of Newmarket planning staff time (paid for by the taxpayers) have been devoted to Bob Forrest’s notorious condo project which, had it been allowed to proceed, would have wrecked the Town’s priceless historic downtown. (And it is not absolutely settled yet.)
Did Van Bynen have a view on how the historic downtown should be protected from developers determined to destroy it? If so, we didn’t hear him.
It was clear early on that Forrest’s project could only proceed if Town-owned land was made available to the developer. The Town had an absolute veto on this monstrous project. Did Van Bynen ever ask councillors if they wanted to sell Town-owned land to a developer whose project was inimical to their own Historic Conservation District policy? Or was he simply content to let things play out over many, many months?
In April 2013 I urged the Mayor to bring in a By Law immediately to protect the downtown from predatory developers. I was told this was something for the 2014 budget. It was only after a huge public outcry that Van Bynen was persuaded to act with some rare urgency.
In truth, Van Bynen enjoys being on the bridge but is not overly concerned about the ship’s destination. He is a man who lets things drift.
Lack of Transparency
Transparency and openness are recurring themes in this year's Municipal election.
Many of Van Bynen’s critics point to Newmarket’s debilitating culture of secrecy. A keen readiness to go behind closed doors to discuss matters that should be debated out in the open.
Plainly, there are legitimate reasons for going behind closed doors and to pretend otherwise, as the paranoid Maddie Di Muccio does, would be absurd. But in-camera meetings should not be used at the drop of a hat to shield the Council or any of its members from embarrassment or legitimate scrutiny and criticism or to protect fragile reputations.
I shall return to this.
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
The Town of Newmarket has now released its Public Information Report setting in context the confidential memo on the Glenway West Lands that was leaked on Tuesday by Ward 7 hopeful, John Blommesteyn.
Blommesteyn is married to the excitable Ward 6 councillor, Maddie Di Muccio, who made a big song and dance about the memo which, she said, should be made public.
The leak caused a great kerfuffle and councillors decided on Monday (29 September) that the contents of the leaked memo should be set in context and be published today (Friday October 3).
Entertain an offer
The confidential memo, dated 5 September, 2014, was from the Chief Administrative Officer, Bob Shelton, describing his approach to Marianneville to see if they would “entertain an offer” by the Town to purchase the Glenway West lands.
The developer told him the lands were not for sale. Then Shelton tells councillors:
“After further discussion, I was advised that the developable 22 acre piece of property is proposed for development and thus not for sale, however they may entertain offers by the Town to purchase portion(s) of the remaining approximately 30 acres of land. This 30 acre piece is also intended for development, subject to certain successful studies being carried out. From my conversations it would appear the owner will not be acting on any of the west lands until late 2014 or more likely 2015.”
Nowhere in today’s context report is there any indication of what “development” Marianneville has in mind. Reinstating a golf course could, in theory, be “development” but that is probably for the fairies.
The Public Information Report does a pretty poor job of setting the leaked memo in context. Why didn’t it remind us of Marianneville’s final settlement offer of November 20, 2013?
Marianneville was desperate to get the Town to drop the OMB challenge. If the Town would agree to the Glenway development, Marianneville would offer the Town a chance to buy the Glenway West lands. The full details can be read here.
Town offered a ten year option to buy
Under its terms, the Town would have been granted a 10 year option to purchase approximately 57 acres of Glenway west lands for $5,500,000, the price fixed for ten years. And during the option period the land was to be maintained by Marianneville as “passive open space” allowing public recreational use.
The final settlement offer from Marianneville’s Ira Kagan continues:
“Given that approximately 26 acres of the option lands (ie the Glenway West lands) are developable, the fixed price for these lands may save the Town and its taxpayers tens of millions of dollars (in today’s dollars). There is no telling what the land will be worth in ten years.”
The settlement offer has been in the public domain for over ten months, buried in the Town’s website, and it does, I think, provide the necessary context. That’s probably why councillors went back to the developer to sound them out.
Glenway residents are likely to be up in arms at the prospect of further development of the west lands. But, of course, we are not privy to the nature of the development Marianneville has in mind.
For their part, Marianneville is probably spitting feathers that its intention to develop at least part of the Glenway West lands is now out in the open and a matter of public record - possibly months before any application to develop the lands would have been lodged with the Town.
And the Town’s official bureaucracy will now be concerned that anything marked “confidential” will leak like a sieve.
So, should the confidential memo have remained confidential?
More to come.
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
I have never been hostile to the idea of the Council helping community organisations, providing the deal is transparent and can be justified.
So when some people were getting in a complete frazzle over the $2.8m loan to Newmarket Soccer Club last year, I was altogether more relaxed.
I see the Town has now confirmed that the loan has now been taken over by a commercial bank and the Town will have collected more than $125,000 in interest above the $2.8m loan which will be repaid in full.
Sounds OK to me.
The Newmarket Era - which regularly fails to see the big picture - had serious reservations at the time. The Town, it said, had "jumped the gun".
Councillor Maddie Di Muccio, foaming at the mouth, denounced the rescue deal in her blog on 5 September 2013. She wrote:
“In what can only be described as one of the most bizarre and unprecedented decisions Newmarket Council has come up with this term, Mayor Tony Van Bynen, Regional Councillor John Taylor, and Councillors Emanuel, Twinney and Hempen decided that it would be a brilliant investment to pay off a 2.8 million dollar loan to save a floundering Newmarket Soccer Club that nobody else – including banks – saw fit to invest in. Myself, Councillors Sponga and Kerwin voted against the deal; and Councillor Vegh was absent.”
Most of her venom was directed at the Mayor, Tony Van Bynen, and Regional Councillor John Taylor. But she is a woman who doesn’t forget.
Seven months later, still fulminating with rage, she was reminding her Twitter followers:
@RockNRollCroll let’s not forget the other councillors who supported this taxpayer fiasco: Tom Hempen, Chris Emanuel and Jane Twinney.
4.37pm – 28 March 14
Meanwhile, Newmarket Soccer Club seems to be on the way up.
And good luck to them.
24 days to the election.