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St. Catharines 'Home of the Grinch' two years running

Our Mayor said "Our Downtown Association has done

an exceptional job of promoting the core of our city!"

https://twitter.com/truckdriverpleb/status/1739121286922539224?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

  Our MPP Said "The association has played an important role in the redevelopment and revitalization of our Downtown!"

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Our MP Said "A Significant Drop in the vacancy rate in the downtown core is a testament the the Downtown Association's commitment to boosting  business development!"

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The Downtown Association says  

"It's the best we can do on a $400,000+ Budget!"

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$400,000+ says "the Downtown Association is unable to do what they were hired to do!"

News Alert Niagara says : "The colossal BIA experiment failure has proven to be a detriment to the St. Catharines City CORE since its inception!"

No one would listen then and no one will listen now!

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We have know-it-all's collecting tax Dollars while blocking public information ! 

Expansion of Dereliction and Coverup!

The Coverup is worse than the crime!

Our story starts August 2023 under the titled: 'Government Crime Sanctioned'.

https://newsalertniagara.blogspot.com/2023/08/government-crime-sanctioned.html  

The story was and is about 'lack of oversight and investigation' of a contravention of criminal code 184 regarding Interference and Interception of emails.

Since the first 'News Alert Niagara' story was posted, the situation has worsened to where the unelected bureaucrats of the Niagara Regional Government has apparently abused their position to block notification of inappropriate bureaucratic conduct from reaching our Elected Officials.

Once again we took our concern to the Niagara Regional Police. On December 6, 2023 we phoned the non-emergency #905-688-4111 to ask who we should talk to about 'police dereliction of duty'.

After a curt exchange, dispatch said she was sending an officer to follow up. A very polite officer took my information over the phone.

Having heard nothing, I decided to do a follow-up on December 12; only this time we recorded the call predicated on the character of the Dec.6 experience. The recording of Dec 12 shows a much more polite exchange but with a disturbing litany of questions such as 'was I in a situation of hurting myself or others' and 'are there firearms present'? 

Same day a good looking police officer came along with a very tall 'CRISIS officer'. During our awkward conversation, I repeated my question as to who would be the contact person to about NRP 'Dereliction of Duty'?

Later that same evening I found out why there was no answer to the question regarding 'Dereliction of Duty', when I received a phone call from a gentleman claiming he was sent by the same visiting Officers of earlier in the day. He said he was a volunteer from 'Coast'; a mental health crises agency! 

Now it has to be determined if the NRP think anyone who would 'See Something-Say something' about NRP 'Dereliction of Duty' must be mentally deficient or if this exercise was their way of intimidation to silence possible criticism of their conduct.

Now, we are alarmed predicated on others warning us of police retaliation. Closer scrutiny fails to dispel concern regarding unaccountable police activity! Follow this link to find our 2014 epiphany leading to our growing suspicion leading to mistrust in the fidelity of our Niagara Regional Police.

 https://newsalertniagara.blogspot.com/2014/06/charges-dropped-photographer-sues-police.html

Perhaps the warning is justified considering the length the NRP goes too in order to hide their activities such as controlling the televised coverage of the civilian public oversight committee or even the 930AM timing of the NRPBS meetings! 

Make NO mistake; we desperately need an honest and transparent police service administering law and order without fear or favor; not only to be fair, but to appear to be fair!

What we do NOT need is a police service failing in transparency by manipulating NRPBS Public meeting time, manipulating official documenting video of Public NRPBS meetings, dereliction of duty by failing to investigate serious criminal code violations not to mention erroneous activities!

What we do NOT need is a Civilian oversight board made up of big spending double dipping political hacks!

What we do Not need is an Ontario Independent Review Board Director who categorically stated that investigating serious criminal code violation NOT to be in the Public interest! 

And, above all, we do NOT need a civic administration over greasing a failing police department with overly generous taxpayer hard earned money!

At any rate the question still remains! 

Is it not 'Dereliction of Duty' if the Niagara Regional Police refuses to investigate a serious Criminal Code Violation?

New Question: is anyone in charge of police conduct and if so 'who'??? 

Is the phrase 'See Something - Say Something' just another feckless phrase coined to make police look like they are earning their overpriced empire building $190Million tax burden.

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always available for your free use!

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We have know-it-all's collecting tax Dollars while blocking public information !

 

 

Help Niagara Regional Councilors!

They need your help to alert them to activities going on behind the Regional Councilor's back; activities that the perpetrators don't want our councilors to hear! 

It is everyone's responsibility to alert our Regional Council of nefarious activities because nefarious activities must never be tolerated! 

The reason our Niagara Regional Councilors need your help is because those wanting to conceal their activities have turned to their tried and true criminal code violation of intercepting email from citizens to our elected officials in order to deny our councilors valid and pertinent information.

This time the criminal code violators in question have adequately illustrated the need for this criminal code protection!

Anyone who contravenes our Criminal Code is, by definition, perpetrating a criminal act!  

Obviously, criminal perpetrators owning the (failure to enforce the law) Niagara Regional Police makes it convenient to contravene the Criminal Code!

The Criminal code violation in question is: https://www.statutes.ca/r-s-c-1985-c-c-46/184

Everyone is free to comment under each and every 'News Alert Niagara' article.

 Predicated on 'Free Speech' our articles are always available for your free use!

 Don't forget to click on the blue Links for the rest of the story!  

We have know-it-all's collecting tax Dollars while blocking public information !

https://www.youtube.com/embed/z1WthYchW1k?si=Axb4MeOdIuUD6bWl?rel=0&autoplay=1 

Who Is Adam Smith?

The question was asked if all stories start with 'Once upon a time'? The answer is no; Some start with 'Once elected I promise...'!

Back in the day when a decision was to be made as to where to live as in what town, city or community. Having lived in a number of places the obvious place seemed to be St. Catharines, Ontario. After all it had everything a person could ask for. For all intents and purposes, St. Catharines was as close to the positive example of 'The shining City on the Hill' as evidenced by the number of positive boxes that anyone could check and was the very reason folks flocked to this city! 

My involvement started with letters to our local newspaper to the extent that I successfully wrote and got published a 750 word article on the Government's property tax-grab by a concocted re-evaluation scam and when the local newspaper rules limited articles to 150 words.

The serious involvement was precipitated by the
fading check mark in one of our city's most important check boxes; the box pertaining to the city's income producing-property tax 'reducing' commerce and industry. This fading check-box prompted me to make an appeal to city council pointing out the ramification of indifference to the health and welfare of commerce and industry.

Council was told point blanc that they were failing their city, failing their Citizens and even failing themselves!

Now, we hear a similar sound of indifference emanating from a Regional Councilor aimed at what's left of our property-tax reducing commerce: "Bottom line, i believe all businesses have a responsibility to use their power that will benefit society and our environment. The workers matter. I want to know what a business is paying their employees, does it include benefits and pensions. Do they have a diverse workforce, this includes gender, pay gaps, impact on the environment and contributions to the community. If you want a better community, with jobs that pay well, where people can live and contribute fully, we need to hold businesses responsible. If they want big contracts from major corporations (like the region), we need to set a standard of care for their employees.Amending the current policy will have a powerful, positive impact on people living in our region." 

Sadly these comments totally ignore the Regional government's gross over governance and over-spending and undue empire building!

It's possible to overlook the recent wrong headed attitude toward commerce because they weren't there during our loss of major commerce, but only if ignorance of economics is a virtue. In actual fact business pays nothing to anyone for anything. Business simply passes all cost along to the consumer. If that is blocked or meddled with the business fails and disappears leaving no benefit to employees or anyone else!

Adam Smith taught that interference with free enterprise is devastating to society as is proven by the taxation levels now being born by property tax.

However, there are some who were there bearing silent witness to the devastating loss of our major commerce and industry. One who was there with nothing to say or do to assist in retaining our city's income producing commerce and industry is our fifty year failure, now appointed (not elected) Regional Chair Jimmy (Dolittle) Bradley still with nothing to say or do about new attacks on what is left of our commerce.

Sad, how many feckless know-it-alls point to any entity other than their own empire building cost to the property owner as to who should carry the burden of their bureaucratic failure!

During the Niagara Region Budget Review Committee November 16, 2023, YOU WILL witness at the 230 Min Mark, one and one only Regional Councilor desperately trying to protect his constituents! 

Please, consider just what those we have hired and elected have to brag about. What about the 78 year old Port Colborne woman living in her car through 4 winters after paying her taxes all her life! Or those who can no longer afford to fix their leaky roofs. Or the ever expanding homeless trying to survive were even tents are now prohibited! All this while pay their failing police chief $675,509 and furnishing NRP with multiple taj like edifices suitable for the world's largest communities!  

The very same Bureaucratic Butheads that believe that their section of the service industry is all that is needed, are now prepared to spend any amount of property tax money in an effort to lure back the commerce and industry they once dismissed as superfluous!

It happens when our government leaders become a cabal of service industry members lacking appreciation of the necessary origin of prosperity producing entities because if society doesn't Farm it, Fish it, Manufacture it, Invent it, Mine it, Tourism etc., in order to bring in the wealth needed to sustain everything we desire, then unprotected property owners must bear the brunt of excesses!

Consider what happens when a one industry municipality loses its one industry! Mining towns die when the mine plays out! When a mining town turns into a ghost town we then understand how a municipality fails to survive on only a service industry! 

To be continued

Everyone is free to comment under each and every 'News Alert Niagara' article.

 Predicated on 'Free Speech' our articles are always available for your free use!

 Don't forget to click on the blue Links for the rest of the story

Disdain!

For those that don't remember or those who were not there, here is a link to the article regarding the December 7, 2017 incident where double dipping miscreants of the Niagara Regional Government attacked their journalists in a vain attempt to muzzle truth! The Ontario Ombudsman who investigated the Theft of Journalist's equipment said it was an unlawful act!      https://newsalertniagara.blogspot.com/2017/12/espionage-in-niagara.html

The article was only the start of a years long nightmare perpetrated by sleazy double dipping Regional councilors who could not stand the truth and perpetuated by the region's lawyer in his effort to prevent the truth from coming out.

FYI the 'sleazy double dipping miscreants are Regional Councilors who also sat on the board of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority chafing under our exposition of their activities and violent behavior, which brought in the Ontario Government as one of the following examples show:                    https://newsalertniagara.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-study-in-elected-corruption-update-8.html

I had to successfully sue to get my recorder back. I can't tell you the finite details because your lawyer has me under a non-disclosure clause. It appears that you have bureaucrats that keep you in the dark well away from their activities.

However, YOU can ask him why he refused the court the ability to listen to the recording. The recording captured the sound of the deliberate stitch-up. Go ahead ask him! Ask your  lawyer Cruickshank to let council hear the tell tail recording at a public council meeting. While you're at it ask him how he removed the in-camera porton letting my agreed too portion to remain on the recorder? NOT!

The agreement in the non-disclosure clause was that the recorder would be returned to me with the recording intack with the exception of the so-called in-camera portion.

The recorder was returned to me but, with my agreed portion of the recording missing!

Having had enough of your lawyer Cruikshank I turned to your Regional Council's Law Clerk, Sandra Fluellon for assistance with the following on September 29, 2023:

Dear Sandra Fluellon,

The unlawful removal of my recording from my SONY recording device has nothing to do with the agreed confidential clause.

The agreement was that the in-camera portion of the recording was to be deleted.

There was no agreement that the rest of my recording would also be deleted.

I own the recording and I alone have the say in how it will be stored or saved.

It is not for anyone else to decide how my recording should be stored of saved.

My recording was stolen from me and only offered to be returned AFTER I complained.

I have the right to have my part of the original recording to be permanently left on my recording device.

The said recording device is to be stored intact with my original recording included as is my right.

Supplying me with a digital copy, after the fact and only after my complaint, will not suffice and is inappropriate.

Placing the original recoding back on my recording device is beyond my capabilities.

Therefore, I will have to seek professional help to do so.

Re-recording is not a satisfactory solution.

I wait for your appropriate response and solution

Respectfully,

Preston Haskell

On October 24, 2023 I prompted Sandra Fuellon to respond to me. She did not! 

Instead, on October 26, 2023 (27 days later) I received a response from the same Lawyer Cruikshank that did his damnedest to protect the Regional Miscreants who attacked your journalists.

It's not this journalist that you have to worry about! This journalist simply disseminates the obvious as 600+ readily viewable articles can attest.

The complete chain of emails can be read on the following link:            https://newsalertniagara.blogspot.com/2023/11/email-chair-request-for-response.html

To this day I have yet to hear from your Sandra Fluellon and that my dear councilor is called disdain!                                                NICE!

Read Book Here FREE

Everyone is free to comment under each and every 'News Alert Niagara' article.

 Predicated on 'Free Speech' our articles are always available for your free use!

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Email chain request for response

 Dear Anne-Marie Norio,

With respect, I am sorry that you dismiss the theft and removal of my recording as trivial.

By stealing and removing my recording the Region has not complied with the terms of the settlement!

Besides, I only asked that you apprise the council of the situation.

Perhaps you should refer to the September 29, 2023 message to Sandra Fluellon, which spells out my contention.

Its coming up to 6 years of bureaucratic bullying and it must stop! For the reason stated, I will inform council myself.

Preston Haskell

From: Norio, Ann-Marie <Ann-Marie.Norio@niagararegion.ca>

Sent: November 7, 2023 12:59 PM
To: phaskell38@gmail.com
Subject: FW: Unlawful removal of recording

 

Good afternoon Mr. Haskell,

 Further to the email sent from Mr. Cruickshank, as the Region has fully complied with the terms of the settlement, no further action regarding this matter will be taken.

 Thank you

 Ann-Marie

 Ann-Marie Norio, BA, Dipl. M.A., CMM III

Regional Clerk

Phone: 905-980-6000 ext 3220

 From: PF-Mailbox-01 <PF-Mailbox-01@niagararegion.ca>

Sent: Monday, November 06, 2023 10:41 AM
To: Norio, Ann-Marie <Ann-Marie.Norio@niagararegion.ca>; Basic, Azra <Azra.Basic@niagararegion.ca>; Kramer, Gema <Gema.Kramer@niagararegion.ca>
Subject: FW: Unlawful removal of recording

 

 

---

From: phaskell38@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, 06 November 2023 10:41:20 (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
To: Clerks; phaskell38@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Unlawful removal of recording

Dear Regional Clerk,

Sent for your information.

Please apprise the Regional Councillors.

I await your response.

Preston Haskell

 

From: phaskell38@gmail.com <phaskell38@gmail.com>
Sent: October 26, 2023 10:53 AM
To: 'Cruickshank, Mickey' <mickey.cruickshank@niagararegion.ca>; phaskell38@gmail.com
Subject: RE: Unlawful removal of recording

 Mr Cruickshank,

First you stole the recording by removing and keeping my recording then you returned the recording only aster I complained. Now you turn out to be a liar by falsely claiming that the Recorder was returned with my portion of the recording intact.

Does the Regional Clerk know about this? Should the Regional Councillors be apprised of this?

You have broken the non-disclosure agreement and it is now newsworthy.

I reached out to Sandra Fluellon because I have no faith in your fidelity.

I still await response from Fluellon.

Preston Haskell

 From: Cruickshank, Mickey <mickey.cruickshank@niagararegion.ca>

Sent: October 26, 2023 9:18 AM
To: phaskell38@gmail.com
Cc: Fluellon, Sandra <Sandra.Fluellon@niagararegion.ca>
Subject: RE: Unlawful removal of recording

 

Mr. Haskell,

 As per the confidential terms of settlement, the recording device was returned to you with the recording intact (minus the closed session portion).  Additionally, as you apparently reported to counsel that you were unable to access the recording, a courtesy second copy of the recording was provided to your counsel as he requested.  While you advise that you are incapable of transferring the copy of the recording provided to your counsel onto your device, I cannot give you advice in this regard.

 The Region has fully complied with the terms of the settlement. 

 Sincerely,

 Mickey Cruickshank

Legal Counsel

 The Regional Municipality of Niagara

Corporate Services, Legal Division

1815 Sir Isaac Brock Way, P.O. Box 1042

Thorold, ON  L2V 4T7

Tel: 905-980-6000 ext. 3472

Fax: 905-685-7931

www.niagararegion.ca

 

 

From: phaskell38@gmail.com <phaskell38@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2023 10:31 AM
To: phaskell38@gmail.com; Fluellon, Sandra <Sandra.Fluellon@niagararegion.ca>
Subject: RE: Unlawful removal of recording

 

CAUTION EXTERNAL EMAIL: This email originated from outside of the Niagara Region email system. Use caution when clicking links or opening attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

Dear Sandra Fluellon,

I am still waiting for your reply.

Preston Haskell

 

From: phaskell38@gmail.com <phaskell38@gmail.com>
Sent: September 29, 2023 9:52 AM
To: sandra.fluellon@niagararegion.ca; phaskell38@gmail.com
Subject: Unlawful removal of recording

 

Dear Sandra Fluellon,

The unlawful removal of my recording from my SONY recording device has nothing to do with the agreed confidential clause.

The agreement was that the in-camera portion of the recording was to be deleted.

There was no agreement that the rest of my recording would also be deleted.

I own the recording and I alone have the say in how it will be stored or saved.

It is not for anyone else to decide how my recording should be stored of saved.

My recording was stolen from me and only offered to be returned AFTER I complained.

I have the right to have my part of the original recording to be permanently left on my recording device.

The said recording device is to be stored intact with my original recording included as is my right.

Supplying me with a digital copy, after the fact and only after my complaint, will not suffice and is inappropriate.

Placing the original recoding back on my recording device is beyond my capabilities.

Therefore, I will have to seek professional help to do so.

Re-recording is not a satisfactory solution.

I wait for your appropriate response and solution

Respectfully,

Preston Haskell

 

LGBTQ to hold sway over procurement?

What do you get when you watch the St. Catharines City Council in action?

Well, on the October 30, 2023 video of Council you got to suffer through 2 hours of the Niagara Regional government's attempt to impose a very expensive social component to our City's procurement process! Certainly no surprise this added expense is emanating from the Prince of 'Tax & Spend'!

The false premise for this abomination was blaming the absurd Burgoyne Bridge Fiasco for the doubling of the cost.

Question: Would the added expense* of having 'Social Entities' involved in procurement have prevented our being scammed via the Burgoyne Bridge fiasco?

*Expense of $14K per year to The City of St. Catharines Alone  (Times ALL Communities= $millions) to be paid to the following Social entities for 'THEIR' privilege to hold sway over 'OUR' procurement policy.

Perhaps this very expensive effort is to have LGBTQ holding some sway into the procurement policy of our community and all communities?

Really?

Is that because the LGBTQ has worked so well in our education system? 

Everyone is free to comment under each and every 'News Alert Niagara' article.

 Predicated on 'Free Speech' our articles are always available for your free use!

 Don't forget to click on the blue Links for the rest of the story!