Breckenridge and the county communications department

By Kate Harries AWARE Simcoe September 20 2010
Students and participants at a recent symposium on Dump Site 41 at the University of Western Ontario got a chance to view an example of the work of Simcoe County’s communications department last week.
It was a 15-mifnute video interview with Environmental Services Director Rob McCullough, extolling the design and safety features of Site 41, the project that Simcoe County Council, McCullough’s employer, voted last September to discontinue after massive citizen opposition.

The video was aired by incumbent Tiny mayor Peggy Breckenridge as part of her presentation to the symposium – a multi-disciplinary examination of landfill, groundwater and politics.
Breckenbridge brought other examples of the department’s work with her to London, namely some “fact sheets.”
One, dated August 2010, examines the Freedom of Information dispute involving the Modflow (the computer model that was calibrated to make projections about the movement of water at Site 41). This ‘fact sheet” makes a number of controversial assertions – for instance, downplaying the weight given to the computer modeling when the Ministry of Environment approved of the site, and claiming that the calibrated model is owned by Genivar.
Well, no. As the Information and Privacy Commissioner found, the taxpayers paid for the Modflow, and the taxpayers own it. The IPC ordered the county to take steps to obtain it from Genivar. 
The county’s Modflow “fact sheet” ends at August 10, 2009, thus omitting a very important decision. On August 25, 2009, after a behind-closed-doors discussion, councillors voted to seek a costly judicial review of the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s order. 
Later that day, after discussion at another in-camera meeting, councillors decided to spend $250,000 on a public relations firm to counter the media coverage they’d received regarding Site 41. Breckenridge, by the way, was a leading proponent of this addition to the efforts of the four-member communications department,
The messages in the video and fact sheets were at odds with Breckenridge’s portrayal of herself to the symposium as the often lonely leader of the Site 41 opposition. It was curious that she did not resolve the contradiction by pointing out the areas where the county material is erroneous and incomplete.
Breckenridge subsequently distanced herself from the material she brought to the symposium, stating she was not representing the county but had been asked to bring it. (Neither the county nor the ministry of the environment sent representatives although both were invited. That too was curious.)
There’s another item produced by the communications department that Breckenridge is not distancing herself from. 
Posted on her website is a full-colour 16-page Simcoe County publication summarizing the “achievements and accomplishments” of the 2006-2010 county council (made up of the mayors and deputy mayors of the county’s 16 municipalities)..
Let’s just remember that AWARE Simcoe grew out of the inept and heavy handed way Simcoe County’s political leaders and top administrators handled themselves over the Site 41 issue – sneaking in final approval for the project as a line item in the budget, launching a civil suit against dairy farmer Anne Ritchie-Nahuis and Anishinaabe leader Vickie Monague, setting the stage for the arrest of the likes of Keith and Ina Wood, deciding to spend $250,000 on PR rather than answer citizens’ questions.…
There’s not a whisper about any of that in the county’s brochure. There’s no reference to the exciting discovery in 2006 that the groundwater in the Site 41 area is the purest ever tested, nor to the courage and determination of Simcoe County and First Nations residents who defended the water, nor to the historic vote to end construction of Site 41.
Like most of what the county communications department churns out, including the so-called “fact sheets,” this “achievements” brochure is one-sided propaganda aimed at bolstering the county’s image.
By virtue of timing, it is election propaganda. That’s how Breckenridge is using it on her website and in her campaign communications. You and I paid for this brochure. We should get our money back.