Oshawa's negligence is showing - the City's errors with respect to the Hamlet of Columbus keep adding up.
Take the Columbus Community Centre property for example.
Guess when the City got around to putting it in 'The Corporation of the City of Oshawa's' name? Check the date stamp on the top right corner of the above legal document.
October 15, 2009. Yup, the very day of their Special Council meeting in said building.
Funny how it only took Oshawa 35 years...and how it was prompted by Columbus residents pointing out in their duly filed 'Objection to the Community Centre Heritage Designation' that the City had the wrong legal description for the property on their 'Columbus Community Centre Heritage Designation Report' prepared by the City this summer.
Interesting how the City quickly ordered a new survey of the property in September and then how Oshawa's legal department wrote in an October letter to the Conservation Review Board acknowledging their mistake: "The City is, of course, amenable to correcting the PIN and legal description contained in the 'Designation Report' to the CRB's satisfaction."
It gets better. Oshawa doesn't realize it yet, and someone might want to point it out to them soon, but the supporting documentation they've referenced to register the new Transfer/Deed is incorrect too. They are citing papers that transferred Township of East Whitby lands to the City of Oshawa in 1950. They didn't bother to read the meets and bounds description, that happens to pertain to the large tract of land around Thornton and Adelaide. . . didn't they know Columbus was forced to join Oshawa 24 years later, in 1974 with the creation of the Region of Durham? Curious, but not surprising, considering how Columbus has been ignored and neglected for so long. (remember how City officials actually laughed when we first talked about Columbus being 'ignored and neglected')
Too bad they haven't been reading this web page, they might have saved themselves a lot of trouble, because now they are going to have to amend what they rushed to register on title to the property in time for Oshawa Council's tax-payer funded self-congratulatory Oct. 15th sequi party.
And oh yes, the municipal address 3265 Simcoe Street still includes the former Drill Hall property which the City has at long last come to realize is in fact still owned by Her Majesty the Queen, in Right of the Province of Ontario (purchased in 1868 for $250). So it seems they might have to correct that too, and perhaps have to give the Drill Hall lot a separate municipal address because the City's request for heritage designation specifically refers to the 3265 municipal address. What a lot of bother to give Oshawa bragging rights for a heritage designation at the expense of listening to residents who are concerned about things like the underuse of the building by the community, its mold and lead paint problem, and plans for the future of the building.
A lot of trouble could have been saved if they'd allowed our delegation to speak at Oshawa Council September 8th. - when Mayor Gray said the Columbus delegation needed a 2/3rd vote to speak because the matter had not been before a Standing Committee.
What Standing Commmittee? There were no Standing Committee meetings between the August 28th deadline when the Columbus residents' Objection was filed and the September 8th Council meeting 10 days later.
To Mayor Gray and Council: at the September 8th Council meeting the Columbus coalition spokesperson said 'I think you're making a mistake in not allowing me to speak. This is a big waste of taxpayer money' . Perhaps you should have listened.