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The Chatham Daily News reported on September 1, 2010, that Randy Hope was filing his papers to seek re-election as mayor on Thursday, which he has now formally done.

In comments posted online beneath the article, a blogger asked the media to grill Hope over his connections with other candidates. It suggested local media was too afraid to ask any hard questions of any of the declared candidates. The poster also alleged that the mayor's office may have had something to do with the dissemination of private municipal records which later showed up in an anonymous extortion attempt against another potential mayoral candidate.

Mayor Hope has so far refused to disclose whether anyone was provided with those records, and after a week has not denied the involvement of his office. While this proves nothing, it's surprising he didn't take immediate steps to clear any suspicion.

Another poster commented that they thought Ian McLarty was running as a decoy, and that everyone was talking about Mary Lee probably being up to more tricks. Both have published connections to a person known to be Hope's closest advisor. It suggested the election was becoming a joke.

It's not known whether local media intends to cover the election fairly after their role in tinkering with the election outcome last time. For the past four years, criticism against mayor Hope has been curiously absent in the media, replaced by a record number of staged ribbon-cuttings and photo-ops, along with an obvious editorial slant that just stopped short of looking like open endorsement.

Normally, the media would be interested when anonymous cowards allegedly engage in extortion attempts against a potential mayoral candidate's family timed to intimidate them from running, particularly when it involves judicial proceedings, forged documents, and municipal information that passed through the mayor's office. Not in Chatham-Kent though, where political secrecy appears to be the predominant mode.

This website has conducted months of investigative journalism and promised to tell-all about what mayor Hope and his friends have been up to, so that voters can judge the facts accordingly. Explosive documents were obtained through Freedom of Information requests. Somebody doesn't like that, and local media won't touch it. Instead of using official channels to challenge facts posted elsewhere on this site and recorded in court documents, anonymous cowards have resorted to criminal means to intimidate the journalist.

Perhaps that explains the distortion in other local media. The news they missed could be big enough to draw official attention that's a little harder to intimidate.

I'm posting this on behalf of a resident I spoke with today, and he made a good point.

He said if the phone numbers aren't going to be properly listed so that people can be contacted, there isn't much use in even having a landline any more. Cell phone numbers aren't listed, nor do cell customers get a phone book. Being accessible at a published telephone number is about the only advantage left of maintaining service on the twisted pair. Bell is effectively negating all their pricey Yellow Pages advertising since fewer people will bother to reference the phone book for anything.

A landline call from Erie Beach to Tilbury is long distance despite being in the same new "local" phone directory, but the identical call made on a cell phone is local. Bell is still charging a non-optional fee for TouchTone service too.

Wheatley and area is now listed in the Leamington phone book, so we need five books now to cover the whole municipality. I've not seen whether they even publish Chatham-Kent municipal numbers in the Leamington book. Meanwhile, the Windsor book covers an area twice as large as Chatham - south to Harrow and east to Comber. It certainly seens that Bell made an arbitrary decision that adversely impacts Chatham-Kent.

The new telephone book is out, and it seems the phone company has succeeded in splitting Chatham-Kent apart where petitions and citizens groups have failed.

Traditionally, the telephone directory has listed all Chatham-Kent and surrounding communities in the white pages. While some calls within Chatham-Kent are still considered long distance, at least one could look up a business or residential number no matter where the person happened to reside. All that has changed with the new Yellow Pages.

An investigation of the new phone book reveals only one section in the white pages, listing residential numbers for Chatham. I'm no longer able to look up my doctor's phone number in Wallaceburg, or my dad's neighbour in Erie Beach. If a number doesn't have a Chatham exchange, it's gone.

Business numbers have been extracted from the listings, and are now stuck separately in the back of the book in haphazard sections for other Chatham-Kent communities. You can look up the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance under Chatham, but in Wallaceburg it's under "Hospitals." The entire format is cryptic and difficult to use.

A representative at the Yellow Pages conceded that only Chatham-Kent was affected by the change. The entire metropolis of Mississauga is still served with a single white pages directory, and everything is listed from Port Credit to Streetsville and Clarkson. The change was driven by the Yellow Pages marketing team without any input from stakeholders.

Bell insisted that the new book was designed to better serve residents, and that all of Chatham-Kent and area is included. "Wallaceburg is in another area," according to an information spokesperson.

When asked why the book's cover states "Chatham-Kent and Area" but excludes most of the communities in Chatham-Kent and area, Bell responded that they separated the area by municipality, and seemed unaware that Chatham-Kent is actually a single-tier municipality. They offered to sell me copies of the other 3 directories that cover the rest of Chatham-Kent.

The Bell Yellow Pages group have been receiving and documenting complaints about the change. I offered to boycott the new directory until they republish a properly inclusive book. It won't be the first time Bell was forced to reprint these books, as they bowed to pressure recently after distributing an Ontario book printed only in French.

Considering that Bell has now divided Chatham-Kent into four books, it makes me wonder if they are getting even with us for refusing to rename some Chatham-Kent streets that had names duplicated in four communities. At that time, Bell claimed their 911 system could not differentiate between any Chatham-Kent communities, but their marketing department had no problem circumventing the difficulty.

I did remind Bell that Chatham-Kent is considered to be the top municipality by Monopoly, and that I hoped residents protested the new phone book with the same zeal that put us on the Boardwalk.

I would say that my information was fairly accurate indeed, and we broke the news two days earlier than the Chatham Daily News. There's still no mention of the sale on their online edition.

Wait until my accurate facts about mayor Randy Hope, Mary Lee, Doug Sulman, and various other elected and unelected officials start being known. You know, all the facts the Chatham Daily News also missed...

I have heard this story from two different sources now. Each says Dan Warrener has purchased the Chatham Daily News building on Fourth Street for demolition, to make way for more downtown parking. I don't know if this is supposed to mean that a deal has been closed, or if it's merely an offer. Normally Warrener restores buildings, but there's not many historical aspects left of the Chatham Daily News building to restore. The third story was removed years ago, and the press was taken out more recently, leaving a huge empty space at the back.

What square footage remains is very underutilized and expensive. Most of the composing and pagination is done in Sarnia now. All the darkrooms are gone and photo editing is done digitally. Only a few of the pages are written locally. Rarely do they seem to run more than 6 or 7 pages of local content, with the remainder filled with material from QMI that's inserted in Sarnia. The need for a sprawling headquarters to house a handful of desks and computers is long past.

Several years ago, I interviewed an editor who had been downsized out of a job. He stated that Osprey Media was contemplating a sale to Quebecor, which had a strong history of consolidating and closing smaller papers. Osprey began some of that restructuring in advance to make the purchase more attractive. Their plans were to eventually maintain a small staff of advertising reps and reporters in a Chatham satellite office, and transfer everything else to Sarnia.

The sale to Quebecor went through, resulting in Chatham having two competing papers under the Sun Media banner. Chatham This Week now shares a publisher with the Chatham Daily News, and largely duplicates the news items found in the daily. It can only be a matter of time before a business decision is made dealing with these former rivals.

There hasn't been anything mentioned in the Chatham Daily News about this sale. However, it would not be the first time they ignored news that was dropped in their own lap and got scooped by the Maple City Star. They aren't nearly so transparent when it comes to affairs involving themselves. It will be interesting to see how the local newspapers emerge from any restructuring that a change of address may bring.

Mary Lee seems to attract controversy, and no doubt her motives for entering the mayoral race are not coloured by altruism. She better be ready to answer some tough questions about her influences and involvement with mayor Randy Hope. Maybe she will respond to scrutiny by claiming it's "elder abuse" like she did during the investigation into her election finances, and watch while her friends chill opposition by suing opponents and their families so everyone is too afraid to ask questions.

Being mayor is a responsible position. Randy Hope has not demonstrated an aptitude for anything other than numerous photo-ops. This is what Mary Lee endorsed last time, and it's left Chatham-Kent in poor shape. We need to seriously question her judgment, because she is capable of doing far more harm to this community than hapless Hope. It must be understood that Mary Lee does not come alone.

Her intent is likely to turn the mayoral race into another joke, where apathy works to their advantage in splitting the vote. I have no doubt this is indeed a stunt, and we'll see her drop out again for some reason or another and play the endorsement game, now that Bernard Nayman has legitimized the exploitation of that loophole. She's clearly not running to win.

At any rate, Mary Lee's political activities have been secretive and not transparent like she herself demanded of our leaders. She instructed mayor Hope while he was in office, so at least some of his ideas were likely not his own. Mayor Hope lied to conceal his political influences, and the name on the ballot wasn't entirely who we ended up with. We needn't mention Lee's alleged affiliations with shady citizen's coalitions and a certain coward businessman.

Somebody who telephoned potential candidates in 2006 and told them not to run for mayor, who tried to coerce another candidate to withdraw and endorse Randy Hope with the promise of a municipal job, and who called a journalist to warn them to shut up about publishing truthful comments about herself and Hope, should not be allowed anywhere near the mayor's office. That is the real Mary Lee in action, and I think it's toxic to democracy.

Word is floating around that the Chatham Daily News building on Fourth Street has been sold to make a parking lot for the Capitol Theatre. What poetic justice for that negative rag. Plan A is to run everything out of Sarnia. Plan B is to combine with Chatham This Week which is redundant. That's one business Chatham would be better off without.

wasn't their alot of Sarnia news in the paper a few days ago? Mayor Hope plastered all over too.

[Mary Lee?]

Mary Lee? This is another stunt, I know it. Who will Lee endorse when she withdraws? Is she going to promise any government jobs to the other candidates if they step aside? Didn't Randy Hope do everything he was told? The mayoral racejust turned into a 3 ring circus. These fools will set C-K back 30 years. That's probably the plan. What a nightmare. Wake up Chatham and dump these dishonest shysters. I bet they organize another boycott to avoid facing the heat.

Mayoral candidate Ian McLarty has appeared in the media several times in association with John Cryderman's agitations. Looks like he gave up on Randy Hope when he stopped doing what he was told. Watch this guy real careful for more election stunts. All the mayoral candidates should have to disclose who is consulting and advising them.

Anybody has a right to get involved in the election, but stop hiding in the shadows with shady schemes that stretch the rules. Randy Hope was elected under dishonest circumstances so anybody connected to that farce should be soundly defeated. We need to take back contol of government for the people. Cryderman can register as the lobbyist he is and quit tinkering with multiple candidates and meeting with top level administration to issue instructions. Their's a distinct problem when one person is secretly behind half the mayoral candidates and trying to run the municipality without being elected himself.

I'm real curioius who sent Aaron Neaves and Ian McLarty to the court house to watch the Pickard case - and why??

[Boycott Ontario]

Pat Hoy and Dalton McGuinty are liars. They say nothing will go up, business will pass on savings, and everyone should love the HST. They are trying to sell a snowjob in summer. Guess what? Everything is more expensive today. Put this spoiled vacation in your photo album of destruction McGuinty and Hoy!! You just made Ontario parks more inaccessible to families, nevermind the higher cost of gas to get their.

Applicable Sales Taxes

    * Effective July 1, 2010, the Harmonized Sales tax (HST) at 13% will be charged to all Ontario Parks’ fees where the tax is applicable.
    * Fees for reservations (made during May 1 to June 30) were reduced to keep the after tax cost the same as for camping stays prior to July 1, 2010.
    * For camping stays on or after July 1, 2010, applicable fees include the HST at 13%. Fees will therefore have an increase of 8 per cent.

I won't see an 8% increase in my wages for over 5 years! I will never vote Liberal again thanks to you destructive liars. Get somebody else to help you campaign next time. Dalton McGuinty deserves to lose party status. Don't even start me on his G20 attack on our Charter rights. How did Ontario end up with two neo-con parties?

Boycott Ontario