Brenda, Brenda, Brenda…

Those of us who felt our community wasn’t being well served by our local media rejoiced at the advent of the 1019 Report. With a veteran newspaper editor at the helm, those of us who still like to think the printed word is to be trusted assumed the addition would bring depth and balance to public discourse. 

Alas, Brenda O’Farrell’s pet project has proven itself incapable of either. 

Past issues presented skewed reportage on English school enrolments and the salaries of selected municipal councils. No effort was made to delve into demograpic basics or comparisons with municipal politicians’ wage scales elsewhere in Quebec and in other provinces. Sloppy, slapdash drive-by hackery for which Ms. O’Farrell has the temerity to charge nearly $3 per issue (with taxes) to her few subscribers. 

What really gores No Bull Joe is O’Farrell’s shamelessless, cloaking her personal petty hatreds as “quality local news.” This week’s flatulent front-pager — Hudson’s freeze on new builds exposes issues with the Willowbrook project — is a classic.

It quotes two of the eight Willowbrook buyers who wonder whether the town will allow the project to proceed and whether their individual lots will be approved for construction.

“The problem is that the answers to these questions lie not with a single source. Rather they are caught in a web of authorities, the project’s developer, and permission and planning processes — a tangle that is being twisted even more by speculative commentary on social media that is fuelling emotional reactions and argumentative debates that often degenerate into insulting exchanges that further tightenes the strands into a messy knot.”

You want the truth, Brenda? Pick up the phone and talk to Habitations Robert about their chronic tardiness in getting ministerial approvals — and their habit of selling units before critical infrastructure is operational. Pick up the phone and talk to MELCC about the modified Willowbrook C.A. Talk to Hydro about when the developer filed his request for the connection to the pumping station. Talk to the town about their approval timeline. 

Absent solid journalism, Brenda’s villain in this council’s retroactive cancellation of an already-approved first phase of the Willowbrook project is social media, not kill-Willowbrook zealots and their cancel-culture cronies on this new council. 

Pathetic, yes. But Brenda, clearly intoxicated by the sheer power of her bloviations, takes it further down her yellow brick road to Fabulationville. 

“And with members of the town’s former council who no longer hold public office and their spouses jumping into the social media fray, the push for answers and clarity slips from the central focus of the discussion in favour of what appears to be acrimonious debate and political cheap shots.”

Jeez, Louise, Brenda, who might you be referring to? Are there more than one of us? Did you miss the Libel/Slander 101 course? Did you address a single one of the points I brought up? 

It’s glaringly obvious Brenda did zero research. Maybe she talked to people already quoted by the CBC and Your Local Journal, but she sure didn’t advance this story an inch. Real reporters term this phoning it in, scalping, lifting. I call bullshit.

When I decided not to seek re-election last summer, I had hoped the next council would build on what our council had accomplished — repairing and updating infrastructure, restructuring our municipal governance structure and moving forward with our emphasis on reframing our development regulations to favour preservation of Hudson’s forest canopy and eco-corridors.

All this would be based on the need to balance conflicting needs: the right to enjoy one’s property; the need to ensure that Hudson add the 50 doors a year to offset inflationary pressures on the town’s operating expenses; the need to ensure that anyone proposing to add those doors will pay the real cost of the service capacity consumed so that taxpayers are not burdened with connection impact costs, either now or in future.

The incoming council hasn’t made the slightest effort to understand any of those priorities. Instead, emboldened by O’Farrell and her ilk, certain members of this council have made halting future development — of any size — their keystone.

Joe seriously doubts that O’Farrell has the foggiest of any of this. Her grasp of issues was never a strong point in her journalistic career. Joe wouldn’t deign to react, except when Brenda farts in his face.