By Doug Draper
An article that appeared in the Sat., Jan. 16 edition of The Globe & Mail on the Niagara Parks Commission seems to be getting a good deal of buzz among Niagara area residents.
Niagara At Large has received email on with some asking if we could post The Globe piece in its entirety on this site. That we cannot do since the article is the rightful property of The Globe but we will post that newspaper’s link to the article that you can access if you click on the ‘keep reading’ tab below.
Just a warning. If you click on the link and the article pops up, you may want to download it on your desk top right way since The Globe seems not to keep its articles available for free on the internet for very long. The paper seems to believe in its newsroom receiving some payment for its work, which isn’t such a bad thing if the work serves public purpose.
The Globe article features critics asking an ‘old boys club’ doesn’t play too large a role in a Niagara Parks Commission whose mandate it is to protect and preserve what is left of a natural Niagara River Corridor, including lands along the great Falls, that make up one of the world’s most famous heritage sites.
At one point in the piece, Peter Kormos, an NDP critic and MPP for the Welland riding, is quoted saying; “This is one of Ontario’s jewels (and) it has been a cesspool of … backroom boyism for decades.”
Archie Katzman, the longest serving provincial appointee on the commission (going back 39 years) and an icon in the St. Catharines, Ont. area where he as championed numerous charities and once played a key role in electing candidates for the former Ontario Conservative government of Bill Davis, is at one point quoted saying of his longevity as an NPC appointee: “People are probably jealous, people whose terms expire and don’t get renewed. … Those things are immaterial to me.”
He is also quoted making a reference to one of his many good friends Jim Bradley, an Ontario Liberal cabinet minister whose portfolios, up to about a year and a half ago, included tourism ministry responsible for overseeing the commission.
To access The Globe article, click on
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-kat-who-always-comes-back/article1433616/
Niagara At Large 
some quotes from the original for fair use be ok. it’s true. the NPC is a corrupt old boys club who use whatever means possible to stop dissent. i know i host a 420 rally in NF. it took a law professor to get them to back down.
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The Niagara Parks Commission has been doing a good job for a very long time. The parks are beautiful and the restaurants, etc., well run. Sure, the ‘old boys’ club’ is hilariously funny to watch, but at least the old birds are local and have their hearts in it. Dissolve NPC and turn it all over to some far off Toronto bureaucracy and watch the costs skyrocket and the parks go downhill. Methinks that our Mr. Peter the ‘Politician’ Kormos has some personally ‘uplifting’ goal behind his silly scuttlebutt.
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