Comments on The Burd Report: An answer based on intuition, not necessarily fact...

Hi, as you may already noted I am fresh here. I w...

2010-02-11T23:33:37.515-05:00

Hi, as you may already noted I am fresh here.
I will be glad to get any help at the beginning.
Thanks and good luck everyone! ;)

I get frustrated at how remote and removed County ...

2010-02-10T16:31:38.785-05:00

I get frustrated at how remote and removed County Councillors seem to be from the voters.

At election time, the candidates for mayor and deputy mayor concentrate on their vision for their own municipality, not for the County as a whole. Overall, County issues just don't come up.

Voters don't get many chances to put that issue on the table so we can find out what goals candidates may or may not have for the uppper tier.

The County Councillors have a crucial role in creating and implementing a county wide vision, they are not just there to protect their own municipalities' turf.

Now that the County has responsibility for many more important services, like Housing, ambulance service and Social Services, as well as waste removal, Golden Plough Lodge etc. etc. we need to bring these guys into much better focus.

I don't want to send anybody to County Council unless they have a clear, comprehensive county wide vision, and it is a sustainable one that makes sense.

Suggestions on how to extract that information from candidates at election time are most welcome. It's going to take more than a few hopeful questions at all candidate's debates, where they may not even be asked by the organizers.

Of course doing away with the bottom tier altogether is one solution, but the elected overlords of our little municipal fiefdoms would never vote for that! (Cobourg would, as long as they were assured of dominance over the others, and the others will make sure that doesn't happen).

How does the electorate deal with the likes of out...

2010-02-10T14:45:50.771-05:00

How does the electorate deal with the likes of out-of-control CAOs, CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and any other kind of chief that loves to spend our money? It seems that the rate at which these chiefs climb the corporate ladder is directly proportional to the budgets they produce, the higher the dollars, the higher their rise and the higher their own salary goes. Never mind that the politicians then have to collect all that lovely spending money from the lowly taxpayer. Neat shtick if you can get it.

Thankfully some people saw through Pyatt's fig...

2010-02-10T14:03:03.323-05:00

Thankfully some people saw through Pyatt's figures on the County policing issue also.

The only conclusion I can reach is that this is ju...

2010-02-10T10:47:21.447-05:00

The only conclusion I can reach is that this is just a way to pad the budget, and thus our tax bill from the County.

If the County, as landlord, gouges the ambulance department as tenant, it does not lose, because they pay the rent to themselves anyway. But, the budget increase costs are borne by us, the stupid taxpayer.

So sad that for our County Councillors, this kind of clever little tax revenue grab is what counts, rather than keeping taxes down. No wonder nobody objected.

Bill Finley will be sadly missed. He is one of the few long time Councillors who won my respect over his years of service. I am sure, as Ben said, that he is just sick and tired of the whole game, which has gotten to be high stakes with the advent of Bill Pyatt's tenure as chief bureaucrat.

I hope the heck a lot of people read this piece of...

2010-02-10T09:23:16.044-05:00

I hope the heck a lot of people read this piece of writing Ben. It deserves wide distribution.