EDITOR,
Upon reading most of the letters of support and anti-budget, I have come to the conclusion that both sides are talking yet neither side is listening to the other. I will try to clarify my position and while I am not presumptuous enough to claim it is the only right position, I will say it fits a lot of the anti-sentiment. We have a bucket with a big hole in it. Do we fix the leak or just throw more money in it? It isn't the increased infrastructure spending that is the problem; it is the waste. The infrastructure spending increase as well as the extra policing cost increase are a red herring. We had the hole in the bucket before. It is not fair to heap the total blame on this present council but they have not taken any action to address it. The waste hasn't even been acknowledged to exist. If it hasn't been acknowledged, how can it be fixed? So far all the blame seems to pointed to the taxpayer who is said to be making unreasonable demands. Council is getting any info they get from a group of people who have a vested interest in status quo. The infrastructure maintenance is what it is and if repairs and upgrades are necessary, so be it. The policing costs are what they are, but the hole is still in the bucket. There is a whole lot of housekeeping before a resident is asked for one cent. We need a bigger muni building to accommodate the increased demand. Demand by who? Not the residents. I am told of other towns that have a lot more amenities with less taxes. Magic? I don't think so.
Council seems to have forgotten what is the tail and who is the dog. Start with a list of ALL employees with their salary and job description beside each. Go through each one and ask, "Is this person necessary to meet the needs of the residents?" Don't identify the people by name, only a number. This will make the process less distasteful. Oh yeah, I almost forgot start at the top, not at the bottom. Go through your expenses as I sure some variable costs have morphed into fixed costs and once identified as variable, it can be asked: necessary or not. Let's seal these holes. If this council is incapable of making the necessary cuts, I don't think I will have much of a problem finding the necessary volunteers. This is not an austerity budget; it is a sealing-the-bucket budget.
The ONLY way I can evaluate the performance of our council is by our taxes. The fact that they have increased about 30 per cent in the last five years - about 20 per centof that increase happened with no major infrastructure spending or increased cost of policing. We had a mini-construction boom that put a whole lot of extra money into the muni coffers. That money has evaporated. There are a whole lot of senior bureaucrats who have nothing to do with effectively operating this town. Get rid of them, plug the hole. It is time council rolled up their sleeves and started looking after the interests of the residents and not be so worried about offending some senior bureaucrats. Council must tell these bureaucrats the game plan; don't ask them. Just who is the driving this bus?
Come on, get some kind of control of this monster.
Dave Colledge
Brackendale
