Take the time to read it if you can, looking forward to my reader's comments. Remember I will not censor any comments has long as they are not personnel or slanderous.
http://briangallant.ca/wordpress/2012/11/03/the-other-side-of-the-petition/
Dean's Comments
First of all his comments regarding people/businesses being
intimidated or mislead. If that is true a simple call to municipal affairs from
enough people will get that departments attention, there is a toll free number
in the phone book and your call is confidential.
Mislead, there are 2500 people on that petition in less than
three weeks. The group that went around in late 2008 had 1201 names. Does he
really believe that an additional 1300 people can be "misled" maybe
he is thinking we have a lot of dumb people here (I don't think so).
Mr. Gallant made the following comment: "Has anyone else out there realized that
there was a petition against council, which ended in a consultant hired by
council to conduct an inquiry, almost exactly three years ago?"
This was not true, when the budget process began in October
of 2008 a number of councilors requested that a corporate review take place.
The majority recognized we had problems in the municipality, and that we needed
an unbiased source to help us identify those problems.
September of 2008 the plebiscite on the Crowsnest Centre
took place. Obviously, there were some people that disagreed with that decision
and the group "Citizens to save the Crowsnest
Pass May 5,
2009 council meeting stating that the petition was invalid.
The minister stated the following: "However, I suggest that the
municipality consider engaging a third party to conduct a review of the
administrative and governance processes in place. The review presents an
opportunity to evaluate the municipality's strengths and identify potentials
for improvement."
At that point, the motion was made to approach George Cuff
to conduct a corporate review.
The whole issue of a corporate review was a political battle
within the council of the day, the minister's comments only reconfirmed the
position the majority of council had taken seven months prior to the petition
failing and three months prior to it even beginning. Prior to the petition even
being conceived the majority of council had publicly taken a position that a
corporate review was necessary and would have happened even without a petition.
Therefore, to try to tie the two together is "misleading"
Then he states the following: "I will also say that I
have received dozens and dozens of phone calls, emails, and face-to-face
endorsements from residents that council should stick to its path because we
are doing the right thing"
That sounds like the "silent majority thing
again".
Picture this Calgary has roughly 900,000 eligible voters,
what do you think the council in Calgary would say if a citizens group went out
and signed up 475,000 names on a petition in less than three weeks. "The
silent majority support us"?
He also states the following:
"Other residents told me that the petitioners said, “We
need to get rid of all these newcomers” because it’s obviously the “newcomers”
that are to blame for everything, not 30+ years of poor management".
First, you want to talk about a divisive comment, I have sat
at ratepayers meeting and have seen people that have been here all their lives
and other that have only been here for a few years. Same with the people going
around with petitions.
This 30+ years of poor management crap is getting on my
nerves, no question there has been some councils and administrations that have
been stronger and done a better job than others do. Do I think there has been
30+ years of poor management? No
21 comments:
I think it is an awesome article. And I think he is right on the money. People around here need to stop letting people push them around. Buoycot your business if you don't sign a petition. Unbelievable. Before you know it we will be having "High Noon" on the main street.
No, let's not hear both sides.
And that people, sums up in a nutshell what the people are like. If you don't like it, pretend it does not exist.
Dean does not need to post anything; he is supplying the information. Sometimes you just need to listenn to people.
The Rant from Gallant
He tries to make it sound like the majority of the people who signed the petition were bullied into it.I doubt this very much.
He blames the ratepayers for not wanting to work with council. It is a 2 way street and council does not work with anyone.
He talks about the peace officers almost paying for themselves already, but he does not mention that they are not doing the job of enforcing our bylaws to clean up our community as we were told(to busy writing speeding tickets).
He talks about the fire cheif and saving money in the future. Really Brian, does anyone think in the future our fire services will be cheaper?
What he does not talk about are budgets increasing by about 5%/year compounded.
He fails to mention all of the new employees we have.
He does not mention our "unprofessional fireman" or how the removal of the fireworks was handled in such a fine matter (press release to try and make the fireman look bad).
He does not mention that RRd was a total flop.
He does not speak of the swimming pool board being terminated.
He does not speak of the lack of volunteers for all of the boards.
He does not speak of the"defering of thunder"(a pure lie from council)
He does tell us all though that they will continue to do as they please.I think he has basically flipped us all the bird.
The rumour on the street was that none of this council will be running in the next election. I think Mr Gallant just started his re-election campaign. Good Luck
Marty
Dean
After what happened to our volunteers I could care less what any member of this council has to say. I would not vote for them if they walked on water.
Just my opinion but that is what counts to me.
Signed
Part of the silent majority
Well at least we know where he stands on the issues, all the other councillors are not saying much.
Two of these bullies came to my door. I would say the youngest one was 78. I asked questions, after three trips back to her car to get the various information. She told me that she would whack me over the head with her walker if she had to go back one more time.
I know I am being sarcastic. But folks lets get real.
Scott
The Crowsnest Pass frustration is based on the fact that there is such high expectations for this place. Quite honestly, it should not be hard to exceed them. A rocky mountain town, in Alberta with no National Park in sight to shackle development (not that there is anything wrong with National Parks) This concept is not a hard sell.
So why haven't things worked out?? Is it the mystical power of the chinook wind?? Well, maybe a little...but I lean more towards countless years of narrow thinking, short-sightedness by some of those in charge and by some of those who live here. Unfortunately for those in charge, they take the blame and hence, 30 years of bad management.
Folks, let's get real. 2500 resident signed the petition in record time. To insinuate that people who signed were not smart enough to know what they are doing is exactly how our council treated our community from day one. 30 years of mismanagement by the local dummies has to be corrected by the magnificent seven. They will do most of the new "smart managmemtt" in camera because the locals will not understand all the difficult decisions that have to be made. Unbelievable attitude from elected officials of a small community. The only efficiency we will see will be a more efficient way to spend more money. The arrogance has no limit.
Anon 3:29 wrote:
"A rocky mountain town, in Alberta with no National Park in sight to shackle development (not that there is anything wrong with National Parks) This concept is not a hard sell."
To people who like scenery and natural surroundings, but are anti-environment and favour industrial development.
Is it CNP politically correct to say that?
whether it is politically correct to say so or not is irrelevant because you don't have to say it. it's just fact. banff has more rules than "not banff". (ex: you can't own a house in banff unless you have a full time job in banff...and you can subsitute waterton and jasper in with there own thing as well)
building a community in the mountains does not make a anyone "anti-environemnt". is there any reason that heavy industry has to go along with it? there are such industries, like tech/computer companies, enviro-tourism, media, etc that don't involve pumping dirt into the air. i think you'd have a better argument that someone living in a calgary suburb has a greater environmental impact than almost anyone else.
It appears Brian Gallant is only accepting favourable comments on his site. I offered my opinion on his take of the petition, unfortunately he would not accept my thoughts--so here it is as close as i remember--- There is some truth in your article but only to the point that the petition is being carried out by the same group of people as last time. Then i did not support the petition this time i do.This council should be ashamed of themselves for the classless way they have handled the firemen and volunteer boards. There was some initial confusion about the wording of the petition but Bill made it very clear from the first meeting in Hillcrest that it was to have municipal affairs look into things not to ask for the removal of council. Had they asked for your removal they would have gotten even more signatures. I do not know what the result of this is going to be and it may take another year but you guys are done!!!!!!!!!
Yes seems Mr Gallant is only posting positive comments to his bog..I wrote the following message to him in response to his comments on how they plan to move forward with the River Run situation.
"don’t forget the river run investors Brian..the municipality may have lost an empty field, nut the victims lost everything (as per Madoff/Earle Jones victims)….afterall, it was your (past ) Mayor Irwin and councellor Tage who got on video and enticed innocent people to buy into the scam and who worked directly for Bridgecreek…lawyers are waiting by the sidelines, along with many pi$$ed off investors!!"
Copied below from Gallant's response to Peter Rosner on his blog. Unbelivable
With your comments about how we treated the firemen, let me remind you of a few facts. One individual was let go. I won’t get into the reasons but our management felt it was warranted so I back them in that decision. The others who left did so of their own accord. They chose to turn in their pages – nobody forced them. Nobody wanted to see it work out this way. Trust me, this situation is not something I would wish on anyone. I am sorry if they were surprised when the Protective and Community Services department accepted their resignations. In regards to the fireworks stored in the fire hall, they had to be removed because they were stored illegally. It was handled in a very discrete manner. If the Municipality wanted to make a big deal about it, things could have been a lot worse but the decision by administration was to handle it as discretely as possible. The fact is that a federal inspector did not come here to give a failing inspection report and order the fireworks removed by the RCMP just for fun. He did this because the storage was illegal. We are ethically bound to report illegal activities.
How do you translate malarkey?
It took a bit but i finally flushed em out. And he thinks we are just dumb hillbillies dont know whats good for us
Maybe he really doesn't know?
I thought his article was very good. The changes that council have made over past couple years have been very positive for the community. Change is hard but needed.
He means well, but he is not the first public official who was kept in the dark.
I asked Brian:
How would a person find this "line item" document? A search of the website turns up dozens of references to "triennial budget", but all I can see is the "Information" document with the pie-charts.
He did not post my question, but replied by email:
"Like most towns and cities, we do not put the full budget on the website because it is simply too large. I guess you will have to ask for it if you really need to see the information."
My reply:
"simply too large"?
For example, the PDF version of the MGA has 494 pages but is only 2.2 Mb, a few seconds download.
There are files over 30 Mb on the website (maps).
Home computer hard drives hold about 1,000,000 Mb and cost only $100.
Positive to the community? Funny.
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