Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Trying to deflect attention away from the real issues.


I know some people are looking for me to get into a debate about how many administrators this council let go versus the last council. Or how many union jobs disappeared in the last three years versus the previous three plus the current status of labour relations between CUPE and the municipality all of those will be answered in due time. 

Now is the time to deal with the issues at hand, the Fire Master Plan and the release of a statement from a standing member of council that due process is not being followed,  that the Mayor and CAO are in complete control of the agenda, and that at least one councilor is very frustrated. 

Politics is all about timing and providing an article that says don't judge us on what we have done judge us on what we have done compared to other councils creates many questions. Yes your right previous councils were not perfect, but when I left council any councilor could add any issue they wished to the agenda. As long as it was supplied to administration the Wednesday prior to the meeting it was added to the agenda debated and voted on.   

The Fire Master Plan is up for vote tonight if you want to call your councilors it's not to late the numbers are listed below, which ever side of the issue you stand on here is your chance to speak your piece.



Bruce Decoux 562 7743
Larry Mitchell 562 8537
Jerry Londsbury 562 2405
Seigbert Gail 564 4465
Brian Gallant 562 7963
Emile Saindon 753 2403
Andrew Saje 563 8584

Comment posted by one of my readers that really says it all:

The real question raised by Mr. Andrew Saje is whether our councillors get proper presentations of differing opinions when they are faced with serious and important decisions. One of the most important and expensive decisions, which will have far reaching consequences, is the recent restructuring of the fire department. Initially, our council hired a consultant to work with our separate fire departments to bring about an amalgamation that was effective and cost efficient. Was a plan prepared and was this plan presented to our council as a whole and then voted down. Or, as it now appears, was this plan stopped at the two person “agenda committee.”? For all we know this plan was discussed at council and voted down by our duly elected councillors - or it was not. In politics, if things do not APPEAR right, questions are always raised. Taxpayers have a right to know if there was an alternative plan, or the initial spending on the first fire consultant did not fit with some other plans?


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty hard to be critical of other councils until you have your own back yard cleaned up.

Anonymous said...

The real question raised by Mr. Andrew Saje is whether our councillors get proper presentations of differing opinions when they are faced with serious and important decisions. One of the most important and expensive decisions, which will have far reaching consequences, is the recent restructuring of the fire department. Initially, our council hired a consultant to work with our separate fire departments to bring about an amalgamation that was effective and cost efficient. Was a plan prepared and was this plan presented to our council as a whole and then voted down. Or, as it now appears, was this plan stopped at the two person “agenda committee.”? For all we know this plan was discussed at council and voted down by our duly elected councillors - or it was not. In politics, if things do not APPEAR right, questions are always raised. Taxpayers have a right to know if there was an alternative plan, or the initial spending on the first fire consultant did not fit with some other plans?

Anonymous said...

So are people now arguing that you should not have a problem with me being an incompetent employee. Because the employee that was here prior to me was more incompetent?

Scott

Anonymous said...

Good one Scott!

Anonymous said...

Ha ha, only at at government office.

Incompetent and more incompetent. I have had my laugh for the day.

Anonymous said...

"The real question raised by Mr. Andrew Saje is whether our councillors get proper presentations of differing opinions when they are faced with serious and important decisions."

The real question to me is, why should we even be asking this if we have an "open and transparent" system? The public should have access to all the information councillors have.

There are legitimate reasons for confidentiality such as "personal information, trade secrets, commercial, financial, labour relations, scientific or technical information of a third party" (quoted from FOIP) but I don't think any of these kinds of information would be a big part of the decision making process.

We have a regime that is obsessively secretive and a mayor who just loves to make grand revelations for self glorification and political advantage.

Anonymous said...

3:15, if there was proper governance in place; the above question would have been redundant. However, with the two person “gate keeping” committee, there is at least an appearance that contrary opinions get filtered out before they reach the council table. In a big city there may be administrative committees that filter the agenda, but you can bet that the Mayor in not part of that filtering when the rest of the council is excluded from this process. You can’t have it both ways. It appears, at least, that something is very wrong here.