Money well spent. You be the judge

Every year we the taxpayers of the Crowsnest Pass spend a minimum of $20,000 to send our elected officials to conventions put on by various organizations that lobby on behalf of the municipalities.

Some people (usually politicians that want to justify going to these conventions) contend that they are an excellent opportunity to network with other municipalities, to attend various courses offered by the province and the host organizations and to have an opportunity to meet with ministers and other various government officials.

Having attended a couple of conventions during my two terms on council, I determined and that is why I stopped going to them that they are a waste of taxpayers money. We should call a spade a spade, they are a perk for politicians.

You have approximately 450 municipalities in this province who will send somewhere between 2-3000 politicians to these events at an average cost of $600 plus per day.

Our municipality similar to many others meets and networks with their neighbor municipalities on a regular basis, they do not need to go to Edmonton or Calgary to do that.

The various courses and information that are offered at these functions could easily in this day and age of the internet be provided to interested elected officials in seconds.

The last justification made is the opportunity to meet with ministers, well let me tell you what that is like. If your lucky you will get a half a hour with a minister, you will be ushered into a room where the minister and a couple of his assistants will shake your hands, smile at you and listen very intently to your concerns. Then they will shake your hands again kick you out of the room and march in the next group then repeat that process 15-20 times.

In six years of being on council I can not remember one thing that this municipality gained by attending the various conventions.  

What as it cost us to send our elected officials to these conventions over the last three years?

Mayor Decoux $14,312

Councilors

Gallant $11,593

Sage $14,672

Gail $12,671

Londsbury $3654

Mitchell $6652

Saindon $2328

Total $65,882

Now I know some people will argue that is an insignificant amount in the grand scheme of running a municipality. This is a prime example of what is wrong with big government today that attitude. Every politician and I know they all will at least until October 21^st must understand that they are spending the taxpayers dollars. This may only be a $66,000 issue, but where is the line on how much taxpayers dollars is it all right to waste?  

Looking forward to my readers comments.   

Do you really believe or are we making excuses?

We are now well past the two-thirds point of this council term. A strange thing started to happen during the petition process and now I am hearing it more around town, and I expect it will happen more and more as we get closer to the next election.

I do not know if people just want to believe this or maybe there really is something to it.

Getting to my point during the petition process, I heard from people we have spoke to a “councilor” or knows somebody that has spoken to a “councilor” who does not agree with council’s direction on some of the issues. I see and hear  comments on blogs and around town about us having some good people on council who have lived here all their life’s who got caught up in some bad decisions but just don’t know how to get out.

Well maybe there is something to that, or maybe people just want to believe or they are making excuses.

What can a councilor do if he does not agree with the position the council has taken on an issue? Lots.

First, when the issue comes up on the agenda he needs to speak to it, to make arguments against the issue, to disagree with administration or the rest of council to vote against the item.

If it is an issue that has been gone through all ready or an issue that is being brought up in the public forum repeatedly. There is no reason that a councilor cannot add that item to the next agenda, raise it again, and express either his or the public’s concerns.

If a councilor feels that, the Mayor is jamming an issue through or not giving council enough time to deal with an issue. Councilors have the authority to challenge the Chair, it is very simple (I did it a number of times during my two terms on council) you make a motion to challenge the chair the councilor that made the motion then gets to argue his point, the Mayor gets to respond. Which is then followed by a vote amongst council where a simple majority can over ride the Mayor’s position on that item. No, I am not talking about launching a coup here or getting rude, ignorant, or disrespectful of the process, I am talking about a simple procedure that allows a member of council to stand up and say I do not agree with the ways things are being done here.  

With the present council it is more that likely that any of the steps above would probably fail, but that’s ok at the minimum it would send a message to the public that there is some dissent on council that there are some councilors that don’t agree with the issues and directions that this council has taken. It is strange that at all levels of government except municipal you have opposition.

Do I think any of this will happen? No, not really with the possible exception of a few months before the next election somebody may wish to prove to the public (voters) that they are their own man.