Don't blame the volunteers Cherish them.

Over the last few years we have all read numerous articles or heard comments about the decline in the number of people willing to step forward and volunteer their time for community events and organizations.
The reasons why are numerous and could be debated all day long.
One thing I don't like is some of the comments made about volunteers with the Rum Runner Days weekend event coming up.
Which ever side of the debate you sit on regarding the cancellation of the Thunder in the Valley don't blame the volunteers, blame the politicians, blame the administrators. Those are all people that stand for office and know that pissing people off comes with the territory, the administrators get paid big dollars to handle the crap that comes with their job.
But volunteers they don't get to make the decisions, they don't get paid to handle the crap. Maybe if we all cherished our volunteers a little more we would have more people willing to help this community.

So save your anger, your displeasure for the decision makers not the volunteers.

Interesting story regarding Freebies for politicians

Well the honeymoon period for Mayor Nenshi appears to be taking a break in Calgary.
Today's Calgary Sun goes after him because he took a flight to Toronto ($721.51) paid for by a company called Kasian Architecture, who just happens to do business with the city of Calgary.
Maybe just an error in judgement, due to lack of experience.

Or maybe his administration will provide the excuse we received here when our Mayor and Director of Public Works were alleged to have attended a Flames game as the guest of a firm that does tons of work for our municipality.
"It was an opportunity to take advantage of hours of "free" time of people that are very expert in the infrastructure issues facing the Crowsnest Pass"

Budget continues in the Crowsnest Pass? When?

Checked out the Municipal web site today, looking at the agenda for the G+P meeting on Jan 11, I was surprised that there was no mention of the 2011 Budget.

I'm sure a lot of taxpayers are waiting anxiously to see what there tax bills will look like.

Interesting process going on in the city of Toronto right now. They similar to us have a new Mayor and council, who took the approach during their election campaign that they will do things differently that they will not increase taxes, that they will find the "inefficiencies" within the system. Sounds familiar doesn't it? any way the Council directed all of the department heads to reduce their budgets by 5%.
Today the Mayor announced due to the fact that two city managers are resisting that direction, that if they can not do the job, they will be replaced by people that can.

If you really want to find the inefficiencies, Council won't do that. Individual councilors only see the obvious issues that the vast majority of taxpayers already know. (Its not a huge revelation that we spend a lot of money each year on spring cleanup).

If you really want to see the inefficiencies cleaned up then the role council should fill is having the guts to direct administration. Management put in the right position with clear direction and support from council, and a council willing to deal with the reaction of vocal interest groups will find places where the municipality could be more efficient.