Councillor Gallant's response to the Ratepayers Petition

On Councillors Gallant's Blog is his opinion regarding the Ratepayers Petition

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

 A couple of points that come to mind after a quick review of Councilor Gallant'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" formed which held some meeting and put out press releases and started a petition. The one mentioned previously that gained 1201 signatures. Now when council received the letter from Municipal affairs at the 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

The other side of the Issue in the Crowsnest Pass

John Prince posted on the other side of the issue this morning.

http://blog.johnprince.ca/2012/10/the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-cnp-fire.html


I would advise everybody to read this post, the most important part about Democracy is allowing everybody the right to their opinion. If you do or don't agree that's fine it's another part of the process we call Freedom.

What was your impression of Rum Runner Days

Looking for feedback, enjoy it? hate it? let me know, was it worth the money spent? what were the best events?

Latest Poll Results "Transparency your opinion"

The latest question was: 

Do you feel that the municipalities business is being conducted in a transparent manner?

Out of 39 votes 29 or 74% said no. 10 votes or 26% said yes.
Take it for what its worth, but that's a fairly one sided vote.


My next question involves the relationship between this council and the media, thinking back to my last term on council, I certainly felt that the last council was followed much closely scrutinized than this council by the media. I feel that some parts of the  media were very biased to some of the previous council. In almost a year I have not read one negative comment, article or editorial about this council.

Maybe these guys are doing everything right? Any way it will be interesting to see if how my readers agree or not.

Dean's Rules

The primary purpose of this blog is to discuss politics in the Crowsnest Pass, other issues are welcome also. You have the option of providing your name, you can remain anonymous if you wish. This blog is not about the individuals it is about the issues and the debate that follows. I welcome different opinions to mine if you disagree with my opinion then join the debate explain why. I am fine with that if you never choice to agree with me again in your life that is called Democracy.



What I will not welcome is personnel attacks, so if you choose to come on here and attack Joe Blow because he is not working, or he is different to you I will not publish that comment. Therefore,  when you are writing your comments and I know some people spend a lot of time, if you take three seconds at the end to call somebody an idiot your time will be wasted and your opinion on that issue will not be heard.



Thank you Dean

Its amazing how one word can change the way people view an issue.

On March 8, the Herald asked the following question:

“Do you support the municipality launching a shuttle bus service to transport Crowsnest Pass residents to indoor pool facilities in neighboring communities?”

The results out of 61 people that voted 49% said Yes, 44% said No and 7% were undecided.

Shortly after the Promoter ran a very similar question except they added that one little word “PAY” would you pay for that same shuttle?

The results were out of 51 people that voted 16% said Yes, 73% said No and 11% were undecided.

It really is amazing out that one-word “PAY” changes everything.

Think about it folks, even if they come up with corporate sponsors to cover the shuttle up front how long do you think that will last, within a year the taxpayers will be paying for a service that only a very small portion of the public will use.

The message that I heard from this poll and around town is we the taxpayers of the Crowsnest Pass do not want to pay for this service.

It's only garbage, Spring Cleanup in the Crowsnest Pass

Well here, we go again the old issue of Spring Cleanup.

This annual ritual (some years bi annual) where we take our municipal workforce away from jobs that they should be doing and turn them into garbage men (nothing derogatory towards garbage men) for anywhere from two to six months.

Over the last seven years this absolute waste of time as cost the taxpayers anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000 per year in total somewhere around $2 million.

Wow, we could have put in place three new graders, three new loaders and probably a couple of brand new trucks without incurring one dollar of debt in that timeframe.

So new council made up of mostly people that pledged to go after the inefficiencies within the municipality to keep the cost of taxes down takes another look at this issue.

Lo and behold, they have come up with a new plan they are going to remain being one of the few communities in the province that still does this silliness but they are going to do it differently.

We the taxpayers are going to be supplied with a list of items that are eligible to be removed by our public works employees, (temporary garbage men). For two weeks, the taxpayers will have the opportunity to call the municipality to notify them of the need to have their garbage picked up.
Then the municipal employees will come around and pick them up. The dollars allowed in the budget for this Myron Thompson stated $10,000 just for labour.
My response to that is “dream on” at our labour rates that works out to a little under 300 hours of labour over a one month period that “two” employees assigned to this.

Think about a few things:

How hard is it going to be to call the municipal office those two weeks?
We have over 3200 residences in the Crowsnest Pass imagine if only half of them call for a pick up, the logistic nightmare of coordinating that exercise?.

If house number one and four on a block calls to schedule a pick up, number three sees his neighbors putting out material so he just goes ahead and puts his out will the municipal employees just drive by because he did not schedule?

Councilor Saindon stated I believe correctly that this cleanup will cost just as much as the old one. He as also stated on his blog that he is clearly opposed to this, I hope he can convince his colleagues, it is time for the Crowsnest Pass to recognize as so many other communities have this is not a luxury we can afford.

Its time to end the debate on Spring Cleanup.

NOTE: Surprising results on my poll regarding the new cleanup only 2 voters (5%) felt the new idea was good, 11 voters (30%) felt the municipality should stick with the old cleanup. Lastly 23 voters (63%) felt that the municipality doing cleanups should just end.