"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Sunday 5 August 2012

No Solution At All

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Granger Sighting In The Park":

Wonder why Mayor Dawe wasn't there to share the downpour. Do you suppose he feels responsible?

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A more pressing and intriguing question would be the role of Councillors Gaertner,  Ballard at the event. .
The town's efforts to fix the problem with the Culture Centre Board without actually fixing the problem, raises interesting angles by Councillorinvolvement  with organisations separate from their  elected authority.
The last administration created an autonomous body to govern  use of a public facility; Church Street School. 
An agreement was  concurrently signed to purchase non-specific services  provided in a valuable rent and maintenance free building with half a million dollars thrown into the bargain, to increase by 3% year by year. 
The current  administration thought the obvious problem could be resolved  by adding two Councillors to a continuing  autonomous board.
Tweren't never going to work 
The board is no less autonomous by adding two Councillors.
It  would  deprive  Council of two voting members when  financial matters of the board are on the table for discussion.
The Councillor  members would consequently have a conflict of interest  at  Council.. 
They would have  a  pecuniary interest whatever financial  decisions needed to be made.
So here we are, eighteen months after taking office, no closer to  solving the problem  of  continuing to ladle out  hundreds of thousands of dollars  to an outfit that calmly, deliberately and repeatedly thumb their noses at the elected  body and the community it represents.
We are further from  the obvious solution than we were. Tactics are delay. 
We  no longer know who's who among the players.
Already it was clear Councillors Gaertner,Gallo and Ballard were in cahoots with the board. They said so.
Then  came  the Abel- Pirri resolution , carefully constructed with the help of the town solicitor, seemingly supported by the rest of Council, until  the last  word of debate , then suddenly, inexplicably,  sabotaged by Humphryes, Thompson and Mayor Dawe. 
Perniciously, they aligned themselves with Gaertner, Gallo and Ballard. 
As clumsy a maneuver as I have ever seen, to land with a foot on each side of the controversy, to cover their political arses, with all interest of the municipality thrown to the wolves. . 
As  we await advice from a judge on the question, we now  know the town's interest did not come first with this administration , any more than it did with the last.
We have  alignment  between  the Culture Centre Board, the Aurora Historical Society  the Farmers' Market Executive  and  St Kitts Jazz  Bash outfit with  the town's  resources in the centre, continually ripe  for the fleecing . 
Hundreds of thousands of dollars  continually slip through our fingers  without  an iota of accountability.  
While the Mayor writes a column  for The Auroran assuring the community of fastidious efforts on behalf of Council to manage the town's  resources.
You can fool some of the people, some of the time. You  cant fool all of the people, all of the time. 
Lying with the enemy is never a useful strategy.
 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Delay was the idea and it has worked well for them. The funds continue to flow with no accountability.

Anonymous said...

Same cast of characters - they have become adept at what they do - and Aurora pays. Maybe I will go back to reading about the Jackson family where I don't have a horse in the race or tax-dollars on the line.

Anonymous said...

Mayor Dawe's articles in the Auroran are already right up there with a couple of other do-not-bother-to read
columns. Two others spring right to mind. Otherwise the paper is doing very nicely.

Anonymous said...

Councillor Humphries is a sponsor of the Jazz Fest. She has helped at the event since its creation before being elected. It's difficult to know whose views and which side she represents when she too straddles the fence. Councillor Ballard has shown his true manner many times when coming to the rescue of both the Cultural Centre and Jazz Fest. In my opinion, he is not on Council to represent the town.

Anonymous said...

I feel that Councillor Ballard represents Councillor Ballard in much the same way as the former Council operated. If you watch him, you can see that every vote is tilted in the direction where he feels lie money or votes. He reminds me of former councillor Wilson running around before the last election putting notes of voters' doors saying that he was the one who had solved the problem of a lack of bathroom facilities by a soccer field. Just to let them know he was on the job, so to speak. Problem was it was his Council who had decided to cut down on just such facilities. It wasn't my neighbourhood and I wondered if it would work for him. Seems the answer was an exit from his tilty chair at the table.