"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

Friday 10 April 2015

IS THIS SOMETHING?

A thread has spun its length when comments are sufficiently convoluted as to be unintelligible. 

Mike Duffy's trial is interesting. Intimate personal details  from a daily journal could be left out but that's not going to happen. The Media frenzy has begun. 

Yesterday squishy rules for senate expenses were exposed.
PMO demands on a senator for party political events is unlikely to confound the enemy but public reaction to the underbelly of politics is never a given. 

 I have discovered a similar obscurity in Regional  rules on
payments to Councillors.

Something on Wikipedia caught my attention months ago. 

Former Georgina Mayor ,chair of South Lake Simcoe Conservation Authority, was charged by the Authority  
for illegal dumping. Media noted SLSCA suspended the Chair from his position and  remuneration.

A couple of things about the story resonated.

Although elected  by authority members to the chair, Grossi would have been appointed to the Authority  by the Region. SLSCA  members would not therefore have authority to suspend.

The second  dingdong related to remuneration. 

Salaries of Regional Councillors cover responsibilities assigned. No additional payments are due for service on

various Regional Boards and Commissions. 

I called SLSCA  for clarification. Sure enough,regional members are being paid $60. per diem for meetings. An annual honorarium of $10,000. Is paid to the chair. Conference allowance and mileage expenses  are also paid.

Members  participating in meetings by telephone conference
are paid half the per diem rate.

No provision is made  in the Municipal Act for telephone conferencing. 

I called the Region to discover .when or if the policy to prevent  double-dipping had  been reversed.


The search was lengthy. My experience was forty-three years past.

No policy was discovered . A resolution attached to a particular appointment noted no remuneration to be paid. 

York  Police Services Board has  regional representation. A Regional rep  has been Chair since early nineteen nineties. Police board members are not paid. Regional salaries are obviously. deemed to cover the service. 

In the last term,former Vaughan Regional Councillor Deb Shulte did not accept pay from Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. 

York Rehion requires both Conservation Authorities to submit statements showing members being paid and how much.

Statements  are attached to the Regional Report  on Members salaries and expenses.

Like revealing double-dipping and makes double-dipping O.K.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Duffy thing is going to be great entertainment despite the fact that we end up paying for the process. He is going to unload everything.

Anonymous said...

Brazeau is there taking notes. Some of the charges against him are similar. It does appear that they both got their marching orders from the PMO.

Anonymous said...

I doubt of we are going to be allowed to discuss this without being accused of being Liberal or Conservative and getting into tussles about which party is worse.
Let me start - I did not vote for either Brown or Ballard in the last elections. I think both groups are bad for Ontario now.

Anonymous said...

Mayors get onto a number of boards. I do not know if ones like the hospital board are paying positions but suspect that some make out very nicely just charging mileage to several in a short period. Maybe the same mileage ?

Anonymous said...

Given the results of the Vaughan IC report on Regional Councillor DeBiase, do people still think that ICs are not required?

He was slimy from the get go years ago and he still is. Now it's proven.