And so the story goes

 

 

As the countdown becomes closer to the deadline of October 25th we are faced with several questions that must be addressed when placing ones vote.  Has your current council performed adequately, have they represented the ward properly, have they stayed the course of their promises.  This upcoming election sees the Board of Control leaving and councillors taking on new responsibilities in regards to full city issues.  As there will now be an executive committee in regards to the budget, not only does your councillor have to have a good grasp on the issues facing the wards, but, they must also have a good grasp on whole city issues.  As of late they have let slide the task force deadline in regards to council pay raises, even though the task force was given a deadline in June when the task force was formed.  Again this is the way council works, in regards to a major issue they will sooner allow deadlines to slide so as to not facing any bad press before an election.  In ward 6 we are facing several issues:  traffic problems, student integration, taxes, environmental and infrastructure.  In regards to the taxation problem we are told that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a 0% property tax freeze.  Yet, with the cities current 100k club membership we are footing the bill of over $31 million dollars a year in salary and benefits to the current 269 members.  We are told that a 0% tax freeze will GUT our essential services.  GUT?  In order to have a 0% property tax freeze we need to find approx $12 million dollars in savings.  As we are paying $31 million in salary to those 269 members have we seen a gutting of our essential services?  No, this is nothing more than council members saying don’t look over here focus on the mistruth I’m telling you.  This is a common practice of our current members of council they use sleight of hand tricks best suited for a Las Vegas strip magician.

We are a student town, like it or not there are over 25 thousand students in this city at any given time.  This amounts to millions of dollars in revenue to our fair city.  How do we treat this type of income?  By white washing most students in the media and the horseshoe.  By portraying them as partying drunkards who do nothing more than destroy neighbourhoods.  Bylaw after Bylaw are being enacted in order to curtail their activities, living arrangements, parking and livelihoods.  Again here comes the sleight of hand…..Town and Gown committee.  The city councils way of saying we respect our students.

We are told that our city is an age friendly city.  Yet, as our population ages we are doing very little to bring in the next generation.  Be it with viable full time employment opportunities, improving small business practices, business taxation, city taxation, proper transit systems.  The list goes on.  We can not just be a ‘age friendly’ city if we just allow the city population to stagnate.  We need to make sure that 10 years, 20 years from now we are still ‘age friendly’ for the next generation and the generation after.  Too long has council suffered from short sightedness in regards to the programs it implements.

On October 25th make sure you don’t fall for another sleight of hand trick.  Make sure you realize the issues and what your current elected official has done and what they are promising to do.  Remember you can always lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Vote Bob Howard and let’s get back to work.