Not an Oshawa Politician to be found!

As reported in the post below, Mayor Gray and Councillors April Cullen, Tito Dante Marimpietri, Nester Pidwerbecki, Joe Kolodzie and Robert Lutczyk were all in Calgary attending the annual conference of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities recently. I happened to be in Calgary at the same time and so thought I'd say hello to some of those attending.

I checked McDonald's at lunch time...no Oshawa politicians there. I checked Wendy's...no Oshawa politicians there. I checked Burger King...no Oshawa politicians there. Getting frustrated, I checked Swiss Chalet but no Oshawa politicians there. Even though there were lots of municipal politicians from across the country hanging out on 8th Avenue (the Downtown Walking Mall and center location for the conference) I just couldn't find our politicians anywhere.

I knew they'd love to see me to chat and say hello...so I continued looking.

I stayed at the Econo Lodge in the Motel Village of Calgary and didn't see any of our politicians there or indeed in the other dozen or so motels on the strip. This would have been a great location because the Banff Trail Station for the Calgary Light Rail Transit System is right there and stops at the back door of the conference center hotel.

Not finding our politicians anywhere, I checked the posh Hyatt Regency Downtown which was the central conference location but didn't see any politicians in the posh lobby of this hotel where the rooms ranged from $309 to $1500 (plux tax) per night.

If our politicians stayed at this "regal" hotel, I know they would have doubled up on these rooms to save our precious tax dollars for valuable Oshawa projects.

They wouldn't take advantage of bellying up to the trough and ordering from the right hand (price) column in restaurants and hotels would they?....Not our politicians who have recently voted to implement the general vote so that they can guarantee their council seats. They wouldn't want to enjoy millionaire-type hospitality at our expense, would they?

While I couldn't find any of our politicians, I doubt whether they would be spending their time with city charge cards in the fancy restaurants or inebriating in an Oshawa hospitality suite sharing the fruits of our tax dollars with politicians across the country.

Hopefully none of our politicians took the liberty of using those city charge cards to rent a car for the hour or so drive to feast at Banff or Lake Louise at our expense...and more importantly by so doing missing valuable conference sessions.

After all, they had a big fight to keep our tax increase this year at JUST 3.9%. So obviously they are VERY CONCERNED about any frivolous spending.

Maybe I'll try to get the Oshawa politicians expense records for this conference just to prove to you, loyal reader, how frugal and responsible our politicians are with our hard earned tax dollars.

I am also anxious to read the "conference reports" submitted from our politicians so that they can share all they learned with the public and with the five councillors who did not attend this conference. I expect that these reports will be tabled at the next council meeting.

And by the way, I would assume our politicians flew economy rather than business class, wouldn't you?