VOTESVote To EliminateSelf-Serving Politicians: Here You Go Oshawa…Here’s Your General Vote Ballot

VOTES chooses Political Campaign Theme

Oshawa VOTES political party has declared its intention to run a slate of candidates to contest the next municipal election. We have declared
"WE PROMISE" as our campaign theme. Our website will be www.WePromise.ca

While the party will have a wide-ranging platform, it's first order of business will be in returning ward voting to Oshawa.

Another major goal will be in defeating Mayor Gray and Councillors Pidwerbecki, Parkes, Marimpietri, Henry, Kolodzie, and Sholdra all of whom voted to rob you of your local ward representatives by replacing ward voting with the less accountable and less democratic
"General Vote". They wanted a "self-serving" electoral system that served them rather than the people of Oshawa.

In addition to a platform of "positives" our team will develop, we will be reminding the public of the growing collection of "negatives" identified below under the item--Oshawa City Council
"Hall of Shame". The Oshawa public, however, is invited to contact us to suggest additional isses you think we should consider.

Fortunately the general vote will make the task easier for the VOTES party as our team will be able to concentrate on one city-wide campaign rather than on seven ward campaigns.

This site is now accessible from www.wepromise, www.timetoupgrade.ca, www.oshawavotes.ca , www.oshawaspeaks.ca, www.oshawavotes.com, and www.oshawaspeaks.com

TOP TEN QUOTES BY CITY POLITICIANS

1. "The city had no responsibility to inform the public about the referendum question"--Mayor John Gray (City Council Mtg., April 10, 2007)

2. "I've never heard of a government informing people about a plebiscite question."--Councillor Joe Kolodzie (City Council Mtg., April 10, 2007)

3. "Our half million dollar loss at the GM Center actually puts us $700,000 above the $1.2 million loss at the Civic."--Mayor John Gray's "spin" on first year taxpayer losses of new GM Place (December 07 interview with CHEX TV's Dan Carter's "First Take LIVE) overlooking borrowing costs for GM Center which didn't exist for the Civic.

4. FULL LIST UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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MEDIA COVERAGE OF WARD/GENERAL VOTE ISSUE

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Here You Go Oshawa…Here’s Your General Vote Ballot

This is what your ballot would look like if the recent municipal elections had been held under the general vote and you were a public school supporter. It is important that you are aware of what each of these candidates stand for in order to make INFORMED CHOICES for good government in Oshawa. GOOD LUCK—and good luck to Oshawa because your choices will determine Oshawa’s future.

FOR MAYOR---SELECT ONE

John GRAY

Dawn TURNER

Alexander William KEMP

FOR LOCAL COUNCIL ONLY---SELECT UP TO THREE

Doug BAIN

John C. BURNS

Dave CHYZNAK

Tim DOBSON

Robert GOHEEN

Doug HAWKINS

Michael KETTELA

Kyle NICHOLSON

Tito-Dante MARIEMPIETRI

Johnny MILOSH

Louise V. PARKES

Maryanne SHOULDRA

Dave THOMPSON

FOR LOCAL AND REGIONAL COUNCIL---SELECT UP TO SEVEN

Pauline BEAL

Cathy CLARKE

April CULLEN

Mary Jo CUNHA

John HENRY

Steven GAMSBY

Lanny JOSEPH

Joseph KOLODZIE

Robert LUTCZYK

LynneMarie McCARTHY

John NEAL

Brian NICHOLSON

Mike NICHOLSON

Nestor PIDWERBECKI

David PURDY

Doug ROSS

John RZESNUT

Bruce SMITH

Murray STRONG

Doug TERWILLEGAR

Gord VICKERS

Yoge PATEL

TRUSTEE, DURHAM REGION SCHOOL BOARD---SELECT UP TO THREE

Michael BARRETT

David C. CONWAY

Margo E. HAWKINS

Kathleen Ann HOPPER

Larry JACULA

Julia McCREA

Ken PARKS

Bill PATTERSON

Susan SHETLER

Pamela VERHAGEN

Does this make sense to you? We have to turn around Council’s ludicrous move to implement a general vote….just to insure their lifetime seats on council. That is the only reason why this move is being put forward. Voters are more likely to select names they've heard of, the members of council, whose names are regularly in the press. That is why politicians will argue, backbite, bitch, and bicker to get the press to "grow" their name recognition. As every council member is a competitor for votes under the "at-large" general vote, they will be reluctant to support council peers with good ideas that is likely to provide them press. The result? Council stagnates into a "do-nothing" government as happened under Oshawa's past with the General Vote prior to 1985. We can't let Council turn back the hands of time to the devastation of a General Vote.

If you demand a stop to this council "self-serving" nonsense, then write the mayor and council and tell them so. The link is on the right sidebar and any letter addressed to the mayor and council has to be accepted by council and appears in the official minutes of Oshawa City Council. Letters to individual members are unofficial and can be disposed of with no record of your concern.

We need a system that serves the city and its people, not the politicians!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: And, to think....

People were ALREADY complaining this past election about the amount of signs and campaign liturature that came around during the elections...

Now, let's look at the averages. From using an average of 3 regional candidates per ward (22 in total) and 5 local candidates per ward. Instead of recieving propaganda from the 3 mayoral candidates, 3 Regional candidates, and 5 Local Candidates, we will NOW recieve material from the 3 Mayoral Candidates, as well as ALL FOURTEEN Local Candidates, and ALL TWENTY-TWO, yes, that's right, ALL TWENTY-TWO Regional Candidates!

So, that means that you, the people of Oshawa, will have to make your choices, based on seeing a few flyers from THIRTY-NINE DIFFERENT CANDIDATES IN THE ELECTION!!!

Why is it that there are some out there that ACTUALLY belive this is better? Ironically enough, their reasons are simple and selfish.

They know that there are certain entrenched politicians in this city, that THEY HAVE A PERSONAL AGENDA AGAINST.

Now, they choose to ignore the fact that they cannot vote for nor against that person or persons, because they do not live in the wards in question, so they think the only way to get these people out is to make them run city wide, instead of having them focus on wards.

What they FAIL TO REALIZE (shockingly), is that the reasons that they dislike these people, are because these particular politicians, are doing EXACTLY WHAT IT IS THAT THEIR CONSTINTUANTS HAVE ELECTED THEM TO DO!

Realistically, the day that ANY of these politicians FAIL to represent the people of their ward in the manner that is expected, they find themselves unemployed. It happens to them all! So, why is the change from Ward System to General Vote needed?

In fact, what everyone seems to be missing, is that Oshawa OVERWHELMINGLY supported the Ward system when it was first introduced in the 1980's, and as such, WHY WAS IT EVEN BROUGHT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?; February 11, 2007 at 5:11 p.m.
Site Administrator said...: Anonymous has made some very good points. Too bad he/she didn't provide his/her name to give these comments far more weight. This comment will find it's way to the main posting page---hopefully the author won't mind!; February 12, 2007 at 9:39 a.m.
Bob Graham said...: Apologies, it was my post, I am usually signed in automatically...

Bob Graham.; February 12, 2007 at 3:11 p.m.
Site Administrator said...: Thanks Bob...this will be published on main posting tonight.; February 12, 2007 at 8:54 p.m.

Post a Comment

MANDATE OF OSHAWA SPEAKS

The basic mandate of this site is to retain ward voting for Oshawa.

Oshawa City Council has voted to return to the “city-wide" or general vote for the election of members of Oshawa City Council which will make the City of Oshawa the largest city in the "free world" to use this electoral system without the use of civic political parties which are at present prohibited by Ontario's "Municipal Elections Act."

Oshawa incumbent politicians are the biggest beneficiaries of the change yet recent changes to Ontario Municipal Law (Bill 130) prevents their “self-serving” decision from being appealed to any higher government or independent tribunal. This sets a very dangerous precedent for all other potentially undemocratic and self-serving councils in the Province to emulate.

The General Vote will produce a local government that is less accountable, less inclusive, less representative, less responsive, less diverse, and less democratic and because of these problems is not being used in any large center anywhere in the country. If it was a better system, wouldn’t it be widely used?

Under the general vote, the ballot will contain the names of upwards of 80 to 90 candidates for "city-wide" election to the various offices presenting an impossible task for informed voting. To make the "General Vote" workable, civic political parties are required to simplify voter choices and to retain political accountability.

In a democracy, political accountability is directly related to voter’s ability to defeat politicians but Oshawa's history with the general vote prior to ward voting introduced in 1985 was that out of 109 contested positions in the preceding 7 general vote councils, not one politician was defeated by the vote. All change took place through the death or resignation of members.

The General Vote cloistered all voting power in a few of the wealthier areas of Oshawa with more than half of the members residing in North Oshawa (the old ward 6) and three residing in one polling subdivision of about 100 houses at the east end of Regent Drive.The General Vote left huge areas of the city disenfranchised, unrepresented, unserviced, and forgotten on City Council.

This lack of attention to vast areas of the city led to a reputation as an “unprogressive” and “undesirable” place which depressed housing prices and caused the exodus of quality home builders. We do not want to regress to those days.

The General Vote will give politicians constituency sizes twice the size of those of our Federal and Provincial Government Representatives thus taking our local government members further from the people. Their vastly inflated constituencies will give rise to calls for increased salary, increased staff, increased office space, increased budgets, etc. all leading to escalating costs of our local government.

The biggest argument advanced by proponents of the General Vote is that it makes every city politician responsible to the whole city. Think about that. Apply it to your work. If everyone in your work was responsible for everything, who would be responsible for anything? The General Vote will produce rudderless political leadership for Oshawa.

Politicians will do what the system demands for re-election. The General Vote makes all politicians competitors for the same city-wide vote and success depends upon high name recognition. In order to promote their name, council members will backbite, bitch, bicker, and grandstand to grab the press all at the expense of real productivity. Ward Voting depends upon service to the people in the community that politicians represent. If the politician provides unsatisfactory representation, he/she will be replaced so the motivation is to serve the people. Which system would serve you best?

In acquiring the campaign funds and votes to get elected in a General Vote, politicians will become less accountable to the citizens and more accountable to political donors like developers as well as large organizations like trade unions, churches, the golf club, etc. which have the potential to influence their city-wide membership to vote for favored politicians. In addition they may be less wary about supporting the desires of their donors if the election system makes them less accountable to voters. Where does that place the needs and the problems of the ratepayer and homeowner whose neighborhood problem will produce few votes of the 25,000 or so needed for election?

Thus the general vote takes away voting power from ordinary citizens, takes away local community representation, reduces political responsibility and accountability for representing the interests of individual citizens and their specific neighborhood concerns and gives this political power to large organizations and political donors. How is that serving the interests of Oshawa residents and ratepayers?

But the real problem…while governments everywhere in the free world are interested in communicating important information to their electorate, Oshawa City Council took planned and deliberate action to keep the plebiscite issue from the people as the Mayor argued it wasn’t city hall’s responsibility to communicate any of this information to their public! Information is the basic pillar of democracy…and yet the mayor says City Council had no responsibility to inform. Amazing! Perhaps this is the first sign of the lack of accountability accruing from the general vote. Politicians can do anything to the people if they can't be defeated!

So the Mandate of this site?

1) Inform Oshawa voters of City Council’s irresponsible and undemocratic actions and work to retain ward voting for Oshawa.

2) Run a Slate of Candidates in the next municipal elections to replace Mayor Gray, Councillors Pidwerbecki, Kolodzie, Parkes, Henry, Sholdra, and Marimpietri all of whom voted for the “self-serving” General Vote.

3) The Oshawa Votes Slate of strong results oriented individuals will pledge to return ward voting to Oshawa as its first order of business as well to re-organize city committee structures to bring real change and progress to Oshawa. These "results-oriented" changes will be announced as part of the VOTES Election Platform.

4) Before the next election, work for legislative change to allow for Municipal Political Parties if Oshawa’s General Vote Bylaw is allowed to stand.

5) To be a “watchdog” over all actions of this council because of their proven irresponsibility and self-serving actions.

VOTES chooses Political Campaign Theme

FAVORITE LINKS

BLOG ARCHIVES

TOP TEN QUOTES BY CITY POLITICIANS

OSHAWA CITY COUNCIL "HALL OF SHAME"--UNDER CONSTRUCTION

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY

CONTACT THE POLITICIANS

WRITE MEDIA LETTERS

MEDIA COVERAGE OF WARD/GENERAL VOTE ISSUE

OSHAWA & AREA POLITICAL BLOGS

OSHAWA CITY COUNCIL AGENDAS/MINUTES

OSHAWA INFORMATION

About the Author---Bill Longworth

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Here You Go Oshawa…Here’s Your General Vote Ballot

4 comments:

MANDATE OF OSHAWA SPEAKS