Welcome Back From Your Taxpayer-funded HolidayCouncillors

While Oshawa is suffering record unemployment and job losses, extended GM summer closings and the potential shuttering of GM, the highest taxes in the GTA, and a train wreck, many of our councillors have been holidaying at our expense in Whistler, British Columbia.

They were there to attend the June 4-8 National Conference of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). Of course they would have flown out a few days earlier and stayed a few days after to provide a decent holiday of sightseeing beyond what was provided by the conference. They would want to make the most of it as the holiday and expensive accommodation and transportation was paid for by Oshawa taxpayers who scraped together the tax dollars out of their empty pockets to pick up the politician's holiday tab.

While in Whistler, our councilors no doubt took advantage of every learning opportunity provided by the conference.

To be really valuable at this conference, our councilors should have organized a seminar showing their fellow municipal politicians across the country how to ram the general vote into their citizen’s throats as our city politicians did to guarantee their re-election and future attendance at many of these taxpayer paid FCM holiday junkets across the country. They could have counselled their fellow municipal politicians to design an incomprehensive plebiscite question designed to solicit the desired answer from unsuspecting voters and then keep the question secret to catch voters cold in the voting booth and refuse to provide voters information about the question so they could understand what they were voting for. They could have counselled politicians from across the country the strategy of how to introduce Oshawa’s new voting system that is not used in any large jurisdiction in the country. It goes without saying, of course, that the Oshawa’s system is not used because it is undemocratic, unrepresentative, and unaccountable, produces an unproductive council utilizing an incomprensible ballot with upwards of the names of 75-80 candidates for city-wide elections.

Instead of this valuable service, no doubt our politicians took advantage to take “study tours” featured on the conference program to the Olympic Sport Venues including the Whistler Sliding Centre which will host the bobsled, luge, and skeleton events, the Whistler Olympic/Paralympic Park which will host the biathlon, cross country and ski jumping events, Whistler Creekside which will host the downhill skiing events, the athletes village, a slideshow/video presentation about a 430-day Antarctic scientific mission (not an Arctic Mission which would have at least been relevant to Canadians), and enjoyed a gondola or quad chair ride to the top of Whistler or Blackcomb mountain to enjoy a casual evening buffet of west coast cuisine and local entertainment (to insure our city politicians didn’t get bored, they were also able to traverse back and forth between the mountains in just 11 minutes on the new Peak 2 Gondola to enjoy the breathtaking views from both mountains),

Additional tours with extra costs were organized to Ancient Cedars Hike ($135), a driving and hiking tour to explore some local waterfalls ($135), a Squamish First Nations Cultural Centre Tour ($23), a Zipline eco-tour ($145), a tree-trek canopy tour ($50), a Whistler Village walking tour ($13), a Lillooet Canoe tour ($135), an ATV wilderness tour ($147), a Whistler Art Tour ($33), and a Horseback Western Ride ($100). By golly, with all of the banquets, tours, and activities, there was hardly any time for serious business. But hey, our tax dollars have to treat our politicians well don’t they?

So you might be interested to know which of our city politicians took advantage of our largesse to entertain themselves on this junket. I shall find out for sure soon along with all of their expenses charged to city taxpayers but I did send an email to all city politicians asking if they were attending this conference, whether they were being accompanied by a spouse/significant other, and who was footing the bill. I also asked if they were going to write a report on this conference on their return documenting the new information they gleaned to introduce to Oshawa to provide taxpayer value for subsidizing the trip.

I received responses from John Neal, Robert Lutczyk, April Cullen, Brian Nicholson, John Gray and John Henry, all of whom stated they were not attending the conference….Good for them!

The others, Nestor Pidwerbecki, Joe Kolodzie, Louise Parkes, Tito Dante Marimpietri, and Maryanne Sholdra did not respond to my email. I must therefore assume one of two things…1) They attended the conference but wanted to keep it a secret as best they could, or 2) They do not respect Oshawa taxpayers enough to respond to legitimate queries from them. The truth will be discovered soon! I shall file a freedom of information request to establish who attended and the costs for each that has been billed to the Oshawa taxpayer.

City Councillor's Travel Budgets

The following letter to the editor has been reprinted from Oshawa This Week with the author's permission


To the Editor,
Oshawa This Week
Feb. 9 Letter to the Editor

In reading the February 6th article with respect to granting further tax payer's money for Oshawa council's travel needs, I think Oshawa tax payers should be outraged not just at increasing travel budgets, but even considering sending City personnel to Whistler, BC for a conference.

Do these councillors not get it? In these difficult times, with layoff notices now counting in the thousands, council should be looking at reducing spending on things such as travel not increasing it.

Councillor Parkes says it is essential to attend these FCM conferences because "...it's where they learn best practices and keep up on what is happening in other municipalities." Well, certainly these “best practices” from previously attended conferences does not seem to have benefited Oshawa tax payers as we now have the highest municipal tax rate in Canada. This has occurred due to this Council’s breath taking spending spree over the past number of years on arenas and recreational centers to the tune of $84 million, $10 to 12 million on the new City Hall and of course $250,000 on miniatures which are in City storage with no buyer to be found.

Current debt load for the City is over $105 million with the interest cost alone projected to be over $12 million for 2009. Council has also drained most of their reserve funds and the Oshawa PUC, so nothing for a rainy day which everyone now knows is upon us. We are only weeks away from knowing what are tax increases are going to be for this year, which is going to be a struggle for many Oshawa families.

If Councillor Parkes and her like minded colleagues want to know what is going on in other municipalities that have “best practices” in place, they should pick up a telephone and talk to them about it and not go on a tax payer paid boondoggle.

James Sprague,
Oshawa

Other published Letters to the Editor by Mr. Sprague

Councii has duty to be open with citizens
Council keeps making same mistakes



Site Editor's Comment

The Toronto Star recently published an article listing Poland as a week-long conference destination for some Oshawa politicians. This would allow city politicians of Eastern European Heritage free holidays to their homeland at taxpayer's expense. How long will city taxpayer's tolerate politicians deciding where they want to travel and then fabricating justifications for taxpayers to pick up the tab to get there? All international and out-of-Province Conferences should be barred from public funding. Taxpayers cannot afford to be constantly sending politicians on these junkets. Taxes are high enough without letting politicians holiday and party at our expense.