Cobble Hill - Re: Don Swiatlowski letter Friday, Aug. 22, "CVRD directors are the cause of the salaries out of control"
I am in total agreement with the writer's comments but sadly, he assumes that there are enough poor deluded souls (the voters) who care enough to actually vote CVRD incumbents out of office. They are all still there, re-elected repeatedly, still reaping the many generous benefits and basically taxing us all more and more to fund their sometimes dubious and certainly extravagant schemes.
Folks, the political gravy train, be it local, provincial or federal, is out of control and has been for some time. Yet we, the voters and taxpayers, by apathy or indifference, allow it to continue.
Mr. Swiatlowski makes an excellent comment, "They forgot the purpose of the review was to lower costs for the taxpayers." Did they? Or did they just decide to confuse the topic by ignoring it?
Here's a suggestion. Given that even our most senior, prominent and trusted(?) politicians of all stripes, in B.C., Alberta, Ottawa and other provinces have been hauled over the coals over their dubious expenses, how about a forensic audit of all CVRD council members' expenses over the last few years? Make use of OUR funds and fund the audit out of OUR taxes.
If they are all squeaky clean, and I'm sure that they are, then there should be no objections from them. But can you hear the vicious backlash that would ensue at such an outrageous idea? Does anyone imagine that they would willingly agree? What obstacles and issues do you think would appear? How about "Privacy" or "Freedom of Information" or worst of all "We have followed the guidelines laid down for expenses, which we feel are not clear in any case..." Let's all see what they're up to.
Mike Wilson
Cobble Hill