Council staff don’t have answers because they’re the problem: Reader

Your report on the budget deliberations of the council was very informative. (Cover story, November Advocate.) It should be read by all taxpayers before the next election.

The councillors, as private citizens, all know that living within one’s means is a fundamental philosophy for managing life in a responsible, and successful, way. The staff policy of kicking the debt ‘can’ down the road cannot be countenanced any longer.

The contrary philosophy of putting away money for a rainy day, or simply saving up until you have the purchase price, has never been discussed. Going without things you cannot afford, is a stab directly at the heart of the bureaucratic beast.

For 20 years we have been trapped in the staff’s only solution — which is to raise taxes, reduce services, increase charges, close facilities, and create special levies. Their solution to the resulting distress is to hire more staff at the upper end. The excess staff do not provide answers, because it is they who are the problem.

The garbage collectors do a much more important job than the administrative staff. But a reduction in garbage collection has been cited as a possible way of saving money, so that the administrative salaries may still be paid, and increased annually. It is always the really important people — the garbage collectors, the snowplough operators, the pothole fillers, the clerks directly serving the public, the librarians, the workers in the arenas — it is these who are laid off. Administrators are never laid off, not even when there is nothing left to administer.

Council needs to meet in camera, without any staff present. They need to search their souls to find out what is their real place in society, and what is their duty to the electorate.

–Peter Weygang, Bobcaygeon