Hello to Michael Dolan, nice article [Letter to the Editor in December 25th issue of the Moose Jaw Express – page A20].
I can’t believe I’m writing once again when I vowed never to waste any more time on these fruitless efforts. Here goes nothing…councils’ behaviour has not changed and I don’t mean just this council I mean the last two or three and possibly more, this group seems to be autocratic and ignorant of the provincial legislation that governs municipal governments.
Although writing letters and discussing issues with your peer group probably makes you feel better it won’t change anything. This council and probably future councils will continue to be poor communicators; it’s systemic because it’s always been that way. If we the citizens of this fine town wish to change things we must learn how. In my day of offering poison pen letters that were very informative and full of documentation I was not able to raise any interest amongst my fellow citizens which frustrated me to no end; apathy is a hard pill to swallow. I was successful in discovering that help is out there for us in the form of an Ombudsman whose offices are located at 150 – 2401 Saskatchewan Drive Regina, Sask. S4P 4H8. Judging from the size of their staff I’m thinking they get lots of complaints. Back in July the Ombudsman was Mary McFadyen; she can be reached by phone (306)787-6211 or e-mail ombreg@ombudsman.sk.ca. Let them know how you feel and get them to investigate.
Re: in your heads-up regarding Swanson, I must disagree; he has been a councillor longer than any of the rest. In fact, I think he holds the record as the longest serving councillor on record. Like it or not, he has been part of the problem and not a leader capable of or willing to take this situation up as his own and act on our behalf to fix it. Merely voting “No” on everything doesn’t mean much to me. I’d rather have someone in his position that would communicate with us and tell us what’s happening and just what can be done about it. The only councillor that had our interests at heart and was willing to do something to solve issues was Don Mitchell and I for one miss him.
Ask Swanson why we paid the bill to clean up the Providence Hospital, why did we buy the Union hospital and tear it down before anyone could put up a proposal for alternate use, how come the Brunswick Hotel a heritage site was bulldozed overnight before we could express out thoughts. Ask him where the 100 million we apparently have in surplus came from? Where is it being used? Why not on major infrastructure projects hint the water and sewer upgrades? He seems to think it’s OK to have taxpayers pay up to $15,000.00 each to pay for this work when the money is already there? Do you think our citizens, particularly pensioners, can afford this?
Then we have the special snow routes for winter road clearance when home owners got no advice and car towing couldn’t keep up, did Mr. Swanson do anything positive or simply say he didn’t support the program, not good enough if you want to occupy a chair in council. We need people that will help, not tell us” it wasn’t me;” I told them this would happen. How about the new garbage program supposed to save us a lot of money and ended up costing us a lot more for the same service where was Swanson? This had to be the worst effort I’ve ever seen in regards to the application of this kind of change, aside from the numbers being wrong, the evaluation of the program itself [garbage program] was dearly lacking as a lot of houses in older areas simply could not get their garbage to the front street. It took a group of seniors, mostly women at a council meeting, to change councils ridiculous plan and re-evaluate the program. Where was Swanson…was he talking with us, acting on our behalf to explain why the program wouldn’t work in all areas or was this another “wasn’t me I disagreed” from the start. We can do better than this, we must do better than this if we want our community to be a better place for all of us...
There you have it Michael, hope this helps you in some small way as you attempt to change city hall.
-- Ken Wright
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
