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Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Stupid Politicians Part 1 City Council

This week is quickly becoming a week for politicians to be extra stupid (even by government standards)

City counsellors under investigation

Since 2000 the City of Toronto has spent over 1 Billion dollars from various contingency funds to help make ends meet. At one point they even sold the hydro poles to the province to help get some extra cash. The city has almost no reserve funds left. Council has even approved a plan to sue the Ontario Government to try to balance this years budget. In the recent election Mayor Miller got reelected with a campaign that the Provincial and Federal Governments should be kicking in more money to help the city. He would campaign to make this happen and hold property tax increases to the rate of inflation. He was unsuccessful as this years Provincial and Federal budget's did not do very much to help the city. A 3.8% property tax hike has been approved which is higher than the rate of inflation. Council also failed to remove a single one of their many perks that come with the job.

The city's executive committee has asked the integrity commissioner to investigate two councillor for not spending enough money, Rob Ford is known for spending his own personal money on office expenses instead of dipping into the public purse. "You're not supposed to accept gifts, even from yourself," Giorgio Mammoliti said. The investigation will need approval from council next month before it can proceed.
How stupid of a statement is this? I understand that we want to make sure that bribes are not being used to influence city councillors judgement. How do you bribe yourself? It would be one thing if these councillors had maxed out there budget and were using private or 3rd party funds to make up the shortfall. In these cases they are coming in way under budget and could have had the city cover these costs.

If only these politicians spent more time worrying about how to balance the books, we could have a city that wasn't falling apart.

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