Wee Jackie weighs in

I love asking questions.

Like questions about the town’s determined and costly drive to get us to like, approve, and lovingly embrace local transit.

Unless you’ve been dead or in Edmonton you’ll realize transit has been a plume in the mayor’s feather headdress for awhile now.

Our mayor likes to rub shoulders and spend tax dollars with the big boys at a regional level. Mayor Nenshi and Mayor McBride are brothers at heart, social media darlings so to speak.

So our mayor presented a transit plan that was going to cost Cochrane taxpayers millions and to the surprise of very few, the taxpayers said no.

Nobody is against transit but let’s be reasonable.

But the town wants what it wants and is willing to go to any length to get it — it appears. Now the town is paying for a video that is nothing more than blatant support for the mayor’s idea.

Some folks have received letters from the town outlining the questions they would be asked on the video.

Here are the questions:

1.What is your connection with Cochrane. (Do you live or work here, etc.)

2.What do you see for the future of Cochrane?

3. Where does transit fit into that future you envisage for Cochrane?

4. Can you see transit having a direct impact on your life in anyway?

5. Would you be willing to pay for transit? If so, how a) per ride; b) through taxes; c) both.

And those were the questions asked during an interview videotaped obviously to support the whole transit scheme.

So now the questions.

How much does this exercise cost?

How much for two guys videotaping it and then how much is the cost for all the editing and so forth?

And how many town employees have been involved and how much did that cost taxpayers?

This is not the first step in town administration’s effort to sell the transit idea.

Not too long ago I was contacted by the town and informed that there would be a meeting of myself and Cochrane Eagle editor Derek Clouthier as well as Cochrane Times editor Daniel Austin and its publisher Darryl Mills to discuss the transit issue so we would all be on the “same page”.

I didn’t go because I couldn’t care less what page the town is on.

As journalists our job is simple, get the facts to the people.

Good, bad or indifferent, the role of a newspaper is to be the vehicle of getting the facts to the people and the fact is about 1,000 residents signed a petition against that particular transit plan.

Do you think that will be on the video?

If town staff think informing the taxpayers is less important than promoting the politician’s ideas then we have a huge problem.

And an expensive one as well.

But if this video idea is so great perhaps we’ll soon see another one on what this town needs. Like is there a video forthcoming on the need of a women’s shelter in town?

And it all could be so simple. Just tell the people the facts. All the facts and let them decide.

There’s a plebiscite on the transit question and council and staff should have but one obligation — get all the facts to the people and let them decide.

Never mind the politics.

And now more questions, this time about replacing the Cochrane and Area Humane Society.

Our mayor even got involved in this one, writing that the town loves the Humane Society and even gave it $20,000.

Spoken like a true politician.

Of course what he said was factually correct but completely misses the point.

It’s true the town will give the Humane Society $20,000 this year but last year it gave $70,000 so why not mention the missing $50,000?

But there’s questions to be answered.

Like how much will the new deal cost with the boarding kennel being used as a shelter?

Will it cost approximately $30,000 that has been suggested and if that’s the case then the town is saving just $20,000.

That doesn’t include veterinary care so how much is in the budget for that?

Where will the volunteers come from?

Will folks volunteer to walk dogs for a coalition of a private company and the town?

The town advertised for the temporary kennel and then found it had to change zoning because the anointed firm couldn’t keep dogs overnight.

No doubt just a minor oversight by the town but nonetheless an indication of how little thought really went into this process.

And it is all so unnecessary.

All the town has to do is be up front.

One of the most popular buzzwords in politics these days is ‘transparent’. Everyone wants politics and politicians to be transparent and it is anything but.

I love the term ‘public tender’.

Now we have proposals rather than public tenders but they are the same but if a public tender is not opened in public then it isn’t a public tender.

Tenders or bids are submitted on all sorts of things and are opened by staff in private.

There’s nothing transparent or public about that.

Closer to home it makes no sense to me that if you ask town staff how much a town of Cochrane advertisement cost that appeared in the Cochrane Times, they won’t tell you. Town staff says such information is confidential because it may give competitors of the Cochrane Times an advantage if we knew.

Well, we do know. There’s few secrets between newspapers and that’s not a problem and we know within pennies what each of us charge.

But it’s taxpayers money and if it’s more important for Town of Cochrane staff to protect a company with their head office in Montreal than it is to give taxpayers information they are entitled to, then so much for transparency.

Related stories:

1. Town council not visible during transit discussion

• Filed under Columns | You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Town’s transit video missing many important questions”

1. Davidson says:

   February 21, 2012 at 11:17 pm

   I guess I’m just confused if this article is about transit, the mayor, newspaper publishing, taxes or the humane society?

   Reply