The more I learn, the more I discover how ignorant I am. City Hall and Kelowna council put me to shame.
Who is not tightening the belt at this precarious time, besides the rich? The United States is trying to fight a fiscal cliff by raising taxes on two per cent of its population making $250,000, while Kelowna gets itself a symphony with a maestro.
First, I was shocked to learn City Hall may have to milk ratepayers by a miserly 2.5+ per cent hike. Why not? We have been too pre-occupied with the jolly season to notice.
Ron Seymour's column "Tap-dance Thursday" was penned with tongue-in-cheek instead of with a whip filled with nails. But, this is Kelowna, with its high percentage of walking dead.
When I read the planned expenditures for 2013 onwards, I realized only City Hall would spend our money on non-life-threatening issues.
Who is going to buy new living-room furniture when the old would do, when one has a depleted pocketbook? The city gave the seniors centre on Water Street to the yatch club for peanuts and then spent $13 million on a new complex at Parkinson Rec Centre. Who says we are in a recession?
I have been saying this for the past three years.
Unemployment in Kelowna is up, and we are told it is seasonal. We are told real estate is doing fine and to just relax. The only people who can are are those on council and the poorly paid bureaucrats at City Hall. Bravo, bravo and bravo.
There is nothing that irritates me more than when council says: "As compared to other municipalities, we are doing fine." If I want to do something, do I decide my action on what others do? Is there such a thing as using common sense? Obviously not.
Council has said its members do not know much about art, so they have handed the decision on what to buy to a committee. Imagine if businessman Andre Blanleil heard about a new electronic gadget that was on the expensive side. Should he order it for his stores? Would he pay a consultant $25,000 to tell him what to do?
Mo Rajabally,
Kelowna