Where would YOU spend that $30,000?
Here's a call for pundits: Imagine you were the guiding light of our South Bruce Penininsula town council and you were tasked with investing $30,000 for the optimal long-range community good, whatever that may mean, for the maximum return on investment for the sum: where would you spend the money?
Lately we've seen a parade of huge expenditures put out on lobbiests on Parliament, mass-marketing willie, auditing our Mayor's campaign rental receipts, restructuring the ward system, buying into Blue Flagdom ... a cavalcade of truly staggering wild wagers of public cash and we've all had our fun critiquing the efficacy of such decisions post-hoc, but what if we look at this in a more pro-active way?
Admittedly, to be fair and balanced, a grant of $30K is not much money ($0.50/citizen?) and won't go far as a departmental budget, but that just makes the investment puzzle all the more challenging! :)
So here it is, your open shot on goal, your chance to say your say uninterrupted, a call to voice your best ideas and visions of our future, and as we all know, ideas posted here get read, and by all the right people too ;)
So ... go for it:
Where would you invest $30,000 for our community common-good?
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Thinking on $30,000
Then I thought about everything else we have discussed over the years , here, from new computers/school equipment etc. , to educating IT people and managers in the public domain on how to get away from high priced and expensive licensing fees on everything from Microsoft office to the operating systems themselves.
How can that $30,000 dollars be put to good use? What is the best benefit for all of us here in S.B.P. ? How can we make this place a better place, and avoid the problems that other, older, communities have had ? Then , while I was reading the newspaper, I found something interesting(but not new).There is a call in Hamilton for an ethics commissioner, due to some problems with a councillor; and not just a paper tiger, but someone with power to censure and suspend any politician that is in breech of the public trust, for private personal gain, or using information supplied to them from inside city hall for financial gain.
Imagine, no more suspect deals about land transfers or old school buildings or, well, insert any detail you want into this space. The point being that a well run, openly honest and clearly moral governing body will then not only share those traits with the community, but discourage people/companies/consultants from pushing their agenda, which in most cases is opposite of what the community needs.
What, $30,000 dollars for another layer of bureacracy, you say? Well..no..its not another $30,000 its the same $30,000 that is being spent with few results but a lot of private gain. Could $30,000 dollars cover the cost of an ethics commissioner? No. That is why, like in other areas of the province, the ethics commissioner is a shared employee. Not just SBP, but throw in Grey and in fact all of Bruce.
With a well run governing body at the top, decisions made will benefit the entire community, and in doing so make the area attractive to live, to work, to telecommute, and embrace new technologically inspired proven ideas, and to attract more employers who look just for that type of area.
....or we can build that new deck for Gary........
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"How does one "Seem to think"? Either you did or you didn't! "
-ZenGary