Council needs more like Joe Mauro to get the city on track
By Letter to the Editor on May 15, 2021.
Editor: It floors me that the Lethbridge City Council is proceeding with a budget that has us spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers money, after being told that we want our taxes to decrease and unnecessary spending cut out.
For decades, the only person who seems to listen to a large group of us, who have consistently asked for less spending, is Joe Mauro.
Unfortunately, he was disgusted enough to walk away from the committee meeting where the budget was being discussed and I am fearful he will walk away from council altogether, where he is the only representative for somany of us.
We need an entire council made up of Joe Mauro’s to get any of the reforms and cuts needed to put this City back on track again.
If anyone took the CIP survey, it was full of unneeded and frivolous wants. We have a Yates Memorial Centre that we just sunk $7 million into restoring, that is barely used and yet people who did this survey want a new community arts centre!
I don’t think that we should get another thing built or funded that isn’t core infrastructure until our economy gets back on track and our taxes decrease.
I don’t have to sit in City Hall and hear the councilors’ vote; the fact that Joe Mauro left the committee, is everything I need to hear.
That Council supported a budget that still caters to wants, when our entire economy is in ruins leaves me flabbergasted.
We need a new council fast as this budget is unsustainable.
Brandt Skriver
Lethbridge
-1
Yeah but Brandt don’t you understand that’s the Liberal way! Spend-spend-spend and when you run-out of money then just spend some more! This isn’t “Rocket Science” Brandt!
bravo brandt, joe is one of the sane members of council always wanting clarification on many issues. he was not a robot like the other six, lead by spearmen and miyashiro, both of whom should also be relieved of their positions.
I can’t tell if this is satire or not. I really hope Brandt is just pretending to be a poorly-informed redneck because if he’s an actual voting person with this bad an understanding of what Capital Improvement Program deliberations are used for then he should be embarrassed.
Shows your lack of understanding. Council is voting on this CIP plan on Tuesday. They will commit the incoming council to spending they had no say in. That is Mauro’s point.
Well of course they’re going to vote on it, genius. That’s how they decide what municipal projects to fund. And if you were actually paying attention, you’d be in possession of the knowledge that anything this council votes on can be revisited by a future council and reversed. You’d think that Mauro would know that, since he’s been on council for decades now. So the only point he’s really making by throwing this little tantrum is that he’s lazy and doesn’t want to do the job he was elected to do. Most normal voters actually want to see the people they’re paying show up.
You miss the point. The spending in the first two years never gets undone, the future possibly. No need to get snotty and start calling names. Shows your intolerance of opinions and comments other than your own. Past examples where the first two or three years of approved funding has been withdrawn please. Be happy to see them.
Those of us from the world of finance can’t believe how stupid some Albertans are. They whine and complain about their property taxes while they support these phone conservatives, Reformers, who are giving away all their oil and tax wealth that could have been used to help their towns and cities fund their taxes, just like Lougheed did. Of course they aren’t smart enough to understand that. You can’t be any dumber that them
Now watch me get attacked by these fools who just aren’t smart enough to understand it. What upsets my senior friends and I is the fact that these are seniors who should be smarter but aren’t.
Gee guys if you weren’t listening Kenney has cut taxes for his rich friends by $9.4 billion over the next few years that you could have had to help keep your taxes in line.