Cornwall Ontario – For those of you in the Cornwall are who are fed up with your taxes skyrocketing without value here are the five councilors who clearly are not remotely trying to keep costs in check and are not worthy of voting for come the Fall. Claude McIntosh, Elaine MacDonald, Bernadette Clement, Carilyne Hebert and Mayor Leslie O’Shaughnessy all voted to pass a near 5% tax increase that only reached that point by borrowing money for an item in the budget.
Now this isn’t an endorsement to the remaining councilors who seem to be responding to a very hypocritical letter signed by Rory Maclennan who clearly shouldn’t be President of any Chamber of Commerce as it clearly doesn’t truly represent local business.
The heated meeting of council Monday night might have been another episode of bad theatre with some tempers flaring, but still, none at the table tonight were willing to tackle the biggest area of the budget that NEEDS to be cut and that’s emergency services; chiefly, the Police Force which still hasn’t justified it’s per capita rate that is on par with Toronto and nearly THREE times the per capita rate of the OPP for policing SD&G.
And this with empty reserves near across the board, and some serious infrastructure issues.
Councilor Mark MacDonald, on vacation and not present at the meeting meanwhile is being vilified and not publicly supported by his fellow councilors for being the only elected voice to acknowledge where the cash is going. In fact while management likes to dally with raises in taxes based on house values, the bottom line is that this term of council has seen nearly a WHOPPING 20% increase in the tax levy on ratepayers (approximately $71M) which for four years cleary isn’t acceptable.
Clearly this council has to either cut the bait and tackle some meat and potato budget areas like policing and fire services or tuck its tail and follow the Hens into higher tax territory in an election year.
What do you think dear CFN viewers? You can post your comments below.
Take a look at the GM’s who are not doing or do not know how to do their job and terminate them, don’t hire some of them help, make them accountable. Plenty of people who work under these managers who can perform the work 10 times greater at less the salary. Council step up for goodness sakes. Everyone points the finger at the little guy, easier right?
Rusted Bolt as you know working at City Hall council can only dictate to the CAO Ms Adams. They can hire and fire the CAO. They cannot directly impact other city managers. They can, as Brampton did, bring in a new CAO with a clear direction that of course would lead to change.
If the so called official rate of inflation is under 2 percent then municipalities should be held to that for tax increases even if it means cutting staff, services or whatever
. The city council should not be allowed to levy what they please.
I agree with all points so far. This council has been a disaster from day one. It’s sad to say but they are worse than the previous council. And that’s saying something considering the crap the last council pulled.
I’d like to know why Mayor Leslie O’Shaughnessy was voting on this. Mayors only vote in the event of a tie. It would have been defeated even without O’Shaughnessy voting.
That’s a great question Hugger. But looking at some video from last night it looks like he’s lost control of his council. There was no real decorum and he wasn’t even wearing a tie.
Today he was at the Doug Ford event and a prominent business person asked him if he was still a Conservative which was the best line of the day.
Agree Jamie, Council needs to start with this CAO. She has allowed this clique to progress. She has created the environment city workers work in because the only ones she hears are the GM’s. GM’s BTW who if you can not do the work she approves the hiring of additional help. Never mind terminating certain GM’s just hire additional help OR don’t hold any accountable. Screw the little worker right?
From a source: On a recorded vote, every member of council votes.
On a non-recorded vote, the mayor is always presumed to vote with the majority. As a recorded vote was requested on this, every member is asked their vote.
I never would have taken the Mayor as a conservative! Learn something new everyday!
DRAIN THE SWAMP! It is a mighty dirty, stinking swamp for sure. Not one of these idiots are any good maybe the exception of one or two at most but the rest need to go including that mayor. The entire town of Cornwall from citizens to businesses needs a complete overhaul. Intelligent people take to the highways and never ever again go back to Cornwall. What a nightmare.
You all know that I have joked and made nasty comments about Bob Kilger and I meant them even till now BUT one thing is true and clear and that is that Bob had a much better council than what is in today around that horseshoe – more of a horse stable. The entire bunch is laughable and has to be taken out.