Do you know any Ebenezer Scrooges? If you think you don’t, let me show you a few. They aren’t necessarily like the one in the story but some of them even smile, are friendly, and even make small donations to charities every once in a while. The Sault has its share of them. In my opinion, the following could possibly hit the list:
City Hall always makes the list because there is always a minority/majority/some people that don’t like their decisions. Hiring the now fired Fire Chief was something that was a constant news article, especially after he came up with the “Plan” that would decrease the amount of firefighters the city employed.
Eliminating Daycare in our city. That was a contentious issue. Apparently there were a lot of jobs lost and families having no means to pay for private daycare service.
Having an by-election when Terry Sheehan left and then appointing Grandinetti in ward 6. As it turned out, Grandinetti seems to be a thorn in the side of many councillors with his backing of a motion concerning nepotism.
The centralization of allowable interviews through the corporate communications department. I guess the interview has to pass through someone before it is allowed.
Need I mention Taxes. From what I have seen in the past, city taxes don’t go up if there is an election year coming up, but this year, guess what?
The decision by the staff to eliminate the traffic lights at the corner of Gore and Albert Streets. Accidents and near misses are still occurring at that corner and they still won’t listen to the people that live in the area and the ones that don’t, and are concerned with the situation. I personally videotaped that corner one day for an hour and in that hour, two cyclists almost got hit and a couple of vehicles almost received an invitation to go to a body shop for repairs.
My God, I’m starting to run out of paper just on City Hall. I’d better wrap this up.
But I can’t until I mention the SAH.
1 – Paid Parking is an issue. I guess that they realized that it is a cash cow and raised the price to $6 dollars from $5. Have you seen any improvements or more spots. It took a great lady, Tracy Dinelle, to come up with Tracy’s Dream to help offset the cost of parking for the ones that have to go there every day to visit a family member or have treatment.
2 – Paying someone in excess of $300,000 to run it and constantly cut nurses and other necessary people so as to meet budget expectations. This guy is always on my Grinch list. The day he takes a pay cut and saves a nurse’s job, I will take him off the list. The one thing I’ve always thought is: beware of someone that is always smiling. Not to be trusted.
So there is my smiling Ebenezers. Thirteen on Council, City Staff that won’t listen to the citizens of this city, and a constantly smiling SAH CEO. Beware, there is an election coming up in 2018 for the city, I bet that they will all be smiling at you.
Mike Caruso
