We are sure you will not want to hear our thoughts about the News Paper article in the paper referring to your trip to help Mrs. Kovach. We have E-Mailed both you and Mr. Findlay without any results to our concerns. Mr. Findley hid behind our Major first time we had a concern and you hid behind him before you could answer our question, or maybe it was the other way around??? As you read this you have to know we have lost all credebilaty in the Politics of Guelph. We even went as far as to contact a Councillor with our concerns in another Ward.
So if you are still with us here, we would like to protest the Kovack trip!!! There certainly was no need for all of you to go there to hold her hand!!! We may be nieve, but!!! the money you and all of you have spent is our hard earned money, when our house tax bill comes in we have to pay and cannot go on a plane, go to a Hotel, have our accomodation and food paid for. We have to do without!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we are on a fixed income and hope we can keep our home, and our dignity for as long as we can pay the bills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We watch City Council meetings, we are so very worried that your wish list will not let us do the above. RF~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course I want to hear about your concerns about my trip to the FCM conference. It gives me a perfect opportunity to clear up the opportunistic bad spin a local newspaper decided to put on this story.
A few of the councillors were interviewed by the newspaper about the trip. We explained that our main reason for going was the education aspect. This can be readily seen if you do the research. Just check the dates when we signed up; as Gloria was the last one to do so and we didn’t even think she would be going because of her conflict with the FCM board.
I learned a lot at this conference in workshops, tours, the trade show and interaction with municipal staff, mayors and councillors from all across Canada. Examples are: best practises about the effective implementation of a success full idling by-law, Calgary Fire Fighters that are trained Para medics can do blood pressure tests and have gluacometer machines test diabetics in their stations of those that can’t do this themselves; tours of buildings showed us you efficient green initiatives can reduce operations cost; innovative transportation strategies dealing with pedestrian traffic; downtown bike and walking trails that lead to workplaces; examples of developers working with city staff in innovative ways to overcome sprawl, remember that Calgary is experiencing an economic boom but its rate of homelessness is increasing. People with good jobs have no place to live. Housing is at a premium and can’t be built fast enough to meet increasing needs; how other provinces will deal with the effects of TILMA and how we need to know about it. The list goes on.
This is an excerpt from the FCM website
FCM celebrated its 60th anniversary in 1997, but it was in 1901 that the first national meeting of municipal leaders was held. The first political initiative of the Union of Canadian Municipalities (UCM) was to convince the federal government to create legislation that would give municipal governments more control over the actions of utility companies within their boundaries. The UCM was formed largely to remind utility companies they could not simply assume municipal consent for tearing up public infrastructure without consideration: municipal rights-of-way had to be negotiated.
Since then, municipal governments have maintained a strong advocacy role in lobbying the federal government to include municipal concerns in policy development and national decision-making. Through their national organization, they made sure the federal government understood the full impact of their decisions on municipal governments and taxpayers. Year after year, FCM’s work has benefited each and every municipal government and taxpayer in Canada.
Your councillors are all automatically FCM members, as such it is expected that we attend all the annual general meetings and vote on matters concerning the direction the FCM should take. I and other councillors supported Gloria for the many hours she contributed to the betterment and continued strength of the FCM. I was very proud to learn that she was the only FCM president to obtain agreement on issues concerning all of our provinces and territories. I also supported her because is a member of our team. A functional team supports it’s members, works together, agrees to disagree, doesn’t hold grudges, accepts differences of opinion and moves on with work in a positive way and is successful. A dysfunctional team creates havoc that filters from the top down and accomplishes little.
The FCM. meeting lasted about two hours. The time took to hand out the information lasted about twenty minutes, the time taken to create the information hand out was about one hour and was written at the last minute at the FCM. during a meal. I and other councillors were stopped and questioned many times by other FCM. members about what had happened to Gloria, this was the most expedient way to get the information to the FCM. members. This was all done without Gloria’s knowledge.
I understand your concern about how your tax bill and its important that you watch council meetings to keep informed. Its also important to understand that the most successful employees do their utmost to educate themselves, take all the training available, learn to be creative, are innovative thinkers, exchange ideas, learn form the mistakes of others support their co-workers and work as a team.
I’m also a tax payer and I expect nothing less from someone who has been elected to represent me. I’m putting this on the web site as I think this information should reach as many residents as possible.
Councillor Vicki Beard