Your Voice: Kelowna councillors deserve 10% pay cut due to lack of effort

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In the compensation debate for Kelowna’s mayor and council the question seems to be whether it is a full or part-time position. I say we are too high up the effort scale, so I would centre the debate between part-time and casual, and much closer to casual for the vast majority of them.

For that reason I would prefer to lower the salaries 10 per cent until we see some improvement in commitment.

The magnitude of one project (carried over from former Mayor Basran’s years) serves to confirm my point, and from that you can imagine the indifference to all other projects requiring their approval. Just attend a few meetings for proof.

Would any of us, if we were building a new house for whatever our budget, accept the word of the builder and architect, without showing us any design, that the final product would meet our needs? I doubt it.

But that is what mayor and council did with regard to the new planned Parkinson Recreation Centre replacement.

For Kelowna, the largest, most expensive project, largest borrowing ($242 million plus about $200 million interest), without even a rendering, scale model, sketch put forth by City Manager Gilchrist, the mayor and council (except Ron Cannan) approved it.

Spending other peoples’ money is so easy. (New Westminster by comparison had drawings and scale models that were altered for three years as staff and mayor/council consulted the residents.)

Casual effort at best, closer to indifference, so imagine the depth of effort that goes into lesser projects that seriously impact neighbourhoods.

No wonder they voted themselves a raise, no second thought and rubber stamp. That is their modus operandi.

Don Henderson

Kelowna