November Elections Mark End of Silly Season

At the least, the end of silly season may extend the months-long yawning produced by frivolous media "stories" that run the gamut from ensuring your smoke detectors are functional to pages-long features on which car(s) your family can no longer afford to purchase (not necessarily a bad thing given the profusion of manufacturer recalls scant months later).

At best, local elections could offer a resurgence to stories of substance.
They should.
It depends on the hopefuls, both nominees and voters.  

Hopeful voters?
Yes indeed.

And a renewed fervor to feel our votes ensure that democracy is alive and well in our personal hamlets.  We somehow missed Democracy Week--observed at Okanagan College by then-nominee Mel Arnold for member of parliament (Conservative)--fueling a subconscious twinge of a time when a functional democracy wasn't relegated to one week a year. 

First a message to the one percenters:  
Despite the likelihood they're exercising their snowbird option in mid-November, they most assuredly own property in an adjacent community.  Do they remember they can vote in a municipal election wherever they own property?  (see pages 3 and 4 of 10 here).   I know...I know...a bit of a pain all that driving around with the requisite B.C. Assessment appraisal(s) in hand as proof of ownership (here is Coldstream's Non-Resident Property Elector Consent Form) just so one can vote for--or more accurately, against--candidates whose election can affect what you own.  Think Greater Vernon Advisory Committee.  Or, if you live in Vernon, the effect RU10/RU30--still on the books in Coldstream's edited Official Community Plan--has on your East Coldstream acreage(s).

Back to this year's election in our personal hamlets.
Belying the 5 kilometre proximity between the City of Vernon and District of Coldstream, Vernon's hopefuls for mayor number five candidates to Coldstream's unchallenged two-timer and "pragmatic socialist" Jim Garlick.  For Council, Vernon has 14 vying, to Coldstream's seven, for 6 councillor seats in each jurisdiction.  (Here is Vernon's official list of candidates, with the list for that bastion of NIMBY-ism--Coldstream--list here.)


Shame on the Morning Star newspaper for excluding a "getting to know you" story on Shane Hillman, the only new candidate for Coldstream council about whom nothing appears to be known by the electorate.  Hopefully the publication will step up and do a story on Mr. Hillman toute de suite.   (Glen Taylor--another candidate for council--previously served). 

Reporter Rolke--in an editorial mid-September--sought to provide the pros and cons of numerous--versus few--candidates, but he omitted one factor that is widely discussed among residents:  unelected bureaucrats run our communities (and elected officials, mostly around in circles like mules at a gristmill, think Greater Vernon Advisory Committee...again). 

Perhaps that's the reason Coldstream Mayor Garlick was acclaimed mayor; residents know that the regional district's unelected officials have imposed a decidedly-socialist Growth Management Strategy (verbatim text originated from Victoria's socialist bureaucrats).  Despite Garlick's claims of "progress" having been made on various projects, including the unbelievably misleading phrase of "OCP housekeeping", maybe it really doesn't matter who is elected as mayor. 

Housekeeping?
Truth be known, two re-writes of Coldstream's Official Community Plan (see Sept. 19th story here) which--despite vehement opposition by the Coldstream Acreage Owners' Association--maintains its push to enact RU10/RU30.

Two rewrites?  Yup.  Read the Sept 19th blog entry about the waste of our money, then remind yourself incumbent Garlick "takes pride in completing tasks, no matter how big or small."

Back to bureaucrats running things.
And their wages.

Legislative reporter Tom Fletcher's recent Black Press (owner of Vernon's Morning Star newspaper) article entitled "Does CUPE (and here) run city hall?" provides some insight to burgeoning wages of bureaucrats, with Coldstream's Mayor Garlick in a media release dated October 7th bringing the topic home.  "The new agreement will see incremental wage increases of 8.5 per cent over the term of the five-year agreement...plus small adjustments to existing benefits..." gushed the mayor over the "hard work of both negotiating teams in reaching the settlement."

"As local election turnout has gone from bad to worse, municipal employees themselves have become an

increasingly dominant voting bloc." Tom Fletcher

Fletcher's article says "Things have been going pretty well for the main municipal union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, for the last couple of decades.  As local election turnout has gone from bad to worse, municipal employees themselves have become an increasingly dominant voting bloc."

He continued that Ernst and Young numbers show pay increases for municipal union staff of 38 per cent between 2001 and 2012, compared to 19 per cent for unionized provincial staff.  Plus what municipalities are spending generally!  A Globe and Mail story highlights the disparity among reports.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark chastised politicians attending the September UBCM meeting at Whistler, saying in effect that municipal bureaucrats were, in some cases, earning more than deputy ministers in Victoria.  A 2011 story by Farrell's excellent blog Northern Insights on Executive Compensation--even at just B.C. Ferries and B.C. Hydro--proves that municipal leaders shouldn't flinch from the shadow cast by Premier Clark's executives.

Seems municipal politicians have learned from the best.
And we're stuck paying for the rest.

Sour grapes as we enter election season in the North Okanagan?
Nope, not at all.

I'm simply envious that Taxpayers First hasn't made a sojourn northward about 40 km.

Will I vote?
Damn right I will.

You'll know me by my lapel pin: 

Socialism is a philosophy of failure,

the creed of ignorance,

and the gospel of envy,

 its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

(Winston Churchill)

"I'm unfortunately unable to vote," muses Kia, adding "but as Alan Wilson said in a recent letter to the editor, 'give us something to vote for'."

Any business owner out there who had a 38 per cent wage increase in 10 years?

Or even 19 per cent?

Didn't think so.

Me neither.

A future blog story will feature the most wonderful mayor in the world...nope, it's nobody from this area, as you likely guessed.