Editor,
In your July 9 editorial, you mention, as you have during previous elections, that some disgruntled voters suggest a completely new council is required, no incumbents. Your opinion, one which typically would be sound reasoning, is that a healthy ratio of incumbents is still necessary to help the newcomers adjust to the job. In Meaford, I’m not so sure that a large percentage of incumbents is a good outcome.
Considering the explosion of size in our staff in the last fifteen years (and the unwillingness of too many on that staff to be accountable to the taxpayers who pay their bills), the inefficiency we see in the delivery of simple municipal services, and the expanding powers abdicated by the council and given to the CAO, which has given salaried employees an apparent free reign to decrease productivity and increase unnecessary spending with impunity, maybe the fewest incumbents the better. Too many incumbents apparently approve of the power shift resulting in a less efficient government.
Are the actions of the last dozen or so years by council really something we’re eager for any new councillors to learn? Obviously, some degree of experienced council members is desirable (ironically, the one that I consider most likely to willingly guide the newcomers, Harley Greenfield, has chosen to retire), but maybe incumbents comprising the minority of our next council would be a favourable result. Let’s hope the candidate list grows dramatically in the coming weeks, and voters ask plenty of questions, rather than vote according to name recognition.
Bill Cameron, Bognor
