Municipal Elections
Our store has been taken hostage by a construction zone. Here I sit at work not serving the customer. I can't because there aren't any to be served -they are all scared of entering lest they be crushed to death by falling debris. But there are always risk-takers.
Today is also municipal election day which raises a point. Do we have too much government? Over-governmentalization? I'm proud to be living in the Royal city but taxes are so high and they keep getting higher!! The construction workers are fixing a road which isn't broken and I bet they are making more per hour to lazily sweep than I do (not that I'm working especially hard either). They are plowing the streets with their striation machine, filling cracks with quickcrete (I know the stuff because I used to work with it during my stint as a restoration worker). They've had one main street detoured and dug up for the whole summer up until now! (and there was never anything wrong with it).
Last week I woke up to the sound of an ear-piercing wood shredder chowing down on the trees outside my house. It seems that since one or two of the trees were starting to grow into the chain-linked fence they had to be cut down. Since when is it easier to cut down a tree than it is to build a fence? They also spent the better part of the week hacking off branches and making a mess of my street. So I got to wake up to the industrial music of noisy machinery at regular intervals.
By next month, I'm sure this city will find ways of spending a couple grand putting up lights and cellophane in the spirit of the season. Maybe a few reindeer...a Menorah. That kind of thing is actually worth it though. I'm not complaining, just leveling. I like strolling down the street at night and seeing that someone is managing the aesthetic details...but there is a limit.
I'm kind of desensitized to all the signs for municipal leaders now. There Rocco (which sounds like the name of someone who gets stuff done. What stuff? Who knows. Don't know much about him), the 'progressive' or the regressive to choose from and none of them are looking all too attractive. I regularly receive pamphlets in my door accusing one candidate of being fiscally irresponsible or for not being committed to values of development. The main slogan from the Karen Farbridge campaign is to "put Guelph back on track" but then another smear campaign accuses her of wasting over $16 million in taxpayer money. Meanwhile, Karen accuses the current leader, Kate Quarrie of unnecessarily shutting down our wet garbage processing facility and sending our garbage to be burnt in New York instead!
Regardless of who voters choose for their municipal leader today, I'm sick of all the excessive money going to city workers simply because those in power have the money to spend! Stop driving my business away with your disruptive business! Stop destroying in the name of productivity. And yes, let's get this city back on track but we can do that simply. We don't need to build a million new parking lots or draw up entirely new bus routes or even discover a new country. Kudos to those in politics because it's not an easy job. Please don't make it more complicated.
and VOTE!
Politics
Today is also municipal election day which raises a point. Do we have too much government? Over-governmentalization? I'm proud to be living in the Royal city but taxes are so high and they keep getting higher!! The construction workers are fixing a road which isn't broken and I bet they are making more per hour to lazily sweep than I do (not that I'm working especially hard either). They are plowing the streets with their striation machine, filling cracks with quickcrete (I know the stuff because I used to work with it during my stint as a restoration worker). They've had one main street detoured and dug up for the whole summer up until now! (and there was never anything wrong with it).
Last week I woke up to the sound of an ear-piercing wood shredder chowing down on the trees outside my house. It seems that since one or two of the trees were starting to grow into the chain-linked fence they had to be cut down. Since when is it easier to cut down a tree than it is to build a fence? They also spent the better part of the week hacking off branches and making a mess of my street. So I got to wake up to the industrial music of noisy machinery at regular intervals.
By next month, I'm sure this city will find ways of spending a couple grand putting up lights and cellophane in the spirit of the season. Maybe a few reindeer...a Menorah. That kind of thing is actually worth it though. I'm not complaining, just leveling. I like strolling down the street at night and seeing that someone is managing the aesthetic details...but there is a limit.
I'm kind of desensitized to all the signs for municipal leaders now. There Rocco (which sounds like the name of someone who gets stuff done. What stuff? Who knows. Don't know much about him), the 'progressive' or the regressive to choose from and none of them are looking all too attractive. I regularly receive pamphlets in my door accusing one candidate of being fiscally irresponsible or for not being committed to values of development. The main slogan from the Karen Farbridge campaign is to "put Guelph back on track" but then another smear campaign accuses her of wasting over $16 million in taxpayer money. Meanwhile, Karen accuses the current leader, Kate Quarrie of unnecessarily shutting down our wet garbage processing facility and sending our garbage to be burnt in New York instead!
Regardless of who voters choose for their municipal leader today, I'm sick of all the excessive money going to city workers simply because those in power have the money to spend! Stop driving my business away with your disruptive business! Stop destroying in the name of productivity. And yes, let's get this city back on track but we can do that simply. We don't need to build a million new parking lots or draw up entirely new bus routes or even discover a new country. Kudos to those in politics because it's not an easy job. Please don't make it more complicated.
and VOTE!
Politics
posted by sirbarrett at 11:21 a.m.
3 Comments:
Municipal elections are boring. I don't even know who my school trustee is do you?
whatever you do make sure you vote. if you don't then some right wing luntic might grab the election. municpal elections are no different to the general ones.
jason -I admit I don't know who my school trustee is. You'd be surprised how obsessed people are with municipal elections here though. If you can't influence politics at the national level I'd say voting in municipal elections is the way to do it. Sorry if this post was boring but thanks for casting your vote!
cocaine jesus -Exactomundo hombre! There's so much confusing information too about candidates but at least if you make a choice you made a choice and it's better to bear a poor leader that you chose than to complain and not make a difference. It's our job as a society to speak so that our leaders at least have a choice of listening.
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