Sir: The irredeemable actions of Mayor Hope at the Sept. 12 council meeting continues to define his support for administration, perhaps himself, working against the taxpayer and trying to micro manage Chatham-Kent by not obeying his elected and statutory obligation to the residents.
The mayor and council are legislatively compelled to make final decisions, relying upon they being qualified to make sound, rational, good business judgments from knowing when and when not sound, factual, comprehensive, scrupulously fair and tenable information is or is not responsibly prepared and presented to them by administration.
Administration is also statutorily indentured to provide complete, accurate and unequivocal documentation to council. But it continues to submit reports to council based only on preliminary information founded on assumptions, conjecture, beliefs and suppositions, having council make capital decisions that continue to produce taxpayer liability rather than taxpayer asset.
Coun. Vercouteren’s recent notice of motion requested the municipality confirm the number of full-time firefighters actually needed in Chatham-Kent. This request comes as the fire service is ratifying its five-year contract, which has a direct bearing to Vercouteren’s timely motion and should have been understood by those council members that voted against Vercouteren.
Currently the Chatham-Kent fire department has more than 400 personnel – full time, part time, and paid volunteers including fire office staff. The condescending and disdainful attack by Mayor Hope to Vercouteren (I had a front row seat) demonstrated the mayor’s lack of business and managerial effectiveness and his limited level of responsible direction, as could be the case of the councillors supporting Hope’s aggressiveness against Vercouteren’s motion.
The motion, had it passed, may have shown that only half of the full-time firefighters are actually required and would have confirmed 38 full-time fire fighters are eligible for retirement over the next five years (pending any required lack of years service settlement) producing a $5.5 million annual savings, enough to pay for our contracted land ambulance service every year (the remainder is provincially subsidized).
Supporting the motion would have given councillors a more thorough understanding as to why the delay in ratifying the land ambulance contract and to better understand pros and cons when the land ambulance contract is thrown at them at a zero hour with administrative report colouring.
Instead, the mayor, rather than representing the public purse, represented administration by supporting the demands of the fire department, fully aware emphasis is not placed on fire employee numbers during budgets.
Vercouteren’s timely motion was paramount given the current fire and land ambulance contract negotiations, further allowing council better understanding and to have some control over all the goodies that may be in the new fire contract.
It is plausible to propose a delay to ratify the land ambulance contract, unaware to council, may be intentional in order to guarantee firefighter jobs, expand their current department by vacuuming all the paramedic jobs into the municipal bag, unnecessarily adding millions each year to our taxes.
It is further reasonable to propose our municipality is delaying ratifying the land ambulance contract by quietly prioritizing volunteer and firefighter contract talks ahead of the council-ordered Medavie Land ambulance contract, hence the ongoing delays with the land ambulance contract.
It is in administration’s best interest to stop any potential attrition action that would save taxpayers $5.5 million each year by consummating the volunteer/full-time firefighter agreements first to better manipulate any finalizing of land ambulance agreements over the next five years, the contract life for fire and land ambulance.
Under municipal governance patterns, larger departments mean larger administrative paycheques, meaning best potential for a highest five-year consistent income to wit 70% of gross incomes make up a life-long Fort Knox pension at taxpayer expense.
John Cryderman
Chatham
