Hey, Saskatoon City Council

Their appears to be a program for just about everyone, while not all these listings are "free", I'm sure each of these telephone numbers has a few staff members present and a heated office, accessible to everyone, equally...

*for the record, I think all provinces in Canada share this idiocy, it's not like the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan area is the only one guilty of promising a chicken in every pot.

http://www.saskatoon.ca/DEPARTMENTS/Community%20Services/Communitydevelopment/Documents/CommunityResourceDirectory.pdf

I just left Detroit today, own a business in the heart of the D. I tell you something is happening in the city. It is still under the radar but things are moving. Google Dan Gilbert. He is betting the farm on remaking the city. With a Republican governor, weaken unions and a sidelined dem city council. It may be certain something. Living in Windsor it will be great to watch.

"There are certain functions that you want government to perform that should not be at the whim of individuals or charities."
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Like what?

Notice how people can cope when the Politicians, Unions with the other vultures are out of the way.
Tip of the hat to residents of Detroit who care.

The "Mower Gang" better watch out. The parks department union will be out to get them. The union owns the rights to cut the grass, and no one else is allowed to cut the grass in city parks, even if your Detroit union won't.

I hear ya' RD. When the NDP were in power in BC in the 90's it was the same thing. They had gifted the trades unions building the new Island Highway with an extra $76 million - a 'fair wage' bonus. The result was a freeway with traffic lights every couple of miles instead of interchanges.

They also had no money for maintaining it. The 'interchanges' (read: stop light) areas were a mess, overgrown with long grass and weeds. Our city looked a mess. I decided to 'adopt' an intersection and every couple of weeks humped my lawnmower and weed wacker down. Wasn't long before a union goon dropped by to 'discourage' me from doing a job that belonged to a union member - whether they were doing it or not.

I told him to p*ss off, letting him know that he worked for me and not the other way around. Once the Liberals came in we suddenly saw things go back to 'normal'. Too bad they've screwed up so badly. Because the DP'ers have a lock on my riding, I'll certainly be voting for the Conservative candidate.

Just noticed the link to the item titled 'Mission Creep'. Interesting in that I just sent a PowerPoint presentation titled Mission Creep to our new Ratepayers Assn. I had given the presentation to a clearly hostile Council meeting a couple of years ago.

I had spent several hours with the City Comptroller after requesting and receiving documentation on the growth of our municipal gov't over a period of years. Once I had pay scales, benefits, number of employees per pop. etc., I was able to contrast these with numbers from the private sector.

Council just didn't want to hear it. I felt like the Christian in the coliseum as the Councillors took umbrage with the facts. Got all the usual bumpmf - 'race to the bottom', 'pay peanuts and get monkeys', you want our dedicated and highly skilled employees to work for minimum wage.... etc.

IOW, it's not that we should pay wages and benefits in line with the private sector, but rather that the exploitive private sector should pay their workers a decent wage.

The city's parking enforcement has been under contract to a private company for years and by all accounts has done exactly as the city wished - over park and you get a ticket. But people would whine and complain to City Hall. So the city recently took over the job, hiring four 'parking officers'. Each gets $62,000/yr. plus bennies. The manager, with four officers and a clerk, gets $132,000/yr plus all the goodies. Now, instead of giving tickets and collecting city revenue, the 'officers' will be called city ambassadors.

And then a new city councillor(a former fire chief) has the temerity to sniff and say that if you want a "classy city" it "takes lots of money". This is one of the people who will be negotiating contracts for the fire department (avg. $92,000/yr), police and city employees. He (and other councillors) are shall we say - sympatico with municipal unions.

People in Saskatoon were spoiled the last 5 years with short winters and little snow. Most don't know how to drive on ice and snow, I lived in Winterpeg 1 block off Portage and there were storms when we were shut in for a week unless we hiked to Portage and took a bus.
We had a plow come down our crescent in November and my neighbor complained to the city for half an hour because they left a ridge by his sidewalk. He doesn't park on the street so I asked him what he thought they should do with the snow and he gave me a blank stare. The whiners think they should live in California, drive to fast because they are so important,and burn away from the lights and stop signs and wonder why they ice up. I think the city did a great job considering the winter we had.
Lorje thinks we should investigate melting the snow. If we could harness the hot air from our wingnut councilors it would never stay on the ground. the ones who cry they want the snow removed from residential streets are the first one to complain about their taxes going up.
I like my 97 year old aunt complain about complainers!

No Guff;
Unfortunately the Dipper behavior is not restricted to that particular party. All parties have hanger ons whose sole purpose is to gain what they can from their positions. Value for dollar spent has become a dream.