Dear Editor
Once again, our mayor and city council seem to be following the road of the former Harper government: “Keep everything to ourselves and don’t tell the voters what we are really doing.”
For example, despite repeated attempts to find out how much the Burnaby taxpayers are being billed for the Burnaby Mt./Kinder Morgan fiasco, his honour and his sheep refuse to tell us. You know “us,” as in the ultimate bill payers for RCMP costs, legal fees (in-house and outside counsel), staff services in-kind, and all other costs associated with losing legal battles. That’s right, taxpayers, we are losing the legal battles. Whatever happened to the concept of open government?
Another example, the elected officials refuse to recognize there are homeless people in the city and do anything to try to alleviate the problem. Simply passing the buck and blaming others; whilst at the same time other communities in the Lower Mainland don’t hide behind that “excuse” and are actually working together with developers, etc. You know, the “developers” that are given carte blanche rights to build tower after tower in Metrotown and Brentwood despite an already unable-to-deal-with traffic, etc. What’s in it for our officials? Who knows? Maybe they simply like charging the “community fees” to be applied to buildings where the elected officials can have a plaque with their names on it in perpetuity.
This local government is out-of-control and has lost touch with community responsibilities.
They are getting re-elected with the help of millions of dollars of developers’ money. And at the same time, when we are simply asking them to explain and tell us the facts, we are responded to with political flatulence.
Bill Phelps, Burnaby
