Tuesday, March 22, 2016

ROOKIE COUNCILLORS JOIN ANNUNZIATA IN RACKING UP LARGE EXPENSES

Well, there it is. The least-productive Fort Erie councillors have joined their regional counterpart in running up large expenses for "governing" their constituents. In Fort Erie Council's case., along with large tax increases . Newcomers Marina Butler, Chris Knutt ("this is too hard"), and George McDermott reported well over a thousand dollars in expenses, while, the man, Passero, who cost the taxpayers over $50,000. for a by-election voted by the new council, rather than appointing the runner-up to fill the Ward 2 seat left vacant by the death of Rick Shular, used up an additional $1201.42 of taxpayer money.

Only Ward 3 Councillor Kimberly Zanko and Ward 5 Councillor Don Lubberts reported zero expenses.

One would assume that the amount of expenses correlates with the amount of work that the councillors did for their constituents, but it seems that the opposite is true this time. Marina Butler is basically a no-show in Ward 4 and Chris Knutt finds it too much work to represent Ward 6. Of course, neither has to worry much about getting re-elected in 2018 if they want. With the Chamber of Commerce basically controlling the election outcome and the council, there is little hope that there will be any change soon.

Too bad, Fort Erie. You had your chance; instead, you let yourselves be bullied and frightened into voting against your best interests while your former mayor and his friends mounted a vicious lawsuit against four councillors. Only one (Lubberts) survived the Old Guard financed lawsuit and the negative publicity. The case was dismissed, but the damage had been done. Insurance paid the councillors back for their massive expenses to defend themselves for a lawsuit that was born out of spite.

Off Topic: The death of Rob Ford brings out all the praise and accolades. I guess people's grief makes them forgetful. 



Expenses:

READ ON:

Appendix “1” to Administrative Report No. CS-06-2016 – 2015 Statement of Remuneration and Expenses


MAYOR & COUNCIL
Name:Mayor Redekop
Salary: $56,904.09
Benefits: $7,015.08
Travel Allowance: $0.00
Expenses: $865.00
Total: $64,784.17

Name: Councillor Butler
Salary: $13,301.37
Benefits: $2,727.00
Travel Allowance: $898.12
Expenses: $1,822.38
$18,748.87

Name: Councillor Knutt
Salary: $13,301.37
Benefits: $6,794.40
Travel Allowance: $898.12
Expenses: $1,897.13
$22,891.02

Name: Councillor Lubberts
Salary: $13,301.37
Benefits: $2,727.00
Travel Allowance: $898.12
Expenses: $0.00
$16,926.49

Name: Councillor McDermott
Salary: $13,301.37
Benefits: $6,775.08
Travel Allowance: $898.12
Expenses: $1,490.59
$22,465.16

Name: Councillor Passero
Salary: $9,674.91
Benefits: $5,095.80
Travel Allowance: $653.37
Expenses: $1,201.42
$16,625.50

Name: Councillor Shular
Salary: $301.11
Benefits: $183.83
Travel Allowance: $20.22
Expenses: $0.00
$505.16

Name: Councillor Zanko
Salary: $13,301.37
Benefits: $6,794.40
Travel Allowance: $898.12
Expenses: $0.00
$20,993.89

SUB TOTAL
Salary: $133,386.96
Benefits: $38,112.59
Travel Allowance: $5,164.19
Expenses: $7,276.52
$183,940.26

12 comments:

  1. Way too much money for way too little results. Lets hope things change soon. And not way more money for even less results. Mayor Way says its all rainbows, icecream and ponys this year. Well, the ponys we understand, but lets get real. This town needs jobs. Period.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Corruption FighterMarch 23, 2016 at 8:37 AM

    Have to disagree with your opinion on Rob Ford Madam Editor. Before his very public battle with drugs and alcohol, he was very well known for his almost solo fight to end "the gravy train" of municipal waste both with elected and non elected officials. Something VERY few politicians have the stones to even try.

    Our version of gravy train fighters was pushed/ sued/ vilified/ called out/ called down etc etc etc. Too bad the infantile local voter treated like so many mushrooms by the local media couldn't figure the obvious out, getting rid of the very people working so hard for so little and for the first time in recent memory ready to take on our privileged local gravy train.

    Remember The Four FE, they had your back, this council with one exception, Mr Lubberts, only works for the ol boys/CofC/insiders club, costing the majority of the town so very much. The deceiving calm of this council only enables more and more tax $$$$ to be siphoned off for the connected few.

    Prediction.....Paladino'sTrack/Not4Nascar both need more and more $$$$$ to ever come into being to employ possibly a handful more part time under paid workers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I must admit that I became aware of Rob Ford when he became an embarrassment to Canadians. The stories of his generosity and hard work for his constituents were talked about yesterday after I wrote the post. Maybe, if I lived in Toronto, I would have more appreciation of his work. It is just so sad. All of it.

      Delete
  3. Residents in many Ontario municipalities would be thrilled if their Councillors collectively claimed less than $8K in expenses over an entire year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You might want to look up the councillors' expenses during the previous council. I would imagine that there are few municipalities of the size of Fort Erie that have the expenses that we have. Just thinking of the waste of taxpayer dollars going to the EDTC so that its head can use those taxpayer dollars to sue a blogger and do nothing but show up at a race track for photo ops. How many millions more will go down that rabbit hole before someone puts a stop to it?

      Delete
    2. Township of Puslinch - population <8000 - 2015 expenses of a 5-person Council - $13,000+. Councillor expenses in Fort Erie are far from outrageous. The EDTC - now that's another story.

      Delete
  4. It's probably more "informative" to post staff salaries with their full benefits attached. These numbers presented here will not wake up the average voter from their stupor in this town. Maybe the Times will do it......likely not they have never displayed any conscience about massive tax waste, political cronyism(FE version of dialing for dollars.it's our largest industry) or even large social injustices before.

    If the average voter ever wakes up here a few of our well heeled insiders had better run for it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That graph was sent to me by a reader and it presented the numbers better than the "official document." If we want to really go back to trace the grifters, we must return to the early days of charity bingos. That is where many established their place in the pecking order. The OLG has taken over the bingos, but there are still reminders of the former cash grabbers. Russ Wilson is still in charge of the separate gaming corp. Like the EDTC, their meetings are not open to the public and it is run like a dictatorship. I believe that once those two "corporations" are dissolved and returned as departments under the town administration, there will be progress in Fort Erie.

      And speaking of bingo money: why doesn't the town just admit that the Friendship Festival is no longer viable (on its death bed ever since it was moved to the race track for a couple of years,) and end it altogether and give its bingo funds to a charity helping the poor? No, they moved it forward towards the end of July. I guess no one remembers the idea of the Friendship Festival was to show the closeness between Canada and the US during their respective national holidays. Now it is official: the Friendship Festival is nothing more than a carnival with so-so attractions and nothing in common with its original intent.

      Delete
  5. Actually, I like Rob too. Our house hold doesn't consider him to be an embarrassment to Canada and feel all so bad for his family.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, I should be the last one to say anything negative about Rob Ford. Where I come from, we've got Donald Trump running for president. (So glad I moved here when I did.)

      Delete
    2. Hey, Donald is a provoker. What he is doing might just be good for the States, He is getting people off their ass who other wise would just ignore the whole process or go and vote for the sake of saying they voted! People ( mexican's ) are going for their U.S. citizenship now so they can too can vote, isn't that a good thing? Donald is a Very Smart Businessman, he is playing everyone else.

      Delete
  6. The Festival was started as a one day Canada Day event with the help of MP Sheila Copps who wanted communities in Canada to show the flag and have parties and parades , as the Minister in charge of Tourism for the Federal government her Ministry would provide a diminishing grant every year to kick start that celebration, we in Black Creek put in for those grants and with lots of volunteer groups put on a fabulous " Peace and Friendship Festival" still have lots of photos and 8mm movies of our events , Louis Ziff who was our neighbour and lived in Black Creek wanted our help to have the Festival put in Fort Erie , that was agreeable to us, he promised us if we worked on a full proposal we would get $15,000 for our time and expenses, we put a proposal to the entire Chamber of Commerce about 8 guys , above the old bowling ally that Louis once owned , they the C of C after us putting a huge proposal to them, we were screwed out of that money. I have been angry at those bums ever since. They are the C of C, a bunch of rip off artists. We in Black Creek put all of our efforts into obtaining a Community Centre and providing a place for the Navy Cadets , Scouts and now the Lions a home. Flo Odding is clueless about why we had the event in conjunction with the US side of the border. JT killed off the Slots , Flo, will kill off the Friendship Festival.

    ReplyDelete

This blog no longer publishes Anonymous comments. Just use a nickname and comments will be considered.To use a nickname, please fill in the area of "Name/URL" with your nickname, It is not necessary to fill in the URL portion.

PAST ISSUES