Maybe City has skeletons

Dear Editor:

It would seem that Coun. Amelia Boultbee’s recent motion to have a core review of city staffing infrastructure etal. may have touched a nerve with some council members. The failure of passage of the motion might indicate two main ideas.

Five Penticton city councillors voted against the motion to stifle it. The reasons each member voted the way he/she did could have been individual or personal; from a group focus perspective or for a multitude of other reasons. Who knows? We don’t and we won’t. For all we know everything is fine at council and if it “ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

What we, taxpayers do know, is that everything is not fine just looking back at some decisions council made citing these as staff recommendations to get them “off the hook, so to speak.” Keep in mind, who has direction in staff hirings.

The second idea to consider might be that the fact that if, in council’s opinion, things are going so well, what harm could a core review cause if you have nothing to hide? A core review would promote and cement relations between council and taxpayers. Maybe there are more skeletons in the closet than we know about.

My hat’s off to the two councilors that had the “cajones” to propose, promote and vote on the motion. They felt that there was need for the review and realized the good that could come of it to make the city infrastructure function more efficiently.

It’s really too bad that a majority of council seemed to be threatened by the motion. Maybe there are skeletons in the closet. We, as taxpayers, will never really know.

Ron Barillaro Penticton