Quote of the Year - 2011

It's been almost a year since the new council took over the town and we'll be highlighting some of the key moments in an upcoming article. In the meantime, we've selected Kearney's quote of the year.

And the winner is Councilor Barry Dingwall with:

"I didn’t see God on the beaches of Normandy, not that I was there."

Way to offend everybody, Barry.

"I didn't see God in Fredericksburg, not that I was there."

Tomlinson Axes Christmas Turkeys

As if morale wasn't low enough, Mayor Ebenezer Tomlinson and the Proudfoot Grinches voted to discontinue giving Christmas turkeys to town staff this year. When staff met with His Honour to express their disappointment, he told them they should just be happy they have jobs!

Nice.

Lots of money to wine and dine the Proudfoot property association executives and fat raises for themselves, but nothing for town staff. 

Or the Food Bank, for that matter.

Are you surprised?

Council Votes Itself a Pay Raise

Funny how the Proudfoot Four used to scream bloody murder about the previous council's honoraria, but now that they're on the receiving end, have given themselves a raise. All the while telling us that it's a decrease.

On paper, council makes it look like their honorarium has been deceased by creating a fixed monthly amount, instead of a per-meeting payment. That might work out to be less than what the previous council billed because the Proudfoot Four (especially Councillor Barry Dingwall) have no intention of volunteering for anything, getting involved in anything, or attending anything, other than the bare minimum of council meetings.

The previous council members attended pretty much everything and were actively involved in everything, so they were technically entitled to more honorarium payments than the current council who do next to nothing (and are proud of it). But most of the previous council either didn't collect their honoraria, or just donated it back to the town, or community volunteer groups.

But now, councilors like Dingwall won't have to show up for anything and will still be guaranteed to make $7,200 a year. Mayor Tomlinson will bag $8,400 a year, even though he's "just one voice". This after they received a $1,200-plus (or 30%) pay increase when they came into power in 2010!

At the end of the year, it looks like the town will save money, but think about it this way:

Let's say you have employees who work at least 40 hours a week and often volunteers to work evenings and weekends at no cost to you. And the employees love their jobs, work hard, and then donate their pay back to the company! After 4 years of this you fire the employees.

Now you have new employees. They show up for work when they feel like, don't bother reading any of the material before meetings, refuse to work overtime, barely put in a 20-hour work week, and have given away free services to their buddies while treating your regular customers like crap and driving new business away. Now out of the goodness of their hearts, the new employees are going to work for a regular monthly salary instead of an hourly wage. The monthly salary will be less that what the previous employees could have made each month but will actually be an in-pocket increase of over 50%, but don't expect any improvement in the new employees' work performance. In fact, they've made it very clear that they'll be doing less from now on. Oh, and they won't be donating any of their pay back to the company either.

When was the last time you got a 80% pay raise, for doing less work?

Are you surprised? 

"I ran for the job to be a councilor, not to be a social butterfly. There is no secret to the fact that I don’t live in Kearney all year round and can’t always be at these functions." - Councilor Barry Dingwall, March 2011


“I already put in about 25 hours a week. I just don’t see how the community can expect people on council to go out and do these programs in addition to the work they’ve already taken on. For me, I’m out. I will never volunteer for regatta, I’m sorry to say.” - Councilor Barry Dingwall, November 2011

Not unless Tomlinson needs you to spy on the kids at the Regatta Chalk Art contest, eh, Barry?

Council Responds

Kearney councillor Yvonne Wills writes:

Dear Concerned Citizens:

To correct your recent Blog entry regarding the Change in Council Times for Kearney Council.  First, I presented a “Resolution” to Council several months ago, with reference to the Council meeting times.   I asked Council consideration to move to a Winter Hours schedule, being an earlier start time.  This was approved by Council for the winter months only.  The reason I requested this was a) because most Seasonal residents do not attend the winter months meetings as many close their cottages after October. b) An earlier start time in respect of Staff who I am sure would probably rather be at home then at a Council meeting, however, some of our staff live out town, and must travel late at night and due to Winter weather conditions, and earlier finish time for Council allows them time for travel home earlier in the evening. c) This travel time is also more practical for other attendees as well.  The 7 pm Council Start time will resume in the spring again.   This was advertised in the Newspapers over 2 weeks ago to advise all of the change in Start time.    The fact that the Website was not updated was unfortunate and we do apologize for that, and I have notified staff to make those changes on the website immediately.

Regards

Yvonne Wills

Councillor

For the Town of Kearney

Thank you Ms. Wills. It was very gracious of you to take the time to apologize personally. It did take us a bit to find the announcement, even knowing that it was there to find. An announcement on the town's website will certainly alleviate a lot of confusion.

It's ironic that the arguments put forward are the same arguments presented when the current council decided that, instead of holding meetings alternately on Wednesdays and Friday nights, to switch to Friday nights only:

• Staff and attendees would rather be home on Friday nights.
• Staff and attendee safety (Driving at night in inclement weather, a greater number of impaired drivers).
• Seasonal residents showing little or no increased attendance. (Saturday "Town Hall" meetings seem to generate better attendance and involvement)
• Increased cost in staff overtime.

I'm sure that everyone appreciates the efforts you've made. Again, thank-you for taking the time to set the record straight on this issue. I'm sure you'll be hearing from Mayor Tomlinson once he learns you've been talking to us.