The Editor,
Re. "SD43 job cuts 'massive'" (The Tri-City News, April 19).
I have been reading the news reports on the current budget issue, and want to share my views with the board and interested parties.
First, the board and senior staff are guilty of mismanagement. How do I know? Both have confessed to mistakes of mismanagement. Moreover, given the size of the deficit, it is patently clear that mismanagement took place.
Second, the core reason for the mismanagement, in my view, is a dysfunctional working relationship between the board and senior staff, with the board having, in effect, become servants of the staff.
Third, and most important, is that now a fundamental and unavoidable moral issue is at stake. The board and senior staff are about to make decisions, probably unavoidable decisions, that will be of real harm to others - laid-off staff and their families, students, parents and taxpayers. Given the parameters under which the board operates, these decisions would appear, now, to be unavoidable.
But it would be unconscionable for the board and senior staff to act as executioners of completely innocent people but face no real harm themselves.
Fairness and decency require that appropriate senior staff be dismissed and that the board suffer as well.
The best option would be for all board members to resign and have the province take over until the next election. The minimum would be to take substantial pay cuts but compared to what they are imposing on others, even this would be just a symbolic act and, therefore, too little, too late.
David Werthman, Coquitlam
