The Editor,
Two recent newsworthy stories have shocked and angered me with respect to the continuing waste of taxpayers' money by elected politicians and the senior bureaucrats they employ on our behalf.
The first report was that BC Hydro vice-presidents have a supplemental pension plan that would pay them upwards of 50% of their average best five years annual salary, or potentially upwards of $200,000 per year for life when combined with their normal defined benefit pension plan. These are the same VPs who proposed that all of us should expect to see a 50% increase in our monthly Hydro bill in the next five years.
Second, in a 2010 report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, it was stated that if B.C. municipalities collectively had maintained better fiscal discipline between 2000 and 2008, taxpayers would have saved $883 million or approximately $1,000 per a family of four, in 2008 alone.
Like the poor dog (the one with the red umbrella) in the Travellers Insurance ad on TV who tosses and turns about losing his bone, I too toss and turn about the hole we're digging for our children and grandchildren through the mismanagement of our - and I emphasize OUR - money by public officials.
It's time all of us said enough is enough and elect only those candidates in November who make it their number one priority to reduce their city's operating expenses. I'm tired of seeing smokescreen issues of banning cigarettes in parks and installing washrooms in SkyTrain stations that are years away from being built or signage to let me know when I'm entering Coquitlam rather than addressing the number one issue facing all of us: how can we save a few dollars in a recessionary period that is likely to last several years.
Murray Clare, Coquitlam
