Recent events at City Hall seem to throw some considerable doubt on at least the transparency if not the incompetence of our civic government.
The cost of the Challenge event remains obscure. The fate of the hotel tax remains in limbo, we are apparently paying $1,000,000 more than initially expected for an electric substation, a cost apparently foisted upon us by Fortis without careful due diligence in the working of such a major contract?
In addition no really credible explanation has been given for the firing of a senior administrator.
Clearly much more is known than has been revealed, but apparently the taxpayers who support this rather creaky government structure are to be denied any important information. Does this represent contempt or fear?
Ted Wiltse challenged the city to respond to his suggestion that the cost of hosting the not very successful Challenge event was over $500,000. As far as I know there has been no response, despite the fact that the senior city administrator oversees these finances.
If the administration feels too restrained to reply then perhaps the council could investigate and supply some answers, though given their perennial obsession with trivialities this seems like forlorn expectations. This city is not flourishing. It is full of unoccupied storefronts, underdeveloped retail and industrial sites, and unemployed people.
We need an honest appraisal of affairs, not the financial obscurity to which we are constantly exposed.
Raymond S. Corteen
Penticton
