What did it cost the city to take the firefighters to court?
Only to be told by the judge (as I forecast) that the previous arbitrated settlement, awarded for two prior wage contracts of wage parity with the coastal firefighters “had” to be accepted by this council?
As I put forward in my previous letter to the editor, when council announced their court challenge to the firefighters contract, that the challenge was a waste of time because it had already been challenged years ago by the Interior municipal councils and lost.
The mayor said the city is taking this to court because the city can’t afford the wage settlement. Then to hear the judge tell them, as I predicted, that council will never win that argument because they have the responsibility to budget for these projected and known costs. Then for the judge to hear that the city had already put the monies aside for the retroactive wage parity settlement, the judge must have wondered why am I hearing this ludicrous challenge from the City of Penticton? And, what city lawyer advised the city to bring this argument to court?
Had any councillor done their due diligence on the history of the firefighters arbitrated “parity” wage settlement, they would have and should have strongly opposed the motion to go to court. I don’t recall a single councillor questioning the council motion to take the previous arbitrated settlement to court? It is their ultimate responsibility to do their homework and challenge a motion that they feel is costly and a waste of time.
This ludicrous court challenge has been a total waste of staff time, waste of legal costs and therefore a waste of city taxes. Thanks to the judge for intimating in the court decision, that the council had the authority to deal with this and basically wasted the courts time with their challenge.
Again, the question is, what did this ludicrous council decision of taking the firefighters’ two previous wage parity contracts cost the city taxpayers to go to court?
You, we are entitled to know.
Jake Kimberley
Penticton
