St. Albert city council has defeated motions that would have rescinded the city’s branch library borrowing bylaw and ceased further planning to build and construct the project. Our new mayor, newly elected council and re-elected council are embarrassing themselves for not respecting the will of the people. Along with electing them 63 per cent of people who voted in the 2017 municipal election cast their ballots against proceeding with further planning of the branch library. I don’t think the voting public could be much clearer on the mandate given. While we’ve been disappointed too many times by politicians who campaign one way but govern another way, it is rare that incumbents would vote against a clear plebiscite. While not everyone elected campaigned against the construction/funding of a new library, it is the taxpayers who voted against the project and as elected officials you should respect taxpayer’s wishes. Otherwise why incur the expense of a plebiscite? When it comes to spending, it is so much easier to say “Yes” to every “nice to have” and allow government to increase until tax increases become the only option. It’s difficult to effectuate the diligent work of uncovering waste and prioritizing expenditures. It’s difficult to say “No” to the insatiable appetites of the innumerable government programs and projects that all desire to grow their empires under the false belief they can solve the problems of man-kind if they only had a little more funding. This is why I’m so disappointed to see this mayor and council fail to pass a “full stop” on the library project. How refreshing it would be to see elected officials carrying out what they campaigned on and respecting the will of the people. Unfortunately, it will be another four long years before we can try again to elect people who will govern based on the voter majority. Paul Dill, St. Albert
