Dear Mayor and Council; There were two items in Victoria Paterson's article on portable signs in the Sept. 13 St. Albert Gazette that caught my attention.
Dear Mayor and Council;
There were two items in Victoria Paterson's article on portable signs in the Sept. 13 St. Albert Gazette that caught my attention. First, she reports that during the recent standing committee on finance meeting, "Staff mentioned (portable sign) fees don't cover the administrative cost of doing the work to issue them." As a long-time payer of noted fees, I find this statement incredulous. If my $225 payment every three months does not cover the five minutes it likely takes someone to put our renewal form letter in an envelope, drop it in the outgoing mail, and process our payment once returned, I suggest there is either gross mismanagement, too much administration, or the staff is hideously overpaid. Anyone care to comment?
Secondly, in her closing paragraph, Victoria reports our mayor, looking to recoup the "lost" portable sign revenue, has asked staff to look into the viability of charging realtors a fee for their large signs. This just seems to be more "sour-grapes" attitude. You have just managed to alienate yourself from every small business but one in Riel Park with your new patronizing destination signage. The Business Development Department is banging its collective heads together, trying to come up with workable options to get people and businesses to move here, and now you are proposing to annoy the major real estate "Big Boys" with an "only in St. Albert” sign fee.
This certainly isn't the type of leadership our city needs, or can afford. Surely you can do better.
Mike Bishop, St. Albert
P.S. Doing some simple math, we come up with a price of $180,000 a year for the City Engineering Department to “administer” 100 portable signs. What an outstanding achievement!
