Does anyone have any faith in the City of St. Albert council running any business, let alone the City of St. Albert, a multi-million dollar business?
Is council running our city like a private business should be run where every dollar spent has to be justified? I would say not. Our elected leaders continue to run St. Albert knowing full well that there is a pot of unlimited funds at their disposal – us the taxpayers. Is it not time that we stood up and asked for some answers?
The recent performance of our council really makes one wonder as to how capable they are in doing the job we have elected them for. The whole fiasco over this new garbage system stinks. The unsightly garbage containers sitting around all over St. Albert are bad enough at the moment. Think about wheeling them for pickup in the winter with all that snow out there.
Now we have another fiasco – the Servus Credit Union Place Starbucks decision. What right does the City of St. Albert have in getting into business where it competes with private entrepreneurs? Is it any wonder that we lack the commercial tax base that the City of St. Albert is trying so hard to increase?
Here are some questions we the taxpayers should be asking:
• Would anyone who knows what they are doing get into a contract where it would cost around $1 million to back out of?
• Does the City of St. Albert, with all their experts, know how to negotiate a contract?
• What was the big rush in signing this contract so fast without any public input or proper open discussion by council?
We as taxpayers have the right to know as we are the ones that have to pay for this mistake. I ask that the City of St. Albert allow us taxpayers to take a look at all the private and public negotiations that went into this hasty decision. I hope there is no problem in sharing this information with us as it was made on the basis of a business case showing a net profit for the City of St. Albert, right?
We need to let council know that enough is enough. The petition asking for council to resign is not likely to succeed. But we can make sure that people are held accountable — remember that next election.
B.K. Kang, St. Albert
