Councillors Sheena Hughes and Cam MacKay relentlessly ask the city to conduct an audit, even though this request has been voted down by a majority vote of city council; an audit that no doubt would incur a huge expense of many tens of thousands of dollars. City council has already directed the city accounting staff to review 1,742 transactions of all councillors’ expense claims and report back to council, which has been properly and professionally done. The work that has been done by the city staff conducting this review and preparing the report, if accounted for in $/hour x hours spent, will conservatively total a lot more than $10,000 in costs to the city plus dozens of hours of city staff time in council chambers listening to this politically-motivated minutia.
All of this time and expense and energy for perhaps $48 to $448 in a plus or minus adjustment to the mayor’s expense account over the past three years and perhaps 10,000 hours of his work for the city as mayor in the past three years?
Is this a good use of our money or of our time? I think not.
Would any of you spend 100 hours of time or $10,000 of salary expenses to possibly find $48 or $448 ? I think not.
The above-mentioned councillors are very simply politically motivated by their “groomers and “supporters” trying to conduct a character assassination of the mayor for their own personal political posturing and benefit.
No one in his or her right mind would spend $10,000 to possibly save or find $48, nor ask for an RCMP investigation – at what cost – for the same potential amounts.
Let’s close the book on this kangaroo court that makes St. Albert city council the laughing stock of the capital region. Let’s move forward and deal with the serious issues of neighbourhood safety, crime control, transportation, infrastructure planning and budgeting; making St. Albert the best possible place for us all to live together in harmony.
Our mayor is a tireless supporter of all things good for St. Albert and its citizens.
Let’s stop this madness and let the mayor and council do their job.
J.W. Werhun, P.Eng, St. Albert
