This is not an attack of the new Lac La Biche County Council. It’s more of a written head-shake.
The same kind of head-shake given when a group of people — who are, let’s say, former local politicians — buy a slum house using taxpayer money from its owners as a way to combat potential criminal problems in that neighbourhood.
It’s that kind of head shake.
In some cases it was a headshake that cost most of the old council their seats. And it’s a movement that should be familiar to the current council, as it’s the one they were doing to that former council during last October’s election. Tsk. Tsk.
So this week, when our councillors say they will discuss spending taxpayers money to reimburse a local man who dug a well to collect data to dispute data collected from a municipally-drilled well 50 metres away, it’s head-shaking time again.
But this time, we’re not shaking our head in disappointment, but in sheer joy and exuberance. Just think of where this will lead to! Just think.
How many times has the sanding truck left a few spots of un-sanded pavement along the street near your home? How about that rascally frost-heave on the walking trail you use every day? What about the day — you know it will come — when the county grader leaves a mound of snow across your driveway entrance that can only be cleared fully by using a small Bobcat you have to rent from a local equipment store?
All of these things can be solved by simply fixing it yourself. Go and buy 30 or 40 bags of sand for that slippery section of road, dig up the path, re-do the gravel base and find a contractor to pour the asphalt back over top, go and rent that Bobcat — and send all your bills to the county. Fantastic.
Thank you council for being on the cusp of a great idea that will open the door to dozens of similar claims. Why trust your elected officials and municipal staff to do the job correctly, when we can do it ourselves and bill it back to all the ratepayers? This is like the next level of democracy. Sure, we have elected officials and trained staff, but if we don’t like what they’re doing, we simply do it ourselves and the bill gets split between ratepayers from Rich Lake to Caslan.
There’s going to be a lot of people who don’t want to pay these bills shaking their heads as well.
