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Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Orono Weekly Times - 3 Politically Speaking by Bill Stockwell Over the past few weeks the Clarington Municipal Council members have whipped themselves into a tizzy over revenue shortfalls in the 2009 operating budget. Now, we must remember that when this budget was put in place in January of this year Council was warned by Staff that the proposed budget "Includes a significant reduction in usage of development charges funding due to anticipated decline in development charges collections". What that means in English is that back in January everyone recognized that we were heading for some difficult economic times, some saying it would be the worst recession since the Great Depression of the thirties. Financial institutions were being bailed out in the U.S., and the auto industry was approaching governments on both sides of the border for assistance. Council`s response to that warning was to add a few dollars here and there to the budget document, approve it, and ask the Chief Administrative Officer to keep an eye on revenues and report his findings to Council on a monthly bases. Well, surprise, surprise, six months later Council realized that they had a shortfall in development application fees and development charges by about a couple of million dollars, leaving the cupboard partially bare when came to paying for capital works programs and debenture charges for previous programs that are still being paid for. Now, if this wasn`t bad enough, Mayor Abernethy had a crackerjack of an idea that the whole problem could be addressed by directing the Chief Administrative Officer to make whatever cuts in the budget (i.e. services) he thought appropriate to bring the document to a balanced state while Council took the summer off, not meeting again until September. It`s normal for Council to forgo the standard meetings during July and August, however, it has always been understood that the Chair of Council (that being the mayor) would call a special meeting if need be. For some reason, Abernethy`s crackerjack idea seemed to bypass that standard procedure and gave the CAO the power to do whatever he thought necessary. Surely someone in the organization could have set the rookie mayor straight on the impropriety of such a proposal before going public with it. The first thing that one learns in government is that bureaucrats PROPOSE and elected officials DISPOSE. The upshot of the budget fiasco is that the CAO will work his way through the budget document looking for places to reduce spending and cover the shortfall in revenue, reporting to Council no later than the end of August. It will be interesting to see what programs go by the wayside Clarington Council is about fifteen months away from the next general election. I believe that if the election was this Fall instead of next Fall only three of the four "local" councillors would deserve to be re-elected and neither of the two "regional" councillors would deserve the people`s support. When it comes to the mayor, I can only say that he has been a disappointment at best. I voted for Mayor Abernethy, knowing full well that he had no governmental experience, but I thought he would be smart enough to surround himself with experienced people to assist him in giving some kind of direction to a Council that obviously needed a lot of direction. I was wrong. Although he is a heck of a lot better than the guy he replaced, he just hasn`t shown leadership, being directed by the regional chair rather than STOCKWELL see page 7 Photo supplied Clarington resident Parker was the lucky winner of an authentic dinosaur fossil from the badlands of Alberta. The dinosaur fossil was on display during the exhibition of Dinosaurs & Co. The exhibit visited Clarington Museums from the Musee de la nature et des sciences of Sherbrooke, Quebec. Parker won the fossil by entering a draw held at the Museum that was open to anyone who visited the Library, Visual Arts Centre and the Museum during the Dinosaur exhibit. Donations always appreciated at the C l a r i ng t o n E a s t F o o d B a n k 905-987-1418 ~ Happenings ~ Wednesday, August 12, 2009 42nd Annual Beef BBQ, 4:30 to 7:00 pm, Orono Park. Entertainment - The Jazz Cats. Adults $12, Children 6-12 $6. Proceeds to the Orono Arena Fundraising. Thursday, August 13, 2009 Summer Flower & Vegetable Show, Orono Horticultural Society, Orono United Church. Speaker: Linda Paulocik, Parkwood Estates. Topic Heritage Gardening slide show and discussion. All Welcome!