Blame management, not the public. Feb 20/2009

For months now the opinions of Telegraph Journal have been that the city is as mis-managed as it could possibly be. Many articles and opinions have been printed in favour of capping spending in departments and making managers more accountable. The underlying accusations of beefed up budgets always present. Well at least they were consistent. In today's opinion piece the papers editor finished of with a recommendation to Mr. Paul Groody (Head of Municipal Operations) "The department of municipal operations is responsible for snow removal. It should have an effective strategy. If city crews need more resources, another salt shed, or bylaws banning on-street winter parking, the commissioner for municipal operations needs to bring these requests to council."

A few months ago this paper was clear in it's position with statments like "So now begins the hard work, and management has been put on notice. They have the next 10 months to show improvements before the next budget session.Council should no longer tolerate managers who can only think of ways to spend rather than save money. There's no reason Saint John cannot be competitive and get closer to the average tax rate of New Brunswick's other seven cities, which is nearly 17 cents lower.Then, the managers will simply be doing their jobs."(see links below) They endorsed managers in this city be held accountable and not spend beyond their means and they were very much in favour of the proposed caps over the next 3 years not to mention the fact that councillors like Deputy Mayor Chase feel that The number of employees in Municipal Operations needs to be reduced.

I guess the real questions for the Telegraph Journal is: "What exactly is your opinion?". "Are you in favour of capped budgets for departments and making managers accountable or spending more money on resources and salt sheds?"

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/search/article/551083
http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/search/article/553586