Business people not always better

Dear editor: The majority of the current city council are from the business sector, and it is obvious that their priorities lean toward promoting the profitability of business enterprises located here.

Does the fact that the current council has a business bias lead to better decision making? I would suggest that the events over the past four years answer that question with a resounding no. The only thing that the voter has to go by as to how someone will perform in the future is to look at past results. With respect to current council's performance I, personally, view it to be unsatisfactory at best.

All three credible candidates for mayor are local businessmen. We are looking for a mayor who will balance the business interests with those of the residents. Penticton residents are now paying a disproportionate share of the tax burden based on the comparison with other cities in the Okanagan.

The question then becomes, who will listen to the input of local residents, and give their priorities due consideration before coming to a final decision? I suggest that the Skaha Lake fiasco provides that evidence in spades. Consider that hundreds of residents were protesting in front of city hall that they did not want water-slides in the park.

Knowing this fact, the mayor signed a contract to proceed with the project, and mayoralty candidate Jason Cox encouraged council to ignore the majority as well. Do we expect that someone who is elected to a new four-year term (and basically bulletproof) will suddenly become a great listener? I, personally, am not that gullible. As they say, you reap what you sow.

Mayoral candidate John Vassilakki, based on his past time on council, would be my choice to provide the balanced approach that we are looking for. He was the only one on council of the time to disagree with the Eckhardt Avenue dormitory project, and we all know how that one turned.

I feel that John will be more forthcoming with the facts when projects go seriously off the rails. In other words, improved transparency. It is easy to improve something that basically does not exist.

John was always prudent with expenses, and was the only council member that did not attend the annual UCBM meetings yearly, saying that the cost did not justify all members attending. I am sure that there are benefits to attending, but the optics of all council members and the CAO attending yearly is not good. Claude Bergman Penticton