Regional councillors’ info flyers claims ring hollow

RE: PORT COLBORNE COUNCILLORS BLAST BARRICK’S REGION-PAID INFO FLYER, MAY 15 BY MIKE ZETTEL, AND, USE OF REGION-PAID POLITICAL FLYERS COMES UNDER FIRE, MAY 17, BY BILL SAWCHUK

The sheer audacity of the three regional councillors to use our tax money to pay for their informational flyers.

Port Colborne’s David Barrick, Grimsby’s Tony Quirk and Fort Erie’s Sandy Annunziata feel the flyers are appreciated by the people in their community? Coun. Quirk’s claim is that this same thing was done by his predecessor, when she published newspaper ads and expensed them back to the Region. Really? It sounds hollow to me, in light of what St. Catharines Coun. Brian Heit reports he was told by a former Region communications staff member.

In any event it does not justify Quirk’s actions. How many of us as parents would allow bad behaviour from our children simply because they said somebody else did the same thing? We expect better from our regional councillors, regardless of what somebody else did in the past.

I wonder if the three regional councillors think the taxpayers are their personal ATM machines? Nothing appears to change them or get through to them. Not even after it was revealed Fort Erie’s Coun. Annunziata is the third largest spender, billing the Region for $16,890 last year. The Region is beginning to smell like a dirty toilet to me. It needs to be cleaned and the contents flushed. Hopefully, our next election will see that happen.

Erika Furney

Welland