Ridiculous expenses

Dear Editor: The Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen over the years has flown largely under the radar screen. I believe it relies on its isolation from the public it represents to encourage taxpayers to remain unaware how tax dollars are wasted.

A good example of this is the recent article by Joe Fries in the

Herald titled “Hey Big Spender” on June 15.

It came to light that Elef Christensen Area G director representing 2,236 constituents has worked hard to rack up expenses of $10,826. Compare this to “Princeton Mayor Frank Armitage and rural Princeton representative Bob Coyne, the only RDOS directors who have longer drives to board meetings than Christensen, claimed $2,974 and $4,612, respectively.”

Naramata’s representative bordering Penticton and chaired the RDOS for one month during this period: Karla Kozakevich is no slouch either She was reimbursed $7,750, followed by Area A (rural Osoyoos) director Mark Pendergraft, who served as chairman for 11 months of the year and claimed expenses of $7,188.

Of Penticton’s four directors on the RDOS only Andrew Jakubeit claimed expenses ($401). He was vice-chair for 11 months of the period in question. Though these four directors attended the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) and charged their expenses to the City of Penticton instead of the RDOS.

According to the article, when the Herald attempted to find out more about Christensen’s expenses they were told that an Freedom of Information request would be needed.

In the interests of public accountability all expenses claims should be listed with attached photocopies of the actual expenses online for taxpayers to see how these elected representatives spend tax dollars. Everyone including Penticton taxpayers should care about the unaccountability of this organization.

You shouldn’t have to file a FOI request to find out what expenses individual directors are personally claiming from our tax dollars. Justifying the expenditure of tax dollars should be mandatory.

Mr. Christensen claims he likes to attend conventions to seek grant money. The question that needs to be asked is how much grant money has Christensen succeeded in bringing into his community from each individual conference he attended in order to justify these kinds of expenses. After all who knows?

Maybe Christensen likes $10 glasses of orange juice. Elvena Slump

Penticton