What does an election mean?

Dear Editor: What does an election mean? To partially answer this question ask yourself this question, “How important is voting in a democracy?”

You should come up with something like the following: “In a representative democracy such as ours, elections are extremely important. .. Voting in elections is the best way to make your “voice” heard. Whoa, did I actually say that! The theory sounds good overall. However, with regards to our last election here in 2014, the theory appears to have more holes than Swiss cheese! I look back on things and find that that the opportunities to voice an opinion seemed to be few and far between.

When a few opportunities presented themselves, they were ignored anyway. Why is that? It is primarily because we allowed this to happen. We weren’t vocal enough in a consistent manner.

Once in a while didn’t cut it. Council seemed to sense this and carried on with its own agenda.

In future, we have to be more involved with issues that arise. Token lip service will not do it. Future councils must know that “the tail cannot and must not wag the dog”, so to speak. If this is not done, we will get more of what we just got from this council: empty promises of openness, fiscal responsibility and transparency.

It’s high time that we the taxpayers; the citizenry, call us what you will, got a decent bang for our taxpaying dollars. To do this we have to study and weigh heavily what any prospective candidates might say pre-election. We have had the sizzle last election. This time we want the steak!

Don’t be complacent and don’t become disinterested. It will cost you. It already has with the squandering of $200,000 just to get council off the hook. This does not include any of the legal fees or the incredible amount of staff time involved with the Trio-City deal. We will never really know just how much money was frittered away on the Trio debacle.

The election is not far away. I encourage each and every one of the eligible voters in this city to do due diligence in preparing to vote this time around. Ron Barillaro Penticton