PelhamToday received the follow letter to the editor regarding the commentary, Be afraid...be very afraid of amalgamation.
I particularly liked the first two paragraphs in the introductory opening of this commentary.
It pretty much covers, by far, the most important and basic economic and societal arguments to fight against even the suggestion of favouring a One Niagara City, run by a Niagara Region Council.
The reduction of so many services in all 12 municipalities, under the present ‘upper tier’ Regional Council rule, make it quite clear that the present system of governance is not only broken, but it becomes more and more unsustainable each year, whilst its army of bureaucrats, and their costs, continue to grow, exponentially.
The only reason both our weak-kneed municipal politicians(too scared of their staff nowadays to even question most of their recommendations), and those same staff (who initiate and write every single report with those recommendations), refuse to show a direct monetary comparisons between the total cost of all Regional governance, to the Niagara taxpayers, and combined total cost of all 12 municipalities governance for those same taxpayers, is because the figures are both staggering and continue to grow at a totally unsustainable annual pace.
When a government, at whatever level, becomes the largest employer, producing no wealth, whilst demanding ever more tax dollars, for declining services, then we all have a huge and unsustainable problem.
Such a comparison would need to cover the total tax dollar amount spent on any, and all, governance items, paid for by the taxpayers.
If the cost of the current Regional governance is greater than that of all 12 municipalities, then those issues all clearly stated in the commentary, would suggest that a good case for the dissolution of Niagara Regional Council could be made.
Even if the 12 municipalities cost came close or even higher, each municipality loses close to 50 percent of every tax dollar they collect, to the Region.
And if you look around at governments, at any level, there has never been any valid argument presented to show that the bigger the government, even in a supposed democracy, the better all its residents are served! Think about it.
And after all, all we want to know is exactly where all our tax dollars are spent?
Andrew Watts
Wainfleet
