The City of Niagara Falls is in trouble and council is keeping a tight lid because of next year’s election.
During the three years, what has Niagara Falls witnessed from this current council besides cutbacks to essential services? Every year I have been noticing more people getting on the sunshine list and pay increases and what have the people of Niagara Falls been getting in return?
Our infrastructure, including roads, pipes, sewage, snow removal, maintenance of our parks, cemeteries and buildings are at an all-time low. Our city is in trouble for growth due to the increase of debt and higher taxes and mind you we are not getting much in return.
Our mayor went overseas to attract people to Niagara, but my question is where are they? During the past administration, we had a higher turnout in the Asian tourist market. I hope this current council didn’t scare them away because we are not selling as much as before.
Twenty years ago, working a government job was considered bad because they weren’t getting the pay as they are today, but we are a city of 80,000 people and declining. Why do the majority of the big shots at city hall insist on getting a huge pay increase like someone in Toronto gets paid? I find this to be a drain on our economy because it’s unrealistic for the city to pay its employees Toronto rates when you are a small town like Niagara Falls. Pay rates should reflect the city’s economy.
As desperate times call for desperate measures, I call on the city politicians and the sunshine list people to be on minimum wage until the debt is paid off so they can experience what true working class people in Niagara Falls go through every day.
Due to the lack of performance at city hall from the senior bureaucrats they should be on four-year contracts and have performance based evaluations and should only get bonuses if they produce results similar to people on commission.
Bonuses to departments should be performance based depending on whether or not they efficient with resources, with this being said we have one more year to put up with this garbage and I truly hope the city now realizes that it cannot keep voting in the same old politicians if the city wants to have healthy fiscal sustainability and economic growth. I hope this was an eye opener to all of you.
Tony Caruso
Niagara Falls
6 Comments on "Letter to the Editor: High salaries at Niagara Falls city hall should be cut to minumum wage until budgets are balanced"
Sounds very reasonable and far overdue.
Your article states that, ‘The City of Niagara Falls is in trouble and council is keeping a tight lid because of next year’s election’.
Fare enough!
Vote these treacherous villains out of office.
Amazing, the best this writer can come up with to deal with the recession is to screw the workers. Like it or not, we are in this together and only by freeing up the creativity of this community can we weather this storm. It simply amazes me that the people who hate government the most, are the ones who spend the majority of their time trying to get into it.
Government can only innovate when WE let them. Offer solutions instead of this trite and vapid screed.
What an empty and meaningless letter from an individual who has been trying and failing to get elected to the very positions that he throws stones at when he fails. This young boy should realize that he was given two ears and one mouth for a reason – so he could listen twice as much as he speaks. It is a very disappointing prospect to think that this is what the next generation has to offer – let’s hope that those who wasted their time reading this lads nonsense remember his name when thinking of who NOT to vote for in the next election. Stick with taking folks luggage to their rooms for the minimum wage you wish upon those who are actually running the city Tony and let the adults carry on doing their jobs.
We do have to hold the government accountable. I believe strongly in smaller government. They should not be getting special favors and “golden” handshakes on our dime.
Every tax dollar needs to be accounted for and we need to expose the people in City Council that are abusing their power and spending our money. It is extremely unethical to see our money be misused. I agree with Tony, 4 year terms for bureaucrats as well. I would also look into cutting their salaries instead of increasing our taxes and cutting our services!
Despite what many believe, the government is the most inefficient group there is and would fall into bankruptcy if it was a business and operated the way it does now. Bureaucrats whether some like it or not, are paid for by the public’s wallets and should be subjected to the scrutiny of the people just like a company or corporation is subjected to the scrutiny of the shareholders and Board of Directors. Workers in the private sector have had to endure and had to take cuts during economic hardships in order to keep their jobs and the majority of businesses have had to tighten their belt in order to make the business still run. Also in the private sector, if managers and its senior officers do not meet performance expectations, they are replaced. Why is it that the left believe that the public sector is immune to private sector expectations. In reality, the public sector should be exactly the same as the private sector with the only difference being that unlike the private sector where the profits go to a select few, the profits in the public sector go to the people. If Niagara Falls Council and its top officials can not perform to the expectations of what most companies would expect and would never get away with that kind of under achievement, why should we tolerate it especially in hard economic times? Government is a necessary evil but it is not hypocritical to challenge the government to fulfill its duty to the people since we are a democracy. We owe nothing to the government because they work for us. Without the voters, they would not have the positions they have now so they need to respect their dependency on us and respect that it is our taxes and our residency that ensures their job and they must learn to respect our investment of taxes to the treasury which we charge them responsibility over. This means it needs to end waste, be efficient, be humble with the people, be intelligent with decisions, be rational with decisions, be ethical with decisions, be just in the decision making process, balance the budget, spend within your means, make things grow and not make the government grow and always strive to do better.
Some excellent points here. I agree that the sunshine people need to take accountability for their actions and they should taste the consequences of their own policies. Keep up the great work and keep representing the people.