Death by PowerPoint Again Part 2

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Before we get into the PowerPoint presentation from Executive Director/Clerk Denise Corry, who was one of the four ‘Town Hall’ staff working in 2006 we should look at the Election Reform Ad-Hoc Committee.

This is one for X-files!, young girl voting with a paper ballot. Can't be Huntsville!

"The mandate of the Election Method Review Ad-Hoc Committee is to review the pros and cons of potential election methods to be utilized in the 2014 Municipal Election". I’m glad we don’t have a Chinese Mayor!

"The Election Method Review Ad-Hoc Committee will conduct research, including input from the broader community, and prepare a report and recommendation for Council’s consideration on the most feasible election method for 2014." I guess the broader community includes The Port.

"The Election Method Review Ad-Hoc Committee shall consist of up to (7) seven members, with the Chair and Vice-Chair being selected by the Mayor. The remainder of the membership shall be appointed by Council on the recommendation of the Mayor from interested residents of the Municipality." I guess I’ll have to sit this one out too but hope to be able to make a presentation (it won’t be PowerPoint) to the committee to discuss my submission on record.

Watch the Offshore Press for the Town ad.

Now back to Executive Director Denise’s report. Denise looks after (4) four areas; Administration, Clerk, Finance and Information Technology for a total staff of 10.

I find the information provided to be clear but I get this nagging feeling of ‘who cares’. Here’s a couple of examples that got me reaching for the bottle. There were 110 Committee and Council meetings of which the Clerk’s department was responsible for 77 of those meetings. That’s under 2 per week but with the amount of paper that gets created (now on-line) that is probably a heavy workload. They also processed 121 marriages and 240 funeral home forms. Did you know that in June they transferred approximately 270 boxes from Lindgren Storage to the Canada Summit Centre (now that’s a name that will boil blood). Don’t forget that in December they shredded 65 boxes of material. (Conrad should have called you.)

Denise also attended training sessions on insurance during the year. Maybe she can reduce our outrageous premiums.

In the information technology area 600 items of ‘capital inventory’ were tagged and entered into a new asset database and they helped prepare a draft Capital Replacement Plan.

I think you may be getting my point about ‘who cares’.

This committee has, in my opinion, larger matters to address. Let’s see the values and un-amortized values of the community halls so that everyone can see the game being played to sell these off. Let’s look at the true deficit this year, not the stuff spoon fed to the Offshore Press. Let’s not worry about who we are voting for and for which areas and make sure we have a plan in place for a secure and verifiable election in 2014. Keep up the pressure CSAVE!