cliffordroche.com

Good Morning Mr. Adams;

I’m a bit late looking at last week’s agenda from the Committee of the Whole, but I am reviewing the Transit Taxation list of options, there is a strong possibility that I am not reading this document properly, however when I am looking at both Options 9 and 9a (which appear to be the route council currently wants to go) I am seeing that the Urban part of our district is nearly doubling in the transit tax rate.

So it is safe to assume that instead of paying approx $176/yr I will be paying $248/yr?

In the grand scheme of things I understand that this isn’t a whole lot of money, but I find it odd that these two options would make us one of the highest paying districts (actually the highest paying I think) and yet bus service around Spryfield seriously lacks any justification.

I understand that you will be busy with the committee again today, but I’d like to clarify that I am understanding these documents properly, and if so why Spryfield is taking such a large hit with these new rates?

Thank you for you time

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Reference: TRANSIT AREA TAX RATES

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Update: 2009-04-27: Stephen Adams responded to advise me that council is now looking at option number 6.

Update: 2009-04-28: Council voted yesterday on the issue, this is Stephen Adams’ response to me this morning:

The new proposal would have Spryfield residents pay about $7 more, on average and rural residents pay $33 less, on average.

Stephen

Mr Adams;

I understand that Peter Kelly has committed the city council into “looking into” the recent firing of Dan Little. I am curious to know what specifically council will be looking into and what possible benefits the council is hoping to get by going further into the matter.

My concern is that yesterday morning, the Chronicle Herald obliged to the family’s request to run an article (of no social or political value) which was blatantly used to pin people’s emotions from the death of Mr. Little directly on Metro Transit. This was irresponsible of both the Chronicle Herald and Dan Little’s family, but has undoubtedly lead to public pressure on the council.

If council wants to look at the policies Metro Transit has in place for deciding when it is appropriate to fire or discipline an employee, then that is fine, however any and every aspect of Dan Little’s death absolutely has to be left out of this investigation. We must remember at all times that Metro Transit isn’t responsible for Dan Little’s illness, no matter how imprudent their decision was to fire him. Only Dan Little can be blamed for taking his own life.

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Clifford M. Roche