Monday, August 21, 2017

City Uses Lego To Promote Boondoggle

Using Lego to sell the latest taxpayer ripoff
Why taxes keep going up??
City Hall invents ways to burn your money!!

The latest effort to keep dipping ever deeper into your pocket is coming your way this fall, courtesy of the city garbage collection department headed up by Charlotte Davis. That would be the same person who spent a few hundred bucks on pocket ashtrays and several thousand bucks on a 'quit littering' campaign a year or so ago. Remember?? No?? That could be because it had zero effect on the problem of pigs throwing their garbage and butts where they happen to be standing.

Automated garbage trucks being forced by 'staff safety' concerns

At least that is the official rationale being promoted by city hall to support this outrageous use, or misuse of your tax dollars. The claim is that ever since we started the green bin program there has been an uptick in staff injury claims which can only be resolved by the taxpayers spending millions and millions of dollars to switch to automated truck pick up. 

One of the biggest expenses is the $6.5 million that is going to be spent on new garbage bins which we are now going to have to deal with instead of our current collection system.

Bogus 'staff safety' arguments

One of the reasons Ms Davis offered for the increase in injury claims was the fact the garbage men have to pick up twice as much now as they used to since the garbage is in one bag and the green bin is a separate item. Well, there may be two items to handle, however the combined weight would be the same if it were all in one bag, as it used to be. Of course there are only two items every other week, as the recycle bag is not collected by the city garbage man. At least not yet.

You may recall it was not that many years ago that each household could put out two garbage containers every week and the garbage men of the day, seemed to be able to deal with them without any 'safety issues'. 

What do you want to bet, that it turns out that the new system can not handle as many pick ups in the same time frame, as clearly it will take more finessing to pick up the trash using a joy stick and robotic arm than it takes one healthy, able bodied person to jump off the truck and pitch the container into the truck. Just wait and see how the cost of trash pick up will grow in years to come. It is already going up 15% this year alone.

Is safety really the issue, or is the union just using some of it's muscle to lock in more union jobs which can be handled by the aging workforce, who arguably should step aside and let younger more able bodied people take their place?

There has never been any explanation as to why the final decision about this garbage boondoggle was decided at an in-camera meeting, away from prying eyes. 
Was it so that the public could not see the role the union played in this waste of tax dollars?

Nanaimo taxpayers may think they elect their decision makers at election time, but a lot of the shots called at city hall are by the local CUPE union which of course is not answerable to the public in any way shape or form. 

That is why a level one union member (not qualified as a laborer) starts at $24.40/hr. with three weeks holiday and health and dental benefits to die for. All courtesy of the local Nanaimo taxpayer.

The fact that several city councilors received thousands of dollars from unions to use at election time could raise the question of whether union or taxpayer interests are foremost when decisions are being made.

During the last election Councilor Bestwick received $5250 or 63% of his total funds from unions, Councilor Brennan received $4250 or 71% of her funds from unions and Councilor Yoachim received $6750 or 37% of his funds from unions.


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