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Did you hear about ...?
Commentary by Jeff Burgar
for South Peace News
It's always a treat to chat with people about the state of local politics.
What one hears often has much to do with the circles one travels in. Seniors at the Golden Age Club have their own impression of what's what. The Health Complex is a wondrous source of their own flavour of information and ''did you hear about?'' People at each of the three High Prairie car dealerships, plus Deerline, often plead they ''don't hear very much.'' Probe a bit and one actually finds that ''news'' is one of the best lubricants of deal making there is. Oh, that stuff! Of course we share all that with our friends!
High Prairie's much fabled ''coffee shop'' rumour mill is in fact, six or seven mills. Eva's, Amiro's, A&W, Jo's, the Lites and Boondocks, among others, all crank out their particular interpretation of the weekly excitement. Each has its own stories.
One has to ask, is the much fabled story about gossip still really true these days? You know the one. Pass wind on one street corner and by the time the story gets back to you, you actually filled your britches. Given our ''circles'' of acquaintances and friends, and all our different ears to the ground, does that fable still ring true? The answer is, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
For example, reports of the Peavine checkpoint on the road to Seal spread like wildfire. Some good, some bad. The point is, the story spread. Meanwhile, false reports (according to college president Rick Neidig) last year the carpentry program at Grouard was closing, and equipment all moved to Slave Lake, barely rated a local chatter. One can make a list of local, hot hot topics. Start with hospital stories, just in the past two years. Move on to No-Frills or Costco. It might be interesting to compare your list with your neighbour to see if you agree what's hot and what isn't.
We've done that. It's surprising we did find common themes. The first is, many people say local politicians aren't paid enough. The second theme we will deal with next week.
Returning to our first thought, one has to say the mantra of ''if you want good people, you have to pay for them,'' continues. This, our survey of the public says, is a real problem.
MD reeve Alvin Billings ($26,000 per year) and High Prairie mayor Rick Dumont ($50,000 per year gross) income isn't enough say the public, given the state of the local economy and lack of long term vision. Not to mention abuse they get from disgruntled taxpayers and the local press. So, let's crank up the check machine even more and get real performance. Heck, double or triple the entire HP council tab of around $175,000 per year. We need to pay to get better people!
Our own thinking is old fashioned and old school. We still believe in the small town community leaders who say ''the community was good to me, I want to give something back if I can.''
We don't think public office is private enterprise. Too often, useless politicians make the same as those polticians who grind it out, trying to do the right thing, every day of every week. Big dollars do not automatically translate to big performance. What's your thinking?
More next week.
Jeff Burgar
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