A Giant Windfall Payday for the City's “Fired” Politicians

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 24, 2011

Mayor John Henry’s campaign literature stated the city needed new, principled leadership at city hall and that he’d promote new accountability, transparency, and economic growth for the city.

In terms of the principled leadership promised, I’ve heard on good authority that Henry has been dragging his feet on meeting with COSCO officials regarding expansion into Oshawa since COSCO’s cut-rate on-site pharmacies would steal business from his wife’s pharmacy.

If this is true, putting his family’s self interest first is inconsistent with his promise of restoring respect for the taxpayer and providing accountable leadership at city hall. It sounds more like Chicago politics under infamous Richard J. Daley’s iron fisted and corrupt administration.

Mayor John Henry’s leadership has not enjoyed the customary “Honeymoon Period” always afforded new office holders. In Henry’s case, it was a record short-lived honeymoon as even many of his former avid supporters are now his critics.

Council’s indecisiveness in replacing disgraced Mike Nicholson’s abandoned council seat speaks volumes about council productivity and the mayor’s leadership. Since the city wide vote is undemocratic which depends upon voter knowledge of candidates, I do support council appointment to fill the vacancy out of fear that, in an election, many unwary Oshawa voters would jump off the turnip truck and elect Brian Nicholson or Mary Anne Sholdra.

Appointment does, however, remove the possibility that city council could seek public opinion on the general vote election system that was highly criticized by the majority of city voters. Fixing the election system would be a first action by a council truly interested in democracy.

Accountability and transparency is still a major question with city council, as it is with all governments, despite the fact that all elected city politicians promised a more open and accountable council. Sadly, what we have has not changed in this regard.

A prime example of this lack of transparency has to do with the severance payments received by retiring and defeated politicians. While information on this has recently been released on city Report FA-11-14 published on the January 20, 2011, Finance and Administration Committee Meeting Agenda available on the city web page, the report only gives half of the story hiding the full payout amounts no doubt to mitigate citizen anger at the largesse politicians serve themselves at taxpayer expense.

Section 242(1) of the Municipal Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.M.45, provides that a municipality may pass by-laws for paying remuneration to the members of Council, and such remuneration may be determined in any manner that Council considers advisable.

Because of the breadth of remuneration permitted by this law (anything Council considers advisable!), the parting allowance itself does not tell the full story of compensations and benefits provided.

And getting a clear answer to the full benefits is virtually impossible to establish....whether severance allowances, like politician’s salaries, are 1/3 tax free, whether there are monthly pensions when age requirements are met, whether drug and other health benefits are provided, whether equipment like computers, cell phones, and other electronic equipment were inventoried and had to be returned....and these questions could go on ad infinitum. Answers require very specific questions with no information being voluntarily provided.

I first requested disclosure of the severance amounts from the city clerk’s office on November 8, 2010, and was told the info would be published in an annual report in the first quarter of 2011 and that I’d have to file a Freedom of Information request (FOI) to see it earlier, direction I received on two subsequent occasions, although they couldn`t tell me the cost to provide this information they had at hand, having already written the cheques for the huge amounts.

Finally on Jan 8, 2011, in response to a threat to finally file a FOI request and to a comment from me that the giant lack of transparency in a council purportedly operating on policies of openness, accountability, and transparency would be a huge revelation to the general public, Percy Luther, of the Clerk`s Department, informed me that he had looked into this further, as I had requested, and informed me of the disclosure report FA-11-14 mentioned earlier.

City policy calls for political severance allowances of one month`s salary for every year of council experience. City severance allowances thus generated were: John Gray, $110,821.33; J. Kolodzie, $57,042.00; L. Parkes, $45,950 + $34,759 unclaimed retroactive pay when she campaigned as Federal Liberal Candidate during the period Dec. 2004 to Nov. 2006; A. Cullen, $21,072.92 + an MBA; R. Lutczyk, $22,183.00; and B. Nicholson, $22,183.00. Mary Anne Sholdra did not serve on council long enough to qualify for any severance allowance.

These handsome figures are only part of the story and don`t include Regional severance allowances nor do they include tax-free pay provisions, or any health or pension benefits outlined earlier.

Durham Region figures have not been published and these figures are much more difficult to establish than city severance allowances.

My first request for the figures resulted in the Regional Clerks department sending me the first page only of the Severance Benefits By-law (Number 61-93) which gave a preamble but didn’t get to any details of the severance allowance. In the end, they turn out to be the same as Oshawa`s policy in providing one month’s salary for every year of regional council experience up to a maximum 18 month's salary.

So secretive are the Regional Political severance allowances that it’d probably be easier obtaining top secret classified military intelligence. Getting information is not helped by the general lack of co-operation by Regional bureaucrats who dragged their feet at every instance often neglecting my requests for information. Information finally provided was not compiled into a single place and required extrapolating info from a number of separate sources.

Regional officials couldn’t help by simply running me off a computerized list of severance cheques already printed and distributed. That would make it too easy and the public must be forced to dig for information. Transparency is only a word, not a practice!

The experience list provided me recorded 22 years of experience for Brian Nicholson qualifying him for the maximum 18 months of salary. They didn’t seem to remember that he had a break in service with his defeat in 2000 and presumably collected 15 month’s severance at that time. Since the maximum payout allowed by the policy is 18 months salary, he presumably would only be eligible for an additional 3 years with his October 25, 2010 defeat.

Because Nicholson’s defeat was overlooked in the figures given me, I surmise that he has double dipped for a giant overpayment, collecting 15 month’s severance in year 2000 and the maximum 18 months on his recent defeat.

A request to Durham Region Payroll Officer, Joanne Cermak, to confirm Nicholson`s payout, went unanswered. Nor did she answer my other queries whether the payouts are 1/3 tax free or if politicians can claim any other entitlements, compensations, or retirement benefits such as pensions payable at some defined age of eligibility, health benefits, etc., all in addition to the handsome cash severance packages they received.

Based on 2009 Regional Salaries (and not the 2010 salaries that would have been used) the minimum Regional payouts to retiring/defeated Regional reps from Oshawa are: John Gray (16 months credit+ committee Chair = $69807); Joe Kolodzie (max 18 months credit = $69533); Brian Nicholson (if only 3 months credit based on payout remaining after 2000 election defeat and break in service = $11589 or $69533 if break in service and 2000 payout forgotten about in which case there`s been an overpayment of $57944----but what the hell, it`s only taxpayer money!); Robt. Lutczyk (10 months credit = $38629); April Cullen (7 months credit + Committee Chair = $30540).

So combined Regional and City severance WINDFALL allowances for our retiring and defeated politicians are as follows: John Gray $180628, Joe Kolodzie $126575, Brian Nicholson $33762 (or $91786 if Region overlooked Nicholson’s 2000 defeat and collection of eligible severance at that time), Robert Lutczyk $60812, April Cullen $51613 + that MBA.

So the best estimate of taxpayer payout to fired and retired councillors is a minimum $453,000, almost half a million of your taxes, maybe money well spent to get rid of these politicians.

Remarkably, these total severance allowances are worth about the equivalent of $3/4 million to the politicians if the allowances are 1/3 tax free as is their regular salary.

And hey, all of these payouts were unbudgeted and so were paid for from “found money,” that fat, waste, and excess I’ve written about so often---the fat, waste and excess that I suggested cutting by 3% during the election campaign....and the fat, waste, and excess politicians will pad by whatever percentage tax increase they hit you with this year!

Don’t worry! Be Happy! But pay those taxes!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

EDITOR'S NOTE
A week after my unanswered request and days after my column deadline time, i received the following email which provides some, but not all, of the information previously requested that has been referred to in the body of the column above. These recently provided figures will allow readers to revise upwards the severance figures provided above....and they will also clear up the mystery of B. Nicholson's severance package and the questions raised by incorrect information provided me earlier by Regional Officials. The over-estimation of J. Kolodzie's allowance was due to overlooking the fact that he was an Oshawa Local City Councillor only for many years and not a Regional Councillor

Mr. Longworth, In regards to your inquiry about the severance pay entitlement of the 16 Regional Councillors who did not return for the 2010 to 2014 term, please see the information listed below. (You will see that only 15 have applied at this time.)

Individuals are entitled to this severance if they have more than three years of service, up to a maximum of 18 months remuneration.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Abernethy, Jim: $15,992.67
Crawford, Scott: $51,976.17
Cullen, April: $31,487.17
Emm, Gerald: $71,967.00
Grant, John: $15,992.67
Gray, John: $71,970.67
Johnson, Richard: $71,967.00
Kolodzie, Joseph: $27,987.17
Littley, Bonnie: $15,992.67
Lutczyk, Robert: $39,981.67
McMillen, Jim: $27,987.17
Nicholson, Brian: $27,987.17
Pearce, Marilyn: $44,981.67
Shepherd, Bob: $15,992.67
Trim, Charles: $44,981.67

Regards,
Tania Laverty
Manager, Communications The Regional Municipality of Durham
P: 905-668-7711 ext. 3813
E: tania.laverty@durham.ca

Talk about roping yourself to a sinking ship!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
April 5, 2010

Despite voter’s rage about the audacity of Mayor John Gray’s wasting taxpayer money on funding $23,000 MBA’s for his executive assistant, contract employee, James Anderson, and Councillor April Cullen, Councillor Brian Nicholson is still defending the Mayor’s outrageous and irresponsible action.

By doing so, Nicholson continues to expose the sense of entitlement he feels for himself and members of Oshawa City Council. He feels, as the Mayor does, that our tax monies can be spent any damn well way they please. Our tax monies can be used to service the needs and wishes of the politicians and not the city and its people.

In fact, despite the “Accountability and Transparency Bylaw” signed by all members of city council, Nicholson recently proposed a motion stating that such funding in future should be “hidden” in politician’s office budgets so that the tuition funding could continue but that the secrecy of the office budgets would hide such funding from the public. So much for his “respect” for the responsible and transparent use of our city taxes!

Last Tuesday, March 30, 2010, Nicholson published a 1600 word article on his Facebook Page justifying the MBA expenditures and supporting John Gray’s right to spend taxpayer money in this way. He also supported Councillor April Cullen’s and Executive Assistant, James Anderson’s, application for having taxpayers pay their MBA tuitions in the first place.

Nicholson writes his commentary for his “fans” on his facebook page and if someone disputes what he says, it is not long before the critic is cut off from Nicholson’s page so as to not undermine the inaccuracies that Nicholson spins on the page. I, for one, got cut off the page because I disputed Nicholson’s assertion that Oshawa was one of the lowest taxed places in the GTA despite the fact that we all know that we are absolutely the highest taxed place in the GTA and one of the highest taxed places in all of Canada. Nicholson regularly “snows” his readers in untruths, misinformation, and “spins” that disguise the real facts from his readers.

He seems to be tied at the hip to both John Gray and April Cullen as he has regularly attacked critics and opponents of John Gray and has continually stood up in support of April Cullen over the MBA issue as the only member of council to publicly do so. It seems as if all are members of a little three person fan club.

In his statement, Nicholson states, “This MBA controversy has been rife with irresponsible comments. Charges of illegality, conspiracy, corruption, intimidation, theft, and conflict of interest have been made with wild abandon.” Nicholson didn’t mention the most appropriate charge of “gross stupidity” and “irresponsibility” that is being made in press editorials right across the country!

“It is unacceptable,” Nicholson goes on, “when these charges are made by those who may not be aware of the workings of government, but when they are made by candidates for public office, by presidents of local ratepayers associations, and by members of Council, they are not only unacceptable but are deplorable and must be addressed.”

Once again, I guess, Nicholson thinks criticism is unwarranted by those getting centrally involved because, I assume, he feels that they should know “the workings of government,” and thus implies that every government uses, or should use, valuable tax dollars to serve politicians first.

If this is the case, perhaps Nicholson should be very critical of April Cullen and James Anderson for not enrolling in Harvard so that they could screw taxpayers out of close to $150,000 for tuitions. Even top ranked Queen’s and Western would set back the taxpayer close to $70,000 but neither April or James would get a high enough score on the GMAT for these “good” schools. Instead, they enrolled in “bottom feeding” Cape Breton University.

Maybe both Nicholson and Gray support publicly funded tuitions so that they could work on their BA’s at the public’s expense. Who knows? If we keep electing these guys, they may end up with a basic degree sometime.

In one Facebook posting, April Cullen claimed of “saving the taxpayer” about $6000 due to costs she picked up herself...like a summer in Cape Breton Island that she funded herself. She also justified taxpayers paying for her MBA because it cost each of us just pennies per week over her four year term. One amount she said she personally picked up, her summer program in Cape Breton, looks surprisingly like the $1808 she billed Durham Region for Travel. Doesn’t her sense of entitlement blaze through with her statement that she saved the city money on her MBA?

She makes no claim of personal benefit for her MBA, or thanks to the taxpayers, only asserting her many sacrifices and hours she put in on the degree….as if the sorry Oshawa taxpayer would give a damn about that. She does assert that she earned her $116,551 salary, though, because she had her long distanced taxpayer expensed blackberry with her. Thank you April!

In a recent meeting of the Finance and Administration Committee, Bruce Wood, President of the “Oshawa Ratepayer’s Association” made claims that: 1. The Mayor knowingly abused the city Corporate Training and Reimbursement Policy, 2. The Mayor circumvented the policy, and 3. Staff was intimidated into signing the applications due to political pressure and for fear of their jobs.

Nicholson bounced each of these suggestions off the City’s Auditor General who responded he came across no evidence to support any of Wood’s claims.

In his responses, the Auditor General was between a rock and a hard place….pleasing his political masters or giving his truthful opinion about the legitimacy of the MBA funding and process. No senior government employee of any government ever publicly contradicts or admonishes politicians no matter how “wrong-headed” they are. You can bet though that the more professional and dedicated staff were writhing in their beds at night and clenching their teeth at work during the day so as not to say what they really felt about the issue.

Oshawa’s Auditor General is paid about $160,000 annually and is on a renewable term contract. He was appointed by the politicians, acts on the politician’s directions, and his contract will not be renewed by the present bunch if he does not support the actions of the Mayor and Council at every turn. I have not once read a city Auditor General’s report that was at all critical of city operations, departments, staff, or the politicians. He keeps walking that “narrow track” at every turn to protect his future employment.

For a really effective Auditor General, he should be appointed on a ten year non-renewable term and be free to investigate any area of the city operations at his whim including calling sworn testimony and subpoenaing witnesses and making public reports through the press. This would give the office teeth similar to that enjoyed by Sheila Fraser, Canada’s Auditor General.

Right now, Oshawa’s Auditor General, as the job is defined, is a “pussycat” purring at the politician’s lap.

The Auditor General, though, did make one suggestion, that the policy should be tightened up so as to remove any ambiguities. This is simply a political statement that suggests that the policy gives room for the Mayor to make an interpretation of the rules.

I don’t know how much more defining the policy can be. There is a specific form for the purpose that quotes a maximum of $2000 per year or $5000 in any 5 year period. That’s clear to me! It also says that any application exceeding these amounts should also be approved by the city manager. That’s also clear to me! What’s the confusion?

In any case, no matter what the policy, common sense dictates that MBA’s should not be funded for politicians or political appointees. And it is good judgement we expect from our politicians in handling our affairs, isn’t it?

As a conclusion to his letter, Nicholson demanded a public apology from all critics of the MBA funding. I think that apology would be due from every single Oshawa resident except for Mayor John Gray, Councillors Brian Nicholson and April Cullen, and the Mayor’s executive assistant, James Anderson.

They are undoubtedly the only four in this city of 160,000 who agree with the funding, and the rest of us will undoubtedly express our disagreement with our votes come election day, Oct. 25, 2010.

Click here to read Brian Nicholson’s complete absurd statement supporting both the MBA funding and Mayor John Gray's "right" to make the decision to fund these tuitions out of your tax money.

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Mayor John Gray inflames the MBA Rage…again!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
March 22, 2010

Mayor John Gray’s refusal at the March 8, 2010, City Council Meeting to allow further discussion on the MBA funding issue by calling a motion “out of order” to have city politicians reimburse city coffers $46,000 for their collective failure to stop Gray’s irresponsible and irrational MBA funding for Councillor April Cullen and his executive assistant, James Anderson, has once again ignited rage across the city and has been the subject of discussion in media coverage across the country.

John Gray obviously believes in the city motto, “Prepare to be amazed” and his “amazing” actions have made him and our city council the subject of national ridicule.

Canadians right across the country are certainly becoming amazed at the irresponsibility and the sense of entitlement of Gray and his self-serving council. He must feel so secure in his position that he doesn’t give a damn what he does to the public---even in the face of an upcoming election!

Council Members must feel equally secure in their positions to let this kind of bulls—t slide through with nary a whisper knowing that past history with the self-serving General Vote that they swung on the people lets them hide in the weeds of “name recognition” and shields them from electoral defeat.

Never before with Oshawa’s General Vote history prior to 1985 had any politician lost their seat through the general vote. But never before have we had such a politically incompetent mayor and council.

This ridicule focused on city council will certainly extend to city voters if they do not remove this Mayor and his band of incompetents, shysters, tricksters and free-loaders from control of our Civic public purse. We have had too much of their snorting at the pig trough at our expense!

The Toronto Star and Toronto Sun Oshawa MBA stories have been picked up by the national news agencies and published across the country.

Such widespread publication of this story documents the public interest in the extreme feelings of entitlement of this city council in using our tax monies for their own benefit rather than the benefit of the city.

There is such extreme national and international interest in this MBA story that a Google search using the words “Oshawa,” “Mayor,” and “MBA” will turn up 106,000 references as of the date of writing this column.

I was surprised to see an item in the “Leader Daily”, a free paper distributed at sky train locations for commuters into Vancouver where I am working as an Olympics/Paralympics Volunteer. Hundreds of thousands of Vancouver commuters all saw the same item that caught my eye—“Paid MBA not a free ride: political staffer,” which documented Mayor John Gray’s and his political sidekick, John Anderson’s, assertions that Anderson forfeited $36,000 of city pension contributions in exchange for his $23,000 MBA funding---a deal negotiated by Gray who thus took credit for saving the city $13,000.

Gray advanced this justification for funding the MBA tuitions at the Feb. 22, 2010 City Council Meeting

Gray’s gloating, however, proved to be an outright lie used in attempting to defuse the situation, a theory supported by Gray’s (and the city’s) refusal to make Anderson’s MBA funding agreement public in response to citizen “Freedom of Information” requests that have been lodged.

This refusal to release the document even questions the existence of any contract or agreement.

Gray’s statements were investigated by private citizens who discovered such agreements were an impossibility as Anderson didn’t qualify for any pension without giant time buybacks which did not require matching paybacks from the city.

When this information was publicized, Gray then said that his earlier statements were in “error.” I say Gray knew his words were an outright lie designed to mislead the public.

The outright “lie theory” is also supported by Gray’s use of the “lie strategy” in the past.

He claimed for public consumption on the televised council meeting in his preamble before final voting to adopt the general vote that city hall had no responsibility to communicate details of the plebiscite question to voters.

As I had just made a presentation pleading to council not to adopt the general vote, he said the communication responsibility was not the city’s but was the responsibility of citizens like me.

This was an outright lie as he would have known that “Third Party” citizen campaigns were against Ontario Elections Law which gives municipality’s unfettered ability and thus responsibility to fund such plebiscite information campaigns. You can view John Gray making this statement at http://www.motionbox.com/videos/4c9fdcb41510e6c3.

The other strategy used is secrecy and stonewalling, despite him gloating earlier on a transparency and accountability bylaw passed and signed by all councillors.

Gray not only refused to divulge the Anderson MBA contract, he says he negotiated, but also refused to disclose the $40,000 expenditure he personally approved for his personal birthday party dubbed the “Stephen Colbert Day.”

This information was not even available to our elected councillors until a $100 Freedom of Information Request was filed.

So much for the transparency and accountability policy the mayor personally wheeled out with great fanfare. It’s just pretty “Political Words” tarnished beyond recognition by his and council’s actions.

This whole issue leads to many unanswered questions about the agreement and about the integrity of Mayor John Gray and James Anderson.

Was this a verbal or a written agreement? If verbal only, what business acumen does this show about the Mayor? After all, this is a contract according to the Mayor that saved the city from paying $33,000 from Anderson’s pension. If the contract was written, dated, and witnessed, it must be made public. Failure to disclose the contract to the public will only lead to continued public speculation and anger.

Voters will rightly begin to speculate on the honesty of the mayor and whether the story about the pension payment savings to the city was a blatant lie “crafted” by Gray and Anderson to resolve the issue to public satisfaction.

Freedom of Information requests to disclose the Gray/Anderson MBA contract have so far been refused leading to speculation that:

a) There is no contract suggesting the tuition was an unconditional gift of taxpayer money.
b) The issue of foregoing pension plan paybacks for Anderson was never discussed and has only surfaced recently to appease public inquiries.
c) Was a city form used and the funding ceilings identified on the form superseded on the form or did the mayor draft up his own contract for the funding?
d) If there was a contract, was it properly drafted by the city legal department?
e) Where and how is the money identified in the city financial records?
f) At what point and in what way were the details of the MBA funding communicated to council?
g) Is there any record on council discussion on this matter after they learned the Mayor had personally gifted the funds?
h) What was the timeline in the approvals of both Anderson’s and Cullen’s tuitions?
i) What were the conditions of tuition payback when Anderson left his position if the Mayor was not re-elected?

You can undoubtedly devise many additional sensitive questions upon close examination.

The most important question though is, “Why did no politician SCREAM about this issue before it was made public by private citizens?”

But let us speculate that the whole idea of the pension payback was a lie perpetrated by Mayor John Gray and his executive assistant.

It would not be the first serious misinformation campaign perpetrated on the people by John Gray. His whole rationale for council’s failure to communicate the ward system plebiscite details to the public was a response to my criticism that the people had not been properly informed. What did Gray do in light of this criticism? He floated the giant lie, “The city had no responsibility---that was up to citizen’s themselves!”

This kind of statement demonstrates that Gray believes that the council need not communicate to the public. Nor should it be self policing---all is a public responsibility….Amazing!

As citizen Alan Slater wrote in a letter to the editor published in a local paper last week, “The MBA issue will not be over until Election Day. If Mayor John Gray has any supporters left, will one of them inform him that the affair is definitely not closed. It will not be closed until the coming election when voters are reminded of his arrogance and lack of business judgement, which has helped Oshawa to become one of the highest taxed municipalities in the country.

Anyone who votes for him or any of his colleagues can expect more of the same abuse of power and disconnection from the realities of life in these hard times.”

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

DO YOU DESERVE THIS KIND OF JUDGEMENT LEADING YOUR CITY?

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
February 22, 2010


This week’s column is about more reckless and irresponsible spending of your taxes, like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and is just another example of why Oshawa has the highest taxes in the GTA.

The issue of the week is Mayor John Gray’s personal approval for taxpayers to fund the MBA degrees for his politically appointed executive assistant, James Anderson, and for Councillor April Cullen, both of whom are studying for taxpayer funded MBA’s in Community Economic Development at Cape Breton University, which is ranked 98 out of 100 Canadian MBA Schools.

Neither of these individuals may be around after the next election with the outraged anger citizens are demonstrating at this wasteful and unethical expenditure which breaches city policy in every way.

Under the city’s corporate training and financial assistance policy, staff and council can use city cash, up to $2,000 in one year and $5,000 over three years, for “cost-effective training and educational opportunities.”

Any extra cost must be approved by the department head and city manager, but John Gray, not the city manager, signed off on both MBAs costing taxpayers $46,000— something he says he’s entitled to do as CEO of the corporation.

In a letter to concerned citizen, Melissa Kata, who has led the charge in illuminating this important issue, Rick Stockman, Commissioner of Corporate Services, stated in a Feb. 10, 2010 letter, “The Council approved “Corporate Training and Financial Assistance Policy” applies to Council members and staff. The policy requires that the City Manager approve any staff applications for financial assistance of the magnitude indicated. The approved candidates are few in number as any funding must be directed at career, organizational development or succession planning.

If approved, the applicant must enter into an agreement to remain with the City for a prescribed period or proportionally reimburse the Corporation if they leave prior to the end of the stated period.

In the case of the identified individual and Councillor, they fall under the Mayor’s Office, and the Mayor authorized the educational expenses in his capacity as the Chief Executive Officer.

If the approval of the councilor and his executive assistant do fall under the Mayor’s jurisdiction, as suggested, don’t you think that the mayor would be expected to give approvals under the same strict conditions as applied to staff?

In this case, John Gray personally approved $46,000 for Councillor April Cullen and his Executive Assistant, James Anderson.

Gray says he’s entitled to disregard established city policy.

This smells like Gray’s personal and private $40,000 spending approval for his own birthday party---the Colbert day.

He’s found a new way of governing our city---like a dictator, he’s making some expensive spending decisions by personal fiat.

Did we elect a mayor who figures he can do whatever he damn well pleases with our money? It seems so!

Besides these MBA’s and the Stephen Colbert Day, he’s driving around in that bright yellow boy toy 426HP muscle car purchased for him at taxpayer expense.

Gray certainly seems to feel a sense of entitlement for himself and his chosen few on council, to live high on the hog at taxpayer expense.

Perhaps what is really at question here is the mayor’s judgment, as this issue has become a lightening rod of citizen anger.

It’s become a tangible symbol of entitlement, over-spending, and unethical disregard for tax payer’s hard-earned tax dollars.

To defend this MBA expenditure is ridiculous and embarrassing, yet some city bureaucrats who have no other choice are forced to clench their teeth and remain silent at the Mayor’s largesse with his council and office friends.

James Anderson, Gray’s executive assistant was appointed by Gray and is not even a city employee.

He is on contract to the city while Gray is Mayor and will depart with Gray, probably in October.

Why is he even considered an eligible candidate to take advantage of the city’s education policies?

While the staff policy extends to council members, it makes no mention, nor should it, of extending this benefit to contract employees.

Nor does it mention any possibility of extending the spending limit beyond the $5000 three year limit which the Mayor’s largesse has greatly exceeded with his $23,000 gift to each of the two MBA candidates.

Tuition benefits are only offered to selected employees by employers when there is a long-term benefit to the employer.

This is never offered to contract employees who are always hired on their existent skills…and politicians should never be elected in the first place if their performance is having to be supported by considerable additional education at taxpayer expense. I have never heard of getting a job and then seeking the training to do it.

Citizen outrage has sparked council candidate Bill Steele to start a rapidly growing facebook group “Invoice for April Cullen and James Anderson---We want our money back now!”

Mr. Steele also sent an email to the press and the individuals involved stating “Your MBA is something that the residents of OSHAWA are opposed to, is abusive to our financial position in Oshawa, and was granted under circumstances that should be investigated.

I strongly suggest that you make the repayment of the $23,000.00 you took for your MBA.

You have refused to explain why the taxpayers should be on the hook for so much money when our City is in financial trouble.

Give us our money back.

I am asking that you please pay the $23,000.00 in full. Arrangements will probably be made (to collect) after you leave office in the fall.”

According to Steele, Rick Stockman, the Commissioner of Corporate Services, said John Gray had never before been involved in such training approvals. He has never signed off on any single training request.

John Gray’s precedent setting single signature approval over ride’s Oshawa's established policy which requires multiple approvals but the Mayor’s single signature approval allows him to gift his friends and council supporters MBA's at $23,000 each while denying council members who don’t toe his line access to this funding.

It must be emphasized, however, that funding degrees for any politicians or political appointees is never justified. We expect these individuals to come to the position fully qualified. Only seminar type instruction on topics needed to fully understand complex issues they’re asked to vote on is justified.

This, despite the fact that Nestor Pidwerbecki reportedly headed over to his Polish homeland at taxpayer expense in recent years to check out their “state of the art(?)” incinerators as research on the Durham Region Incinerator being built on the Oshawa border that both he and Councillor Kolodzie voted for, and which is going to pump considerable health damaging particulate matter into the atmosphere and into the lungs of our children.

I believe the Mayor has shown questionable and faulty judgement in approving wasteful expenditures---the $40,000 Colbert day expenditure that he personally approved without council’s knowledge, the yellow muscle “boy toy” camarro automobile he bought at taxpayer expense, and his statement that city council had no responsibility to inform citizens about the general vote plebiscite---and now funding MBA’s for Councillor April Cullen and his Executive Assistant who is not a city employee but is on contract to the mayor.

It just makes me wonder if John Gray has good enough judgement to be our Mayor and City CEO.

I say, enough is enough!

I believe that all Oshawa citizens owe a big vote of thanks to Marissa Kata and Regional Councillor Candidate, Bill Steele, for taking a lead role in investigating this travesty and exposing it for all to see.

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/