BASS: I resolve to offer these salient suggestions for 2013
I’m not one for making resolutions, simply because I’m a typical person and they will fall by the wayside.
Instead, marking the start of a new year, here are some suggestions for changes I’d like to see happen in Kamloops in 2013.
• First, could city council please end the series of soap-opera-like interrogations of folks who show up begging to keep their third, fourth or fifth dogs? It’s unnecessary and, in some instances, downright cruel to sit at that horseshoe and ask these folks why they can’t just give up one of their dogs.
Do none of the councillors own pets? If they did, they’d understand many people would give up their firstborn before they’d part with Fido.
The reason there’s a constant stream of people asking council for forgiveness is because our city leaders don’t enforce the bylaw.
Council’s time would be better spent analyzing why people don’t comply and perhaps coming up with strategies to accommodate these “special” cases that do not require public humiliation as they try to explain why their pets should be spared.
• While we’re looking at compliance problems, let’s also do something to resolve this annoying, resource-draining bar-flush problem.
There are many ways to start.
How about calling a meeting of all the bar owners in town to talk about the silly things they do, such as opening the doors at 7 p.m., knowing full well the headliner won’t go on for another three or four — or five — hours, leaving that huge gap of space for these folks to do little more than drink?
The gang squad has done its job, so how about a “drunk squad” that can wander into these establishments and perhaps escort some of the folks who are well past intoxication and showing no signs of slowing down out to a cab or a cruiser ride home?
And, while we’re at it, is there nothing more bartenders can do to ensure they’re not feeding the problem?
• KTW’s managing editor, Christopher Foulds, has said it more times than he needs to — it’s time for our MP to come clean on her expenses.
And, my using that term, it’s not to imply there’s anything untoward with how much Cathy McLeod has been spending since we sent her to Ottawa.
It’s just simple fairness; her government has passed Bill C-377, which forces unions to make their finances and expenses public, so our MPs should be required to do the same.
So, Cathy, time to open the books and tell us all what you spent, why you spent it and why it shouldn’t matter at all when the next federal election rolls around.
• Speaking of elections, a provincial vote will be held in 130 days — aren’t we all counting them down? — and it would be nice to see more of us get off our butts and vote.
In 2009, Kamloops did a bit better than the provincial average — a shameful 50 per cent.
In the Kamloops-North Thompson riding, the one that had long been represented by Kevin Krueger, 51.6 per cent of eligible voters went to the polls, giving Terry Lake a mandate.
In Kamloops-South Thompson, where Krueger moved when his colleague Claude Richmond retired, 53.23 per cent voted him into office.
Voting isn’t hard. You go to the poll, show your card, stand behind the cardboard protector, mark your X and leave.
Sure, you may have to wait a while, but it’s a small cost to pay to exercise a right that your grandparents and great-grandparents likely fought for — and perhaps died for — to ensure you can have that right.
In our family, acknowledging that right is more important than who gets the X, hence the fact we have a Green member and NDP, Liberal and Conservative supporters.
(Mind you, three of those are Ontario party representations, where Liberals are really Liberals and Conservatives aren’t reformed Reformers.)
Dale Bass is a reporter with Kamloops This Week. Her email address is here. Her blog can be found here.
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