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About That ‘Amateur’ 150th Birthday Budget
Don,
Attached is the published July edition of the 150 Committee budget.
Supposed to be the final draft. Not much on detail, that's for sure.
Pulled off the Silly Hall web pages.
Kyym
St. Albert
SINC SAYS:
Well Kyym, although as you point out, while it’s “not much on detail,” that budget may just tell us a whole lot more about the committee and its members than you would think.
Let’s take a closer look at this “final draft”, shall we:

The very first thing that grabs ones attention under
expenditures is “Administrative Costs (Staff,
Volunteers, Office Exp.) $500,000. As a former senior
executive, I can tell you that that line would not be
accepted in any board room in the country. It smacks of
inexperience on the part of the committee. No executive
would ever, nor should ever, condone such a lame set of
expenses so casually tossed out that used 100 percent
of the city’s seed money. (Last I checked, council was
our board and the mayor our senior executive.)
A detailed claim is required here and should include
how many staff, what their salaries will be by
position, what office expenses are anticipated and last
but not least, why “volunteers” cost money. Last time I
volunteered for a charity event, when lunch break came,
I left for my hour and spent my own dime on a lunch,
not the “we have to feed them” approach as stated by
the chair recently.
Instead this looks like the work of an amateur old
women’s card club spending their dues on tea and
biscuits. There is no accountability, nor credibility
in these expenses.
Then let’s move down to Marketing/Communications at
$305,000. How did they come up with that figure? Why
not $295,000 or even $300,000? And what will this be
spent on anyway? I gather the committee intends to blow
hundreds of thousands on newspaper, radio and
television advertising then? Is that really necessary
to reach the 60,000 or so who live here? I think not.
And before the committee screams that they want to
market the party nationally, (or more likely
internationally is their pipe dream) to attract folks
here, I can tell them now it ain’t gonna happen no
matter what they spend. That said, that particular
budget line could easily be trimmed to less than
$100,000 for the Edmonton market, their prime target,
or at least it should be.
The truth is that the single most effective way to
attract outsiders here is to utilize current residents.
Everyone here has friends, relatives or former
residents they know and e-mail could play a pivotal
part in contacting those folks. After all, it is those
very folks who would be most likely to attend as they
have ties to the community. To waste $305,000 on a
“shotgun” approach in the media would be a huge
mistake. Again, there appears to be a real lack of
expertise on the committee.
It would be dead easy for them to set up a web site
with a pre-made “invitation” that folks could send to
others just by entering their e-mail address. Want to
bet no one on the committee has even thought of such a
simple and cost effective method?
Of course, all this should be based on a single week
long celebration, not a year long “bits and pieces”
held “here and there” approach. Their chances of
attracting thousands of visitors diminishes with the
spreading out of the celebrations. The single big
weekend of such a week would attract many, but the
format they have chosen is a loser from the get go. You
can’t possibly expect visitors to return again and
again all year long. Why can’t a committee of
supposedly smart folks see the error of their ways?
Moving right along to Special Events Activities at
$644,000, again what does this consist of folks? All we
know to date is they committed to spend $75,000 on the
RCMP Musical Ride and they gave the Guinness Book of
Records people $8,000 on another pipe dream that is
money down the drain. Who cares if we get 25,000 or
24,999 out to a picnic? A sad and ineffective waste of
another $8,000 of our tax dollars.
That leaves $561,000 unaccounted for folks, and only
$325,000 of that is a sure thing from the province and
the feds. The entire balance of the budget is “money on
paper only”, hopefully to be gathered begging from
corporate sponsors. Please tell me what corporation in
this city will spend that kind of money on such a hit
and miss proposition? Short answer: there isn’t one.
Isn’t that about the biggest gamble you’ve ever heard?
And what about that parade float the committee keeps
harping about? They included a picture of it too:

Note that that hill with a couple of tiny elevators,
the chapel and a bridge cost a cool $28,390. What did
they do, buy the truck it sits on at that price? And
don’t forget we’re gonna blow another $42,550 for
expenses to take it to parades and to store it. Want to
bet the city has enough room somewhere in public works
to store it free and not one committee member even
thought to ask?
And just what is the point of a float with things on it
that only a resident of St. Albert would recognize? If
you want to invite outsiders to our birthday party,
wouldn’t a giant cake and the words “come celebrate
with us” be much more appropriate? The lack of
marketing skills is very apparent and one is left to
wonder how they will waste another $305,000 on more
mistakes like it.
I could go on analyzing it folks, but I am sick to my
stomach at this point.
It’s a bad budget, produced by what appears to be a
totally inexperienced committee at a line by line
budget, and worst of all, the majority of the funds are
“on paper money only”, not real cold hard cash that is
already secured.
For that reason alone, city council should apply the
brakes to this charade before we wind up with yet
another whopping mistake to go with too many others
over the past 10 years. There has been no effort
whatsoever to provide a detailed budget to the citizens
of St. Albert and that is not right when dealing with
public funds. Such a situation can only be caused by
one of two possible reasons. Either the committee lacks
the experience to produce a detailed spending analysis,
or it is so vain it doesn’t think it has to be
accountable.
It’s the biggest gong show in town and the judges,
(city council), need to strike the gong, and fast.
So, where is the leadership? Why hasn’t Mayor Crouse
nor anyone on council had the good sense to sound the
alarm? Their collective silence only condones a
birthday bash neither wanted, nor approved by 90
percent of residents as shown in two recent separate
polls. How about it Mayor Crouse and council? Do you
still support this nonsense? Voters would like to know.
Taxpayers await a reply so they can consider how they
might vote in October. A silent mayor and council in a
looming crisis doesn’t garner much support.
Am I alone here folks, or what do you see in this sorry
excuse for a budget? Are you willing to let council run
with this half baked plan?

The
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WEBBITS

* Man who killed his wife cleared to drive taxi Down Under.
* A green replacement for packing peanuts.
* The false teeth that ‘helped win WWII’ are auctioned.
* Kiddie Viagra many get Pfizer a patent extension.
* She’s not ferry fast. Slowest person to swim English channel.
* Beer laced with cheese helps sexual performance.
Who The Heck Is That Guy Anyway?

We’ve all seen a guy like him on the TV news.
You know the type.
The guy who stands in the background and waves or hollers hello Mom when the TV news crew is trying to do a story.
But there’s a guy in the UK who is making a career out of being “on the news”.
He’s made over 100 appearances so far.
Seniors Accused Of Anti Social Behaviour

It’s not often one runs across a story of seniors making so much noise they disturb their neighbours.
Such was the case in the UK recently when seniors, some as old as 90 have been holding bingo in the wee hours of the morning.
I guess the caller has the mike turned up a bit too loud.
Or does he?

If you really could dig a hole to China, and you did, and you fell in, would you stop in the middle because of gravity?
If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their headlights off?
What happens when you put a light saber in water?
On Gilligan's Island, how did Ginger have so many different outfits when they were only going on a 3 hour tour?


















