Kindness at Christmas Time

Kindness at Christmas Time A Candid Conversation By Theresa Grant Real Estate Columnist So, here we are in an election year, and it appears that it’s going to be a long one. At least in terms of campaigning. Right out of the gate, January 1, Tito Dante- Mariampetri declared his intention to run for Mayor of Oshawa. A few other people in different Municipalities have also declared their intention to run for either City Council or Mayor. At some point a few months back I said to a colleague to watch as the hopefuls come out of the woodwork as though they’d been there all along, informing and updating people as to what’s going on in their ward and things they themselves are doing or motions they’re putting forward. When in fact the opposite is true. The current Council seems to operate under a veil of secrecy so to speak. The only Councillor that I see communicating with the residents of Oshawa is Ward 5 Councillor Brian Nicholson. In fact, in Ward 4, some residents have stated that they’ve called their Councillor and got no reply at all. They’ve sent emails that go unanswered. Yet, just before Christmas the Councillor for Ward 4, Derek Giberson, issued an ‘urgent plea’, stating that we had a homeless crisis in Oshawa and he needed people to send emails to Council for a particular meeting so that the issue didn’t get kicked down the road. That was issued on Facebook. When I responded with, “We’ve had a homeless issue in Oshawa for years, why are you just bringing this up months before an election?” One person jumped to his defense saying that he had brought the motion forward previously (Probably in another election year). The Councillor himself never responded to my question. In fact, he deleted the question from his post. It's outrageous that elected officials sit on these committees, have their meetings, collect a paycheck and seem to vanish for 3 years at a time. They pop back into the picture at the 3-year mark to start campaigning for another term, thinking that nobody will notice. Who knows, they might even start answering phone calls or replying to emails at that point as well. I, for one feel that we definitely need some new blood on the Council. I am not interested in the same people trying to make a career out of being a Councillor because they have nothing else to go to. Oshawa deserves better than that.