The City of Guelph’s executive director of corporate and human resources, Mark Amorosi, believes that “the wheels for the federal government move very slowly . . .” with regard to the city’s ongoing battle to protect its employees from having to pay tax on what, to most outsiders, appears to be a very lucrative, and therefore taxable, benefit.
Personally, I would rather deal with a government whose wheels move at all, rather than the City of Guelph, where no wheels turn and the only people who are given no consideration at all are the lowly taxpayers.
Let’s just think this through for a moment; something neither Amorosi or any other senior city staff have done.
We, the taxpayers of Guelph, are being asked to pony up and finance a legal battle against the government of Canada, which, curiously, we also support financially every time we pay our income tax or purchase a toothbrush. And who benefits from this protracted and expensive battle?
The taxpayers of Guelph? Not on your life! In fact we, the lowly taxpayers, actually suffer, because by handing out free parking passes to the fortunate few who work at city hall, we decrease the number of very limited, and expensive, parking spots available for the rest of us downtown.
All of this would be bad enough, were it not for the fact that over the past few years the City of Guelph has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars constructing bicycle lanes on city roads and installing bicycle racks on city buses, only to turn around and openly encourage city staff to drive their cars to work!
If the tree huggers at city hall want to save the planet by getting us all out of our cars and on to bikes and buses, they should start in their own back yard. Put in more bike racks at city hall and tell employees, “On your bikes!”
Why, even our chief administrative officer Ann Pappert, who has chosen not to lower herself by living in Guelph, could set an example by taking the new GO train to and from work. Those who lead by example are the true leaders.
John T. M. Anderson
Guelph