Eagerly await some flack or constructive responses: Nanaimo Ratepayers Association; Third Party Sponsor or Third Party Pawn Okay so I have been debating posting about this since I learned the information I will relay below. When I hear things like this, from very reliable resources, I tend to dwell a bit on them; woke up this morning at 2:30 and the issue popped into my head and would not leave so am going to help it do so. K’ so here it is: -------- This from the Ratepayers association: Nanaimo Ratepayers Association OUR VISION: To be the leading, Influential voice of residents for responsible spending by the City of Nanaimo. OUR MISSION: Our mission is to advocate for sustainable, transparent, accountable and responsible spending by local governments so that taxpayers interests and voices are represented and heard at Nanaimo City Hall. -------- Yesterday I was informed that on October 20th there was a directors meeting of the Nanaimo Ratepayers association, not all directors were there. At his meeting it was brought forward that Kim Smythe was brokering information that a couple of sponsors were willing to provide $10,000 towards a list of candidates for Mayor & Council; that list was apparently all of those on the recent ad in the daily news authorized by the Ratepayers Association. Ad attached. There was some concern and an attempt made to change one of the candidates but as was expressed they were under a time constraint to inform Kim of their decision. Members of the association were not consulted and remember not all directors were attending. Interestingly enough the following day the Ratepayers Association put out its’ questions to all the candidates. 1. Do you live in Nanaimo? (Y) (N) 2. Do you own a home and pay property taxes in Nanaimo? (Y) (N) 3. What qualifies you to serve as a Nanaimo city councillor? 4. What is your community involvement? (Organizations, charities, etc.) 5. Have you ever owned or managed a business? (Y) (N) 6. Who are your major financial backers? (Check one: Individuals, Businesses, Unions) 7. Are you in favour of an independent Core Review of city services? (Y) (N) 8. What is your vision for Nanaimo? 9. Would you accept the public endorsement of the Nanaimo Ratepayers Association: (Y) (N) Flash forward to November 6th and a full page ad comes out endorsing a slate of candidates, find it interesting is that the argument being used because there are 9 it cannot be called a slate, exactly as that of the proposed on October 20th. Were the questions asked of all of the Mayoral and Council Candidates simply a smoke screen towards ultimately stating this was a fair process? Were those on the list consulted as to whether they wanted to be or not? I do know, from Jim Taylor has stated he had absolutely no input into the process or the decision to advertise during the current election as he had resigned as director and President before these decisions were before the board. He had not been consulted about being on the list and also stated that he is not thrilled to be included on a list as there are some he would not support. From my understanding members were not involved in the decision making; has the Ratepayers Association been bought off and simply become what it espouses to be so against? Thing is no matter what is said, denial or not, we likely won’t be able to find out if and how much was accepted. I’m not sure what accountability there is for a third party sponsor to list those donating to the sponsor or how detailed that information might be. If the Ratepayers are a registered society we might get some answers when they have their AGM but even then the financials they can put out do not have to be detailed. Last question is would the Ratepayers Association willingly consult with and remove any of those that do not want to be on this list prior to putting out any more ads?
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 17:45:56 +0000
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