Street Level

So here’s an idea.

Let’s just do away with city council.

Who needs it anyway? All councillors do is sit around and talk and read reports and talk some more and read some more reports.

How hard can that be?

The rest of us out here can certainly take on that job.

Need to make a decision? Let’s hold referenda. We can do one every week if we have to.

Let the people speak.

Problem is, that’s exactly what the people do — theoretically — on election day.

We pick the people we think can best run the city.

Every three years, if we like what they’ve done, we can vote for them again, if they’re running.

If we’re not happy with them, we can collectively vote them out — or at least have the satisfaction of knowing with our X we’ve expressed our view.

That’s the way the system works and it’s the reason why all this nonsense about water meters needs to stop.

We elected this council.

The councillors have read the reports. They’ve asked the questions.

They’ve considered the issue.

I’m sure many have asked their friends, family — perhaps even total strangers — for feedback on the issue. And they’ve made the decision the city needs to have water meters.

Most of the debate has centred around one of two concepts:

We can teach people to conserve and didn’t we already say no to this once?

The education-awareness argument doesn’t need much comment.

Of course we can launch a campaign to do this.

Some people will listen; others won’t. That’s the way it’s always been and likely will remain for years to come.

People buy into concepts or they don’t.

The argument that concerns me the most is this “listen to the people.”

“The people” today are different from “the people” who voted on the water-meter referendum years ago.

The time in which they voted was a different one. We weren’t as aware as we are now about the city’s water consumption, its cost, the consequences of not controlling its use — all those issues we now face.

And the time we are in now is not going to be much like the one our children will see when they reach voting age.

We can’t keep running back to the general population for a “vote.”

It just won’t work. It might be democracy in its purest form, but if you think we have voter apathy now, just imagine how engaged people would become if, on every major issue, we had to hold a referendum.

Now there’s a cost you won’t want to see added to the property-tax calculations.

The real reason the “we already said no” argument is being raised is because, yes, some people already said no.

It’s a convenient argument for those who still want to say no.

But here’s the bottom line: We use too much water.

We know it and yet many of us continue to use too much water — so much for that awareness and education choice.

Meters will force us to realize how much water we use and require us to pay for it.

Basic economics here: Use little, pay little. Use more, pay more.

And here’s the principle we’re in danger of losing if we cave in to those naysayers and pander to their calls for public referenda: We make our civic leaders obsolete.

We don’t need them.

We can decide.

I’m not sure who would be the one picking the “big” issues that require the public to make the decision.

Maybe we could hold a referendum to choose.

In the meantime, these are the folks we chose to make those decisions needed to run Kamloops.

Let’s let them do it.

dale@kamloopsthisweek.com

Posted by Dale at 2:27 p.m. Comments