Another Meeting Conflict
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 @ 3:55 AM
Prince George, B.C.- For the second time City Hall has scheduled an event that conflicts with a meeting organized or supported by its workforce.
On October 1st, at the regular City Council meeting, the president of CUPE Local 1048, Janet Bigelow, formally invited Mayor Shari Green and Council members to attend a public meeting at 7pm, Tuesday, October 16th. This meeting, which is sponsored by I Heart PG, CUPE BC, Stand Up for the North Committee, and Faculty Association of CNC, is featuring Sean Meagher, of the Public Interest Group in Toronto, who will be speaking on that city’s experience with the Core Services Review process.
The meeting has been in the works for some weeks now, and municipal workers wanted to make sure that city councillors were able to attend to get another important perspective on the Core Service Review process before making any final decisions. However, the day after receiving this invitation from city workers to attend this meeting, City Hall announced that at that precise date (October 16) and precise time (7pm), there would be a farewell dinner for City Manager Derek Bates to which all city councillors were invited.
This is not the first time the City has scheduled a meeting which conflicts with another one either organized or sponsored by city workers. In early August, CUPE agreed to co-sponsor a meeting organized on the Enbridge pipeline issue to take place on October 2nd, featuring the economist Robyn Allan. Information about this was widely circulated throughout the community.
However, Mayor Green’s office announced via the media in mid-September that the meeting for public input on the municipal Core Services Review “opportunities” had been changed from September (as the notice on the City’s website had long indicated and continued to indicate) to October 2nd at the same time as the Enbridge meeting co-sponsored by CUPE. Although questioned by two councillors about this meeting conflict, the mayor refused to change the date.
Comments
Good for the mayor again…I’d rather go for dinner as well than go to some union sponsored ndp meeting. Meagher ia an ndp hack from way back…
Nothing really new here. “Management” has been conveniently missing union events to which they were invited for ages. My guess is that Janet Bigelow never really expected them to show anyway. These invites are usually just a formality are they not?
So birdman you must be the type that says, I will pay you what I pay you, take it or leave it. You would pay no benifits, let the taxpayer pay that, then greedly pocket the extra profit.
I suspect Mr. Bates would prefer Ms. Green to attend the other event. Can’t imagine he wants her at his farewell dinner. LOL!
Good point. I’m sure Mr.Bates has dinner with the mayor and council before every council meeting. Why would he want them at his farewell dinner ?
Who’s paying for the farewell dinner? I sure hope it’s not you and me.
I will guess the dinner will be paid for by you and me and cooked up at the civic centre kitchen like all Monday council dinners are.
Funny how we are feeding them before they work. When its us, its up to ourselves to feed ourselves before we go to work. I just wonder what the annual bill is for that?
If they are serious about saving the city money, they could certainly start with some of these frills.
So from that (and many other things), I get the impression that they are not serious at all.
I wonder how much it’s costing CUPE to fly this guy in from Toronto
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