A Submission from Niagara’s Regional Government
(A short foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – As someone who has covered news in Niagara, Ontario for more than three decades now I have often found it rather sad and disturbing that few residents of this region seem to take an active interest in the regional government’s budget and how so many Niagara residents’ property tax dollars are spent at that level for such vital services as police, roads, water and wastewater treatment, garbage collection, seniors’ care, public health care, affordable housing, and on and on.
You can find many people demonstrating the interest in the budgets of local municipal governments, and that is good, but you look up in the gallery during a meeting on the regional budget, and you are lucky to find more than three or four residents there.
Given the services regional government is responsible for and the need to control costs around them, that apparent lack of interest has got to change. So please check out the following call for you to participate in a survey and online interactive discussion on its spending, and consider participating in it.
And get involved because it is good for our collective future. Not because, as mentioned below in the Region’s media release, you might be eligable to win an iPad mini. How sad winning a prize for getting involved in civics even has to enter the picture.)
NIAGARA REGION, July 11, 2013 – Niagara Region launches a user-friendly, online survey to get residents’ feedback on the proposed 2 per cent increase for the 2014 budget, which would equal approximately $37 for an average home assessed at $231,756.
Niagara, Ontario’s regional headquarters.
Residents are encouraged to visit www.niagararegion.ca to watch a 60 second video and then respond to a few brief questions about the proposed 2014 budget. Residents can then enter to win an iPad Mini.)”We’ve heard from residents that they want to understand how we are spending their tax dollars and the value they are receiving for each dollar,” said Regional Chair Gary Burroughs. “Since we manage an overall budget of almost $1 billion and provide services that impact residents daily, it is important that our budget process is transparent and that the public is engaged in that process,” concludes Burroughs.
Niagara Region staff will also be in the community collecting feedback. Residents can watch for our booth at community events and locations near them for a chance to fill out the survey and enter the contest in person. For a list of events and locations, visit www.niagararegion.ca.
This is the first step in a series of engagement opportunities that Niagara Region will offer on the 2014 budget. There will be hands-on community feedback sessions that are open to the public in late August along with a series for Budget Review Committee of the Whole meetings which are all open to the public. For a complete list of engagement opportunities, please visit the Region’s website at http://www.niagararegion.ca.
(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conversation by sharing your views on the content of this post below. For reasons of transparency and promoting civil dialogue, NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)
Niagara At Large 
Until the region reigns in spending on police services and trims the fat within the regional office, any conversation relating to the rest is pointless.
The reason I don’t go is because the regional councillors don’t have the backbone to reduce the NRP budget and reduce salaries amongst regional employees. The rest of the budget is a pittance compared to these two spending components.
The number of NRP and region employees that are on the sunshine list is growing every year. Doesn’t anyone else out there see a problem with that?
Can it be done? Yes it can. There is a lineup for these jobs all the way to Toronto and if the existing staff won’t take wage reductions (like they did in the manufacturing/private sector) fire them all. There is no shortage of replacements. Replacements that will in all likelihood do a better job and be more pleasant to deal with.
Develop a backbone regional council…. Cut the fat……. Just sayin…….
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I am admitted non-techie Luddite and cannot find the 60-minute video even with the links. Thus, that leaves someone like me, slightly enraged. So I will not go futher and leave that to the others far better than me and working the new system. I love local politics, but it the Region cannot make it really straightforward as to how to connect with them, feggitaboutit. I was astonished to read that there will be, Yet Again, another Marketing survey by these folks, to find it anyone outside of Niagara has ever heard of the place, beyond the Falls and NOTL. They actually were looking at that wonderful NEDC brand done years ago. You remember this, folks, the N for Niagara, marketed out to a Toronto company, not a local one, (P. Geddes was the head at the time? with Tim Kenney, Ms. Zimmerman and others, not sure of the timeframe here) with grapes in the middle of the N, or a wineglass, or the Falls, was going to “drive” business here. Remember that? All brought to you by the Niag. Economic Development Commission, NEDC, that huge sinecure for abandoned former politicos. Surely you recall this. I do. And I am sure you do too.
A Brief Note from Niagara At Large For anyone who may not be able to access the link on the post above to visit Niagara Region’s budget video and survey, please try clicking on the direct link for the Niagara Region and this information at http://www.niagararegion.ca/government/budget/2014-survey/default.aspx . On the other hand, the link the Region provided in the post should work.
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