[wild wild west]

re: Government waste - I'd be all over this issue if the supposedly fearless four were actually able to find concrete examples of waste in municipal government. Last budget they kicked up a stink over (admittedly very large) tax hikes, even though they themselves had approved this spending, and Council sat down as a group and went through the budget, supposedly line-by-line. The result was that these same aldermen were reluctant to do much actual chopping, lest it impact their popularity. All they did was try to cast the blame on the Mayor, Gord Lowe and others while dodging any responsibility. Sound strategy from a political standpoint, but if you really look at it from a taxpayer point of view - the whole exercise was just a waste of time.

Even on the Park-and-ride fee, one of the issues I do agree with McIver and the gang on - they dropped the ball. Most of these guys voted in favour of it, then once it was implemented, realized how unpopular it was and only then tried to revisit the decision.