How do we get fiscal responsibility out of our politicians

How good a job is Peter Kelly doing spending your money. The facts say
he's doing a very pood job. Read on, peruse the studies and decide
for yourself.

Another 3P3 deal It should read 3Ps cubed because the P3 is there three times.
1 Public Purse Pays
2 Private Pockets profit
3 Pork-barrel politics personified.

Here are three items I found on the new “needed” Vancouver convention center. The post building reality is a lot different than the pre construction hype. You have to wonder if these companies that go around finding the great needs for these projects aren’t simply highly paid yes men. This is just as big a pile of manure as the Commonwealth Games were and, like those games, the same question should be applied! If this is such a great deal why doesn’t private business build it? If you read nothing else on this site read, “A Consulting Group's Fairy (KPMG) Tale Spurred Construction Of $883,000,000 Vancouver Convention Center.”

Some of the more compelling and telling quotes from this article include…“Although the supply of available convention-centre space has obviously grown, the demand has clearly not kept up.” And, “ Although supply has boomed, convention and trade-show attendance for North America has fallen and remains below the levels of the late 1990s” . Followed by. “ Even as these other cities dole out discounts, their own convention business has been on the decline. Portland's Oregon Convention Center, for example, expanded in 2002, almost doubling in size. Still, its convention and trade-show attendance declined from 286,410 in 1999 to a mere 161,791 in 2006 (the latest year reported).”


Vancouver and many other cities were all lead astray by this or similar companies turning out studies based on outdated and unreliable information and statistics. Read the full account of this written by Heywood Sanders, a public-policy professor at the University of Texas–San Antonio and a leading expert in convention-centre economics at http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2668571251704638303&postID=2795376566124335643

One article from Vancouver asks the question, "Were they on crack? Are they stupid? Or were they just lying to the public?" Full article at www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2668571251704638303&postID=1130779936544874956. Looking at the facts I think we should be asking similar questions.

Lipstick on a pig award to Peter Kelly

This week's lipstick on a pig award goes to Mayor Peter Kelly for the following quote, Mayor Kelly a convention centre backer, said "the proposed structure needs to be more than just a meeting place for delegates from large organizations. He suggested it could be part convention centre and part performing arts centre and also include other elements in its design." In the Herald. He's Hell bent to make this economic black hole look like something beautiful. Peter give it up the people know the reality. Conventions have been flat lined with no growth since the early 90's.

Darrell The Red

Trevor was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young pullets and about ten roosters, whose job was to fertilize the eggs. The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced.
That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so Trevor could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.
The farmer's favourite rooster was a Rhode Island Red he named Darrell The Red, and a very fine specimen he was too. But on this particular morning Trevor noticed old Darrell's bell hadn't rung at all! Trevor went to investigate.
The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to farmer Trevor's amazement, Darrell had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. Trevor was so proud of Darrell; he entered him in the Hertfordshire County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The result?
The judges not only awarded Darell the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.
Clearly Darrell was a pullitician in the making:
Who else but a pullitician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.
Do you know any Pulliticians like Darrell The Red.?