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| Mayor Bratina and Goldring |
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| Mayor presents check to United Way |
The office of Mayor Bob Bratina donated $10,000 to the United Way of Greater Hamilton and Burlington today. The United Way is $200,000 short of its $7.1 million fundraising goal for this year and Mayor Bob stepped up to the plate. "I realized last week, after the United Way announcement with Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring that the United Way was facing a challenging year,” said Bratina. “Some of its bigger donors have had to cut back. My chief of staff, Peggy Chapman, and I, decided to go over my own office budget for December and find out how much savings we had accomplished (with our newly formed small and efficient staff) and donate some of those savings to the United Way.”
Last week the Mayor and his staff were not happy with a blog article published by “Raise the Hammer” who insinuated that newly formed small and efficient staff was the reason there was a miscommunication in the mayor being double booked the day of an important PAN AM meeting. Mr. Bratina took offense to the notion that his office staff is not capable of doing their jobs at the highest level and stood up for them, by calling out the reporter in question. The comments on Raise the Hammer continue to attack Bratina and his staff accusing them of the miscommunication.
Today’s donation to the United Way is possible because of the small office and the savings in the budget, so for those who have been questioning the small office and their capabilities, the donation to the United Way will silence some of those critics. Raise the Hammer which is very pro West Harbour, preached community building and when Mr. Bratina resurrected the stadium in the area that needed it the most, all of a sudden community building took a back seat and daggers started to fly, even hitting the mayoral staff in making something that wasn’t that big of a deal, into a full fledge attack on the Mayor and his staff. The mayor got a 14-0 support for the Ivor Wynne stadium project, stood up for his “small” staff and with the money saved on the budget, donated $10,000 to the United Way Fund, talk about silencing your critics.
So since I'm a property taxpayer does this mean I get a charitable donation receipt for my tax dollars Bob so willingly gave? Council was not consulted about this expenditure. This is a bad precident.
ReplyDeleteMayor Bob has only 3 staff, and the money he saved from not hiring 8 staff like the previous Mayor, he donated it to charity. Would you prefer that he hired someone useless in his office and pay them $50,000 to sit around? This would be a problem if Mayor Bob was spending his budget like the previous Mayor, I’m pretty sure his yearly budget is around 900K. Even with this donation, Mayor Bob has saved more money from his budget than the previous administration simply by employing a smaller office.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer my Mayor to give the money back to city coffers if his office does not need it to function.
ReplyDeleteEven if he thinks he could have legally done it by manipulating interpretation of city by-law, the point is, should he have? No.
OMG, do any of these critics ever need blood , or do any of your mom's get a hot meal delivered to them, or do you have son taken off the street and given shelter and a chance to turn his life around, any of you ever heard of Big Brother's and Big Sister's, Or The CNIB or how about Cathlic family services,or The Elizabeth Fry Association, or Hamilton East Kiwanis Boy & Girls Club or Multiple Sclerosis Of Canada I could go on and on, The united Way make's a huge difference in over 280 thousand lives per year, and your crying about a donation of 10 grand, you embarress me as a Canadian, What Mayor Bob did was FANTASTIC....maybe not the way the rules were made but he did what he is being paid to do..that is help the people of Hamilton,all of you conplainer's get a life or maybe donate some of your spare time to helping a home bound senior....and shut up.
ReplyDeleteIt is the nature of politics; you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. I think the low standards we have set for ourselves in this City are starting to seep through when we start attacking a new Mayor (who so far has done a complimentary job)for DONATING MONEY to an organization that HELPS the DISADVANTAGED IN THE CITY. PEOPLE, are you kidding me here?
ReplyDeleteNo politician should give away the taxpayers money! If the mayor wants to donate his own money that is his business otherwise he should not steal from the taxpayers money and support the fat paycheque what the United Way`s management is getting. Shame on him.
ReplyDeleteUnited Way management does not get a fat paycheck ,I know that for sure, No I do not work there, but I do know lots of folks who need help from them, and right now my mom gets a hot meal daily and I know several people who use The Wesley Centre and St Mathews House, to the person who said that, your a fool who does not know what your talking about, get the facts correct then comment. Salaries are not a secret at United Way it public information., Only 16% of money received is used for wages and admin costs that is amazing. Had he spent the money at the casino then you can yap and NO I did not vote for him, nor do I like them much, what about the money wasted this paste year on the stadium circus now that was stealing, and I think this is a distraction away from that issue, so the councilor's who dropped the ball there are off the hook.
ReplyDeleteWhy was the United Way chosen? Why not another charity? There are lots of charities that do worthy work. Why was there not a process to decide? Mayor Bob took it upon himself to donate OUR money. Way to go BOB! What's next? This action just reconfirms why educated voters did not vote for him.
ReplyDeleteI believe the United Way was chosen because they were publically stating that they were short for their fundraising goals for this year. I believe the Mayor’s heart was in the right place but apparently proper procedure was not followed. The United Way was not hiding the fact that they were around $200,000 short for this year’s goal; Mayor Bob tried to step in and spark a domino effect in donations. The United Way still didn’t reach their goal at the end of it all. We fail to forget that City councillors donate all the time, to all kinds of unions, sports clubs ect ect. Check out the Spec article from 3 years ago.
ReplyDeletehttp://josipovicforward10.blogspot.com/2011/02/donations-nothing-new-for-hamilton-city.html