Louis Shalako: Core Values, Chapter Ten. Louis Shalako.

The Goddess of Truth.

Chapter Ten

“City has its priorities mixed up…”

Dear sir,

Two years ago, the police were asked to cut the budget. They didn’t do it, so council imposed $100,000 in cuts. Last year essentially the same thing happened again. A $200,000 cut was cock-a-doodle-dooed from the rooftops.

Remember how Mayor Pedlar abstained from voting on the police budget, and then praised it about ten days later? Mrs. Marie Phyllis voted against the budget, but it safely passed. When council set a budget for the police, the cut was shouted from the rooftops by the press, yet the police simply ignored it. Last time Phyllis was in the paper, she was all for it.

This year they are $279,000 over budget. It’s part of a pattern, one clearly visible all over town. The provincial and federal governments have committed $17.1 million in total for the Blythe Street Sewer Project, a $30 million project, yet council is concerned with railway wastelands projects, a glittering glass restaurant, (built at public expense,) at Confederation Park, and a Mayor Hope Pedlar Memorial Art Gallery.

In the flood of 1996, about 2,900 south-end homeowners made claims, resulting in a huge liability for the city. After a rainstorm, Lennox Bay is brown…just brown.

“Is that what I think it is?” A fisherman asked me one day.

“Yes it is, sir.” That was all I could say.

The condoms floating by were a pretty good clue. The truth is, our city is one of the biggest polluters on the Great Lakes. This town is run by a big political machine. One that perpetuates itself and only thinks of its own self-interest. The general public may be forgiven for a short attention span, when putting bread on the table is a priority for so many. The press seems afraid to draw even the most obvious conclusions. They are objective, which means they don’t wish to be seen with their thumb on the scale. By ignoring the problems of our civic government, the thumb is on the scale. The press should serve the higher goddess. Her name is not Power, or Money, or Law. Her name is Truth, sir.

There must be truth, sir.

— Chuck H. Brubaker