It seems that the mayor and council are running true to form. I guess a better way to state this might be the corollary of the Peter Principle simply put quote: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
With the current Lakeside lawsuit put forward by council one wonders as to how things got to where they are. If the appointed guardians were doing due diligence, there would be no reason for the suit. It’s very simple. Someone in the inner workings of local government dropped the ball. Due diligence went out of the window. Why did this happen? According to the mayor it is somebody else’s fault. Not surprising is it! It is easy to blame someone else for your oversights.
Think of your own situation with your electric meter and your power consumption. How often do you think about the meter being accurate or not? Probably never, unless the power bill all of a sudden skyrockets. Then you, as a user, would make some inquiries as to why it fluctuated so much. Otherwise, things would just go along normally.
If in fact there was a meter problem that you didn’t know about, is it your fault as the user? The answer to that is a pretty simple. no. You didn’t supply the meter nor did you install it in the first place. The answer lies with the manufacturer, the installation contractor or the power agency. You don’t enter into that picture at all except as a paying customer.
The current lawsuit by the city is a catch-22 situation. If no resolution is forthcoming from the Lakeside, taxpayers will be footing the bill. My question here is: Why did the city just sit on the fence instead of pursuing due diligence way back when? As the city is the sub-contracted power supplier, it was the city’s problem to monitor the situation and to advise any and all customers as to meter irregularities. Why wasn’t this done? Once again, the Peter Principle in action.
As for the mayor in his comments on the whys, whos and whats of the Lakeside situation, I just think of this as more egg on the face of the mayor, no, an omelet. This, along with some of other better ideas should be submitted for the Stella Awards. The Stella Awards depict actions of persons who file outrageous and frivolous lawsuits. Nominations are open for 2016. I can think of some candidates ... can you?
Ron Barillaro
Penticton