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Legal does not make it right

Anyone who does not see a perception of conflict of interest is not seeing clearly.

Editor, The News:

Re: Pitt council denies MLA Bing a leave (The News, June 14).

It may well be legal for Doug Bing to remain on Pitt Meadows council while also sitting as a provincial Liberal MLA, but that does not make it right.

Anyone who does not see a perception of conflict of interest is not seeing clearly.

One would hope that, at some point, we could elect people who have at least some level of integrity.

It comes as no surprise that Pitt Meadows Mayor Deb Walters does not want Mr. Bing to resign from council now that he is an elected MLA.

She will no longer get her own way.

In every significant council vote on issues of spending and taxation, council has split 3-3, with the mayor casting the deciding vote, which is always in favour of increasing spending, increasing her own salary every year, and increasing taxation to pay for this.

Mr. Bing has consistently supported these increases, along with two of his colleagues.

Should he no longer be there to support the mayor, she could lose.

Pitt Meadows would, of course, gain from this. But for this, the mayor and her three supporters care not a whit.

Mayor Walters is too busy wasting taxpayers’ money on plush hotel rooms because she can’t be bothered to make the 45-minute drive home from Vancouver.  Even a taxi would have cost us less.  Or, perish the thought, a truly civic-minded mayor who pays for her $500-plus room out of her own pocket.

And why should this be so remarkable, if she really does care?

This ‘little’ perk may not seem like much when compared to $90,000 claimed by Senator Mike Duffy, but it is exactly the same problem.

Byron Hosking

Pitt Meadows