SHAME ON CITY OF KITCHENER, WELL DONE K-W RECORD

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys the following story regarding a land deal the City appear to be hiding " Court orders city to release files on Goodrich land deal". This story exposes two unfortunate truths. Firstly that our politicians including municipal have a very bad attitude towards public accountability. They prefer to make decisions in secret and they prefer to keep them that way. Secondly for all intents and purposes FOI or Freedom of Information laws are a joke. The full name of this legislation, unknown to many, is "Freedom of Information and PROTECTION OF PRIVACY". I've capitolized the last half simply to point out the obvious disparity and inconsistency.

The City of Kitchener paid 22.4 million dollars for 45 acres of land and an old industrial building on Goodrich drive in Kitchener's south end. That money was neither the city's nor the Councillors money. That money belonged to Kitchener taxpayers and they had an absolute right to know the details as to how and why it was spent. It took the Record three years, $2,558 in FOI processing costs and another $10,000 in legal fees to get their hands on what should be public information. Kudos to the Record while realizing this is exactly why I've long given up on wasting my time and money trying to access information from our various levels of incompetent, lying, secretive governments.