REPLACING DEPARTED POLITICIANS

On July 16/15 in the Waterloo Region Record Luisa D'Amato wrote the foolowing Opinion column titled "How not to replace a departed politician". Luisa took us through some recent examples of terrible choices by the local Catholic School Board after resignations of members during their term. The obvious and appropriate method according to Luisa is to offer the job to the next in line via the previous election. This would seem obvious and is. Unfortunately neither local councils, regional councils or school boards are so mandated. So exactly what happens is a sweetheart deal if you will. Those bodies interview applicants for the job and cherry pick "right thinking" persons to fill the empty positions. Of course "right thinking" could mean similar thinking to the majority of the council or board or it could be as simple as picking the quietest, least aggressive, most likely not to rock the boat candidate. Aint democracy swell!