But what most taxpayers may never have realized, were it not for a little bit of digging by this newspaper, is that their tax dollars had to foot the $16,000 cost of participating in the contest.

Some, like Mayor John Gray, said that’s a bargain considering the positive exposure the city gets. We beg to differ.

Can’t Mayor John Gray and others who defend the expense see that something is not quite right if you have to fork out that much dough to prove your hometown is a place worth living in?

Surely, the city’s marketing, public relations and other staff along with councillors have other more cost effective and creative tools at their disposal aimed at garnering the same kind of international attention and economic benefit that such an award might derive.

Better yet, why not invest that same energy and expense on actually making improvements to make the city more livable as surely there are some who think the city falls short of being near their definition of livable. Cleaning up the downtown and revitalizing the waterfront, and increasing safety and policing should be the focus.

Additionally, like many contests, if you fail to read the fine print on this competition, even a gold medal win can lose its luster.

It turns out gold was awarded to not one but 15 per cent of the top finalists in the United Nations-endorsed contest that invites any municipality to vie for the title of most Livable Communities. The distinction becomes ambiguous in this context.

If the top performing 15 per cent of athletes participating in the Olympics received gold, how much legitimacy would such Olympic contests have?

To politicians who are used to signing off on thousands of dollars in budgetary expenses, $16,000 may seem like a drop in the bucket.

To a struggling family perhaps hit by a layoff as many in Oshawa have recently in the industrial sector, $16,000 represents something helpful like subsidized recreation fees, coverage of debts and other items that make their own individual lives truly more livable. One dictionary provides the following definition of livable: “fit to live in.”

The elected officials who supported Oshawa’s participation in the Livable Communities Awards should remember that a community that’s fit to live in does not waste that community’s hard-earned tax dollars.