Dear Editor:

The undersigned are in agreement with your recent editorial regarding the expenditure
of public funds on an expensive non-tangible public relations campaign by the U.S. firm
F l e i s h m a n - H i l l a r d (‘Harbouring a long term vision for harbour’, Feb. 27, The Oshawa Express). We would like to be on the media record as consistently opposing this expenditure, and to paraphrase the federal Minister of Finance and Whitby-Oshawa MP Jim Flaherty as “taxpayers’ money flushed down the toilet”.

So far, this firm has consumed some $135,000 and produced little more than the world's most expensive PowerPoint presentation, a presentation that we stated right from the beginning would be used to lobby Oshawa City Council for an additional commitment of over $365,000. Contrary to some recent reports, the $500,000 amount was never “approved” by Council, let alone “last summer.”

The first that Council had heard of any amount to be spent was just six weeks ago on the eve of David Crombie's report on the harbour, at a time when all parties agreed not to take any abrupt actions prior to the completion of his report.

At that time, Council balked at spending so much at once and only approved phase 1 funding of the $135,000, to the disagreement of the undersigned.

Oshawa's Auditor General recently wrote a report which stated the City’s Purchasing By-law was not followed and yet as a reward for this breach of rules, Council then ironically agreed to reconsider spending the additional $365,000 on phase 2 of this fishing trip. Everyone wants to see a revitalized harbour area, but we disagree with our colleagues on spending half a million dollars on public relations consultants.

It will be nothing more than a waste of money primarily because a number of key people in Ottawa who will make the final decisions on whether or not funding will be allocated to
these revitalization efforts have already indicated Oshawa Council’s “jumping the gun” on this issue may be detrimental to
achieving this goal.

Counc. Robert Lutczyk
Counc. Tito-Dante Marimpietri
Counc. John Neal