Ah, it surely is a sign of spring.  Hibernation time, long as it was, is over.

RAMSS (Ratepayer's Association of Meaford, Sydenham and St. Vincent) has crawled out of its self-dug hole.  The 'hunt' begins once again.

Graeme Kirkland/RAMSS now blames Meaford Mayor Wally Reif and council for the so-called 'current' financial crisis of a multi-million dollar deficit. They seem to think it appeared overnight or, more specifically, since their CAO/CFO David Free left last summer under ambiguous circumstances.

Mr. Free, ably aided by Wally Reif, the Finance/Admin Committee and the tight-knit audit committee (that includes Deputy Mayor Francis Richardson), had kept the budget balanced and, lo and behold, with no tax increases for an unbelievable four years.  Always cheered on by RAMSS,
a short-lived love affair indeed.

Both ratepayers' groups, Cut Our Taxes (COT) and RAMSS have played hard and dirty. All in the name of 'no tax increases'  they got their man Wally Reif into power. Wally then hired David Free.

Graeme Kirkland got himself on the Finance and Administration committee for five years before he resigned last summer, disgusted by the fact that David Free would no longer be around.

Mr. Kirkland, have you not been part author and orchestra leader of this financial predicament because you were part of the Finance and Administration Committee?

Under Reif, Free, and Kirkland the municipality has seen a borrowing frenzy, a hiring frenzy, a spending frenzy, and a lawsuit frenzy.

It had to backfire one day and finally implode.

The citizens of the municipality, the silent majority, should be outraged by the current state of finances but they do know where the real blame lies.

Wally Reif, who has no sense of remorse or guilt, needs to resign pronto.  No lingering around. 

And Mr. Kirkland, with his fine financial acumen and insensitivity to the community at large, needs to run for the hills and hide in that hole again.