People who actually use public transit on a daily basis shouldn’t expect to see themselves represented on the TTC board. Look who was allowed to apply for the four unelected positions:
“Citizens appointed to the TTC board should have directorship and executive-level experience and have experience with one or more large organizations.”
Interviewed on CBC Radio this morning, one of the new appointees couldn’t think of the name for those paper things we use to transfer between vehicles. Another one claimed to use public transit “not every day, but frequently”. Yeah, sure.
Whose idea was it to create four positions for unelected senior executives on the TTC board anyway? How are these people accountable to the rest of us citizens? How does this do anything improve our transit system?
“No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.”
— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
Ironic. The judge was an appointee. Still, she had a point. Those who wrote the rules for TTC board appointees were not interested in hearing from “people at the bottom”, they were creating positions for a private club, to be occupied by players who know how the game is played.
Each citizen appointee will be paid $5,000 a year plus $450 per meeting. Not a lot for the high income earners that get the jobs and only a little over $100,000 in cost to the TTC for the 4 year terms of the appointments. One hundred grand represents quite a few tokens, though.
Doesn’t pass the sniff test. These civic minded citizens should be volunteering their services, not taking pay if they want to give back to their community. No money should ever have been offered.
Give them a year and they will give themselves a well deserved increase. The newspapers reported that Montreal citizen appointees get $25,000 per year so their homework is already done. Also, someone was quoted as saying it’s not the money, they would be willing to do it for free….oh ya!