• Victor Schukov

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Maybe a little merger would be best

posted by Victor Schukov at 5h59

You have heard the arguments for municipal mergers; you have heard the arguments for demerger. Obviously the idea of being part of Montreal decreases the likelihood of there being an accessible – as opposed to omnipotent – mayor, not to mention the additional tax invasion.

However, being too small of a West Island town can exacerbate the notion of “united we stand, divided we fall to Montreal.”

I was thinking, maybe the answer lies somewhere in between. How about we exercise a little bit of merging?

Let me explain: Why not take the 12 main West Island towns and merge them into six? Here are some of the advantages:

- Half the number of mayors; a savings in salary of anywhere from $3,000 to $7,216.45 of a town’s budget.

- Half the number of city halls; we could turn the castaway six into bingo halls and make extra money; or sell the charming, historical ones as private homes and the homely ones as dépanneurs.

-A bigger borough has more clout when it comes to garnering goodies from the provincial and federal governments. (Note: This does not apply to getting a métro station. Beauharnois will get one before we do.)

-We could take back Ile Bizard, Ste. Geneviève, Pierrefonds and Roxboro because the June 2004 merger/demerger vote required 35-per-cent turnout for the result to be valid; these cities were absorbed regardless of the wishes of those who did or didn’t bother to vote.

 -Finally, evict Pauline Marois for squatting in Ile Bizard.

-Buy our own municipal water meters for $12.95 each at Wal-Mart.

-“The defragmentation of administrative jurisdiction into a more intricate institutional mosaic allows for greater economies of scale, consolidation of increased efficiency, improved fiscal equity of regional disposal management and diffusion of commodities.”  (I got this from one of Louise Harel’s advisers. I think it means we would have improved garbage pick-up service.)

 -We could stimulate West Island pride by asking voters to suggest names for the six conjoined towns. The following is my list. (You guess the merged pairs.) I have also added what should be each new town’s slogan:

 Ste. Anne-de-Baie d’Urfe: “Now we got even less free parking.”

 Pierreboro: “Pierrefonds Rox!”

 Beaconspointe-Clairefield: “More library books and swimming pools than everyone else put together.”

 Dorval-Ile-Dorval: “A no-brainer.”

Kirkville: “No longer land-locked.”

Bizard-des-Ormeaux: “Come for the golf, stay for the farmer’s market.”   

The nice thing about any inter-West Island merger is that we are a close-knit, reasonable lot. We could even swap towns and try different combinations whenever we feel like making a change. (i.e.: Dorval-des-Ormeaux.)

And getting bigger without being too big, I believe would make the municipal porridge, to paraphrase Goldilocks of the Three Bears, “not too hot and not too cold, just right.”

In fact, the twin cities that prove they can run themselves far more efficiently than construction corruption-plagued Montreal can even opt to merge with additional towns on a trial basis, endeavouring to reach the perfect level of amalgamation. (ie. Ste.Genevieve-de-Bizard-des-Ormeaux.) 

 And in the end, should we ultimately be left with only two healthy, thriving West Island mega-towns, God forbid we should form one happy, united West Island Montreal (WIM). Then we could slip the shoe onto the other foot and force Montreal to merge with us, under our rules, all under the acclaimed new leadership of Mega-Mayor Maria Tutino of Baie d’Urfé.  (But you still won’t get a métro station.)