New chapter for the  Shredder - CAO Bob Austin

September 22nd., 2005

Halton Hills - After 31 years, Bob Austin, last Monday attended his last council meeting as an official for the Town of Halton Hills. The Mayor accredited the retiring CAO with having done a terrific job for the town, but many taxpayers don't agree.

The retiring CAO functioned as a civil servant for the community for twenty nine and a half years. As the Director of Engineering and Public Works, he was the managing director for the department that had managed to accumulate a $50 million plus dollar legacy in back - work ordered road repairs. Those road repairs have cost, and will continue to cost taxpayers an addition 2% per year on their taxes until the work is caught up.

Two and a half years ago Robert (Bob) Austin accepted an offer from council to fill the position of CAO for the Town of Halton Hills. Since then, taxpayers have suffered a number of large tax increases. He negotiated a substantial pay increase for his fellow directors/previous co-workers. Austin was Chief Administrative Officer for the administration that discriminated against a community member, in what many considered; maliciously persecuting a man for raising Town safety issues which were published in the Toronto Star, but never made newsprint in any of the local  papers. Bob Austin was also Chief Administration Officer of the administration that discriminated against a non-profit newsgroup for dissent, which also never made the local papers.

Ironically, during the course of his retirement speech, Bob Austin stated; "thanks to the media, for all your help, knowing what to write and when to write it".

Listen to audio transcript (64k) ...

The Tanner reported earlier this year;

"looking back at his tenure as CAO, he is proud of several accomplishments, including being part of the team that helped reached a "monumental" deal between the Town, Region and landowners in the 401 - Steels Avenue to bring services to the area to speed up development, and the recent successful talks to reach a contract with CUPE".

What he failed to mention was; the 'monumental' deal he was referring to in the 401 industrial corridor, involved financing the development of private property with taxpayers money. What he also left out was, his contract negotiations with CUPE, on behalf of the town, amounted to his co-workers joining the hundred thousand dollar club, while other fulltime adult employees work for $16 hr. +- with lieu time off instead of paying them the overtime rates.

Council gave him a standing ovation at the end of the Mayor's send-off eulogy. In the course of his speech, Bob stated; "Over the weekend I was cleaning out, um, files, lets just put it at that, and there was a lot of really neat memories, um, a lot of good times. The stuff that wasn't so good has now been through the shredder, so we don't worry about that".