Ever get that feeling of d?j? vu, not all over again, just d?j? vu. D?j? vu all over again would be redundant? But speaking of redundant, what's up with the Government's new "Community Areas Programme"?

According to the Throne Speech and a recent print advertisement, the goals of this initiative are to "prepare, design and implement environmental improvement plans for Bermuda's well-established neighbourhoods in cooperation with local residents and community leaders", or - minus the political pandering and verbal diarrhoea - "sprucing up de Island". Some of the areas for improvement would be road, sidewalk and lighting improvements; traffic calming; the upgrading of housing and derelict buildings; and general clean up, among others.

It all sounds quite reasonable, although it's exactly what many taxpayers assumed we've been funding with our tax dollars all along. But let's concede that point for now and play along. The announcement of that specific plan left a nagging sense of familiarity about this supposedly revolutionary new initiative?

Aren't we supposed to already have 36 Community Area Programmes in place, staffed with capable on the ground representatives, anxious to tend to the needs of the areas they are so attuned with? Don't we have new people auditioning for the role approximately every five years on your doorstep? Didn't we used to refer to Community Area Programmes as Members of Parliament?

Thinking about it from that perspective, this plan sounds suspiciously like a work-release programme for MPs - and not one where we allow MPs, under supervision of course, out amongst the unwashed masses to perform a little community service? This sounds like a plan to release them from work, the ever-so-annoying aspect of their jobs that involves walking their constituencies - aka Community Areas - speaking with their constituents, finding out what their needs are and addressing them. The most significant change from this will be the significant reduction of your MPs workload, giving them a lot less to do for the $36,000 a year we pay them, more if you're in Cabinet.

Now that we've removed constituency work from our MPs job descriptions we're paying them quite handsomely for the only thing left to do, those onerous Fridays on the Hill, all 35 to 40 of them. The math becomes very easy, that's about $1,000 per day to compensate for the gruelling work of dozing in the back rooms of the House, waking only for meals and to say 'aye' a couple of times a day.

To be fair, there are some MPs, on both sides, who still get out there and work their areas, but they seem to be a dying breed. In fact, it seems like each party has a small handful of its members who carry a disproportionate share of the load. We constantly see the same faces out front and centre, speaking on almost every issue, while others disappear only to be resurrected at the next election.

The Community Areas Programme is proposing to reduce the real work of an MP - improving their constituencies, to something that one of those friendly civil servants can take care of. All that is involved now for our elected officials to do is sit back, wait for their constituents to call, hand them a Community Areas application form, show up for the ribbon cutting, smile for the camera and enjoy the fancy sandwiches. That's tough work if you can get it. We're adding another layer of bureaucracy between the people and their representatives, further distancing our under-performing MPs from the parochial work that keeps their feet on the ground.

It's long past time for a little realignment in Bermudian politics, or maybe a seismic power shift. But first, in order to achieve that, the dirty little secret that governments prefer you don't know must be revealed:

MPs work for you. Each of our 36 MPs has about 1,000 bosses and all of us have an employee. An elected official is your worker, hired on a five-year contract, extendable at your discretion, to tend to your needs. Yes, I know, it seems strange doesn't it?

We seem to have moved away from that concept, you know that quaint and outdated idea that candidates, both incumbent and aspiring, have to hit the pavement, work for your vote and service the constituency between elections.

Somewhere along the line some of our employees, our MPs, have come to see themselves as figureheads who can defer their responsibilities to someone else, a whole government department in this case.

For too many of our politicians there is an attitude that once they are elected their work is done and we the electorate suddenly exist to serve them. The Community Areas Programme will become a buffer between an MP and their constituents, a repository for voter concerns, and the election time excuse of every under-performing MP.

It's a step backwards, not progress, and reveals an attitude that once elected, politicians are above doing the things that got them elected. That attitude is all wrong.