The View from Ward Three

Pineview Terrace Funding - Why Not Look at All the Options?

2012-01-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

The issue of how to fund the city's share of the Pineview Terrace construction costs was raised at last week's executive meeting. Administration brought us a number of options - a levy based on the assessed value of the property (as we're doing for the soccer centre), a levy on residential users only, or another flat tax across the tax base (either residential or one including commercial properties). All would be new hits on the tax payer.

Most members of council seemed to think that the flat tax option would be best. I don't like flat taxes. Because they aren't proportional, they are a heavier burden on low and fixed income earners, many of whom live in my ward. Council appears to recognize that flat taxes are inequitable when it comes to commercial properties, because even the current flat tax is graduated for commercial properties, based on value, but there doesn't seem to be the same recognition for residents.

It appears that we're likely to go with a flat tax of $27 for the next three years for residential properties, plus a graduated rate for commercial. Not much, on the surface, you might think. However, this is a city where some residents felt that a $20 annual licence fee for cats, brought in a year ago, was too much, and I've already had a senior from my ward call to express her concerns about the $27.

I proposed that, instead of dipping our hands once again into the tax payers' pockets, we instead divert some of the money that we're already collecting - a portion of the $60 flat tax that was imposed last year, and supposed to be reserved specifically for infrastructure projects. Although there was some pious talk about not using this money because it's supposed to be saved for infrastructure, it hasn't been. More than $1 million was collected through the flat tax last year - only $600,000 remains, because the remainder was used to balance the city's budget over the last year, not set aside. We could do this for three years, as proposed for the flat tax, and still put more than half of the flat tax revenue aside for other infrastructure reasons.

So why not specify that a portion of the current flat tax be set aside specifically to meet our Pineview Terrace obligation? While not solely a city responsibility, it is being built to meet the needs of the community. As is often the case, I didn't get a clear answer.

I'm afraid that, once again, we're going to go for the simplest, easiest answer. Need more money? The easiest way is just to slap on another tax. If we can keep it off the books as part of the official tax increase, all the better, especially in an election year. But all of these incremental costs, whether it be levies, flat taxes, or increased sanitation charges, add up.

Figuring out how to do things better and more fairly would require some innovative thinking. Not enough members of council seem prepared to take the time or make the effort to do that. And, as usual, the tax payer ends up paying.

"The path of least resistance is what makes rivers run crooked." - Elbert Hubbard

Looking Back, Looking Forward

2012-01-08T12:03:00.000-08:00

The end of one year and the start of the next is a time of reflection for most people. Part of it is the changing of the date that is a definitive indication of the passing of time; part of it may be that the quiet time between Christmas and New Year's provides more time for thinking.

Looking back, on the personal side, the past year was more challenging than most for me, with the passing of my mother, and dealing with Andrea's health issues. As is usually the case, these difficult times were made a lot easier by the support and kindness shown by friends. I really don't know how we would have gotten through these events without that support, and I'm truly grateful to have such a network that we can rely on.

Working as part of council also had its share of challenges this past year, as always. A highlight was the relatively early financial information that we were given by adminstration, although I don't think that we spent enough time discussing and using that information to provide direction to administration on budget development. In fact, I'm looking forward to the budget discussions this month to find out how they made the leap from needing a minimum increase of 5.5% just to maintain current levels of activity, to a budget that only requires a 3.9% increase - and that change came barely a month after we got the initial information.

On the positive side, I'm looking forward to the implementation of the landfill pass system, so that we can get an accurate idea of how much providing "free" access to residents actually costs. Since council originally approved taking this action in the fall of 2010, but administration did not follow this direction in 2011, this has been a change somewhat overdue.

2012 will be an election year. Election years are always interesting, although at least we won't be trying the 0% tax increase that was passed three years ago - I think that most members of council have realized that costs deferred merely become increased costs, and nobody benefits. This is the time to start asking your councillor the tough questions about how they have voted in the past, whether they would vote differently now, and how they stand on some of the ideas that are being noised about for the future, such as a new arena or an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

This is also the time that those who think that they would like to try a run for council should take a test run. Review the budget, come to the public meeting, think of where you would make cuts or propose different ways of doing things. Read over council agendas, come to some meetings to see how things work. Read up on parliamentary procedures (something that I wish some current members of council would do), so that you know what you should and shouldn't do when it's your turn to chair part of the meeting. As I'm sure every member of council would tell you, it's a lot harder than it looks from the outside.

And this time, the council that is elected will be in place for four years, rather than three. That's an extra year for council to try to work to improve all facets of the city, and achieve various goals. Let's hope that the council that is next elected sets as one of its goals becoming more fiscally open and responsible.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

My Reasons for Blogging

2011-12-18T15:25:00.001-08:00

Next month will mark my fourth anniversary of blogging. Four years is not a terribly long time, except in the blogosphere. I read somewhere that the average blogger only lasts about three entries, so my 150+ over the last four years isn't too shabby.

This past year, I was approached by both of the local electronic media sites, PA Today and PANow, asking for permission to put access to the blog on their web-sites. PA Today has put in a direct link to the blog; PANow uploads each blog entry to their site, rather than linking. In both cases I agreed, because one of the main reasons why I started blogging was to improve communication about what goes on at city council, from my perspective. The more people that have this available as one of their reading options, the better.

My very first blog entry in January 2008 was titled "Why Blog - Why Now?", which set out my reasons for making this effort. Since there are some newer readers who may not have gone back into the archives, I thought that I'd repeat some of that now, as well as some of the things that I've learned about participating in this particular form of communication.

As I said, my main reason for starting this blog was to improve communication about what goes on at city council. The local media does what it can, but a typical council agenda is hundreds of pages long, and reporters can only fit so much into a few columns of type or a sound bite. Not everyone can watch council meetings on cable, particularly now that meetings start at 5 p.m., when most people are getting home from work or starting supper. I figure that voters deserve to get as much information as they can about the issues that affect them directly.

Now, obviously, I'm not going to go through each agenda item and the resulting discussion verbatim, (it's bad enough to have to live through some of these meetings) but I thought that it might be worthwhile to highlight a topic or two, and present my viewpoint on it, particularly when my viewpoint differs from the majority. And since I'm often seen to be voting against the majority, I think that it's useful to explain to people why I vote the way that I do, to give them a better understanding of the various perspectives on issues. Council is made up of nine individuals, and it's ludicrous to think that we all share the same opinions or values on any issue.

I don't claim to have the only "correct" viewpoint - what goes in this space are my opinions, my viewpoints, and my values. When you vote for someone for city council, you can't expect to agree with that individual on every vote, but I think that you should be able to expect an explanation for why they voted the way that they did.

The blog has turned out to be a good conversation starter - people often come up to me with a comment on something that I've written. Sometimes I've brought something up that has struck a chord with the public. When I wrote that one place we could save costs was to stop providing a meal to councillors and city staff at council meetings, I was surprised to find out that many people didn't realize that this was happening, and they were offended by the idea that they were footing the bill. The result - we no longer get fed at most meetings, which is good. Unfortunately, the same entry suggested that we stop producing custom-made Christmas cards for members of council - that still goes on, although I still don't take these cards when offered.

I think that the blog has also provided a way for people who have never met me in person, to get to know me a little better. Personal stuff does get in here - I sometimes think that it's these personal details about people that help you to realize that we have more in common than might originally be thought.

The main disadvantage to being part of the new electronic media, in my opinion, is the way commenters sometimes take advantage of their anonymity to post comments that are much ruder than they would be to your face, or in public, I hope. People are also free to post things that aren't true, or they may use the opportunity to raise past grudges that have nothing to do with the topic presented. On my own blog, I have some control; on the other sites, less so. I will say that some commenters do try to raise the bar, providing thoughtful debate, but sadly, these are in the minority.

Still, the advantage of providing people with additional information outweighs the minor inconvenience of being a target for somewhat unimaginative name-calling or inaccurate revisionist history. I see part of my responsibility of being on city council as keeping the lines of communication open. Having the blog is just one of many ways of keeping in touch. Agree or disagree, read or ignore - that part is up to you.

I understand that PANow has offered to all members of council the opportunity to provide a column of their views and opinions. I'll be interested to see how many take advantage of this - it would be good to hear the rationale behind some of the decisions of my colleagues. And it's an election year - a good time to put ideas and opinions out for public consumption.

"There's more than one way to look at a problem, and they all may be right." - Norman Schwarzkopf

Are Our Facilities Making Us House-Poor?

2011-12-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

As a city, we've invested in some pretty nice facilities. And we continue to do so, at continually increasing costs.

Our rationale goes something like this - these facilities make Prince Albert a better, more attractive place to live, and thus help attract new residents. New residents equals population growth, which should mean an increased tax base, which should mean that we have more revenue to help pay for these facilities.

There's another line of reasoning that says that we need to have these facilities so that our children will have a place to play a sport, or perform, or learn a craft - you probably remember the refrain of "It's for the children" that was repeatedly chorused during the fund-raising for the Rawlinson Centre, and I certainly remember the horde of youthful soccer players that came to a City Council meeting to bolster the case for our investment in a new indoor soccer facility.

And there are others who will promote the development of new facilities with the idea that such facilities will pay for their own upkeep, because the demand to use such wonderful buildings will be such that the tax-payer won't have to pay anything for keeping the doors open.

I agree that having such facilities is one of the things that makes Prince Albert a good place to live. I agree that the city has to subsidize these facilities to a certain level, to ensure that they remain accessible to all residents. I'm sure that everyone has their own favourite facility which they would favour over others, if cuts were being proposed. A golfer would likely argue for funding to improve the golf course; a voracious reader might protest reduced hours at the library; a pottery person would want continued access to the kilns at the Arts Centre.

None of these individuals is right or wrong - each of these city facilities supports certain valid interests, as do the Art Hauser Centre, the soccer centre, the Rawlinson Centre, the Frank Dunn swimming pool, Little Red River park, and the Rotary Trail. Some city facilities are more accessible to a wider range of the population - all you need is proof of address to get a library card, and you don't need any special equipment to walk along the Rotary Trail. Others are pricier - an evening at the Rawlinson can cost more than $100 for a pair of tickets, and a golf membership is a major financial outlay.

Having such a wealth of facilities has proven to be costly for the city. The Rawlinson Centre, which was promoted as "not going to cost the taxpayer a cent", has actually taken a larger and larger chunk of the budget every year since it was built, and its costs have increased at a rate much higher than inflation. The Art Hauser Centre, although it's been around longer, also requires more and more money each year.

In a sense, we're house-poor when it comes to these facilities. We've underestimated the costs of running, maintaining and repairing them, and the result has been that other, more basic city services, such as road maintenance, have been falling further and further behind. These basic services affect all residents, and are a big factor when assessing the attractiveness of a community.

I think that City Council needs to follow a few standard principles when we're dealing with these facilities. We need to have complete financial reports submitted before we approve a budget item for any facility - we shouldn't bend (or ignore) the rules for anyone. We need to be able to see that the facility is being run as economically as possible, and that basic rules around expenditures are being followed. User fees should be set at levels that reflect the service being provided, and there should also be a fee differentiation between city and non-city residents, because the city resident is already paying for the facility through their taxes.

And the next time that someone comes to us with an idea for a new facility, let's ask a few tough questions before jumping on board. For instance, is the facility a need or a want? Is it just a Cadillac version of what is already available? The Rawlinson Centre is a great facility, but the fact is that it wasn't needed - dance recitals and play performances were going on in other buildings not owned by the city. In fact, the cost of rental has put it out of reach for local theatre groups, who still use school gyms for their performances. Granted, there are more entertainment options available now, but these are not necessities, and the building is dark more evenings than not, so its operational costs aren't being covered. Another question that should be asked - will this facility be accessible to a wide range of residents, or will the cost of getting in make it only available to a fraction of our citizens? We shouldn't be in the business of subsidizing the recreational options of those who can afford to cover the costs themselves.

Like any home buyer, we have to look at the full costs of ownership before we buy what may be more house than we can afford. We make decisions that affect all city residents, and it's not fair to them to keep going back for more and more money, just because we decided that we deserved to have the best of everything, right now.

"A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful, but when taken to excess it is nearly always bad for the health." - Clarence Day

Some Thoughts on a New Pineview Terrace

2011-12-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

I attended the meeting on Wednesday evening with the Health Board, and heard the updated financial requirements for a new Pineview Terrace. Not surprisingly, the projected construction costs have increased over the last year, and the Health Board is now proposing that the city's share will be $3 million.

When the new facility was discussed last year, the city's share, not counting the $1.3 million that's supposed to come from the Holy Family Trust Fund, was going to be $1 million, and that's what we committed to. Unfortunately, we didn't put it in our budget, so there is no money set aside at this point.

I suggested last year that we add a specific levy for this purpose to tax bills. Money raised could be kept in reserve until needed. After all, we've had a levy for the soccer centre for the last three years, and that levy will be appearing on your tax bill for the next several years, until 2015, I believe. I think that most taxpayers understand the need (as opposed to a want), of having adequate care facilities for seniors who can no longer live in their own homes. And, as with most things, the sooner that you start saving, the lower the individual payment amounts will be. It's like starting to save for retirement in your twenties rather than in your fifties - it's going to be a much less painful process to come up with the same amount of money.

However, others on council believed that the project wouldn't go ahead quickly, and we wouldn't need to come up with the money until some time in the future. However, the Health Board wants to go ahead now, knowing that costs will only increase in the future, and the need exists now.

I think that the city should commit to a number, and go about the process of raising that money, whether through a levy, or by dedicating the flat tax that was introduced last year to this purpose. There's currently $600,000 from the flat tax that has been set aside for unspecified infrastructure needs - I think that this would qualify as an infrastructure need. If we added that $600,000 to the $1.3 million in the Holy Family Trust Fund, we would only need to find another $1 million. Once we've made and met that commitment, I don't think that it would be fair for the Health Board to keep coming back with higher and higher numbers.

Good facilities for those who can no longer live on their own are essential in every community. At some point, most families face the difficult decision of finding a good home for their parents or grandparents, and City Council needs to remember that these facilities, and their residents, are as much a part of an attractive, healthy community as are athletic and entertainment facilities and their user groups. The difference is that having a good residential facility is a need, not a want, and one needed by those who have already made a lifetime of contributions to a community.

"We put more effort into helping folks reach old age than into helping them enjoy it." - Frank Howard Clark

Free Access to the Landfill - Is There a Better Option?

2011-11-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

For several years, we have had a policy of having a week when residents can take stuff to the landfill for free. This week was in the spring, and the free access was intended to encourage residents to clean up their yards of the material that tends to build up over the winter.

Five years ago, it was decided to provide this free access during five weeks of the year, rather than one. And it started to be sold as a favour that we were giving residents, saving them money. What was never mentioned was that this meant that revenues from the landfill would be reduced. We don't know by how much - foregone revenue was never tracked, but considering the line-ups that could be expected during those weeks, it was probably considerable.

And, for the first three years of this free service, there was no restriction on who could access the landfill, so non-residents were able to use a city-operated facility for free. For the last two years you were supposed to produce a driver's licence to prove residency, but I have my doubts, based on anecdotal evidence, on how strictly that requirement is enforced.

I have certainly taken advantage of the free access, and had the opportunity to wait in line many times. So I thought, what if we provided the free access, but on a basis that might be more convenient for residents, as well as limiting the free access to those who are already paying for the landfill through city sanitation charges? My thought was that, if we provided a number of passes to city residents, then they could use the pass when they needed it - perhaps if a summer windstorm blew down branches in your yard, after you've built a new fence, or in the fall when you're cleaning out your garden. That way, we would avoid the congestion that occurs during the designated weeks, limit the number of times that free access could be taken advantage of (because right now, there's no limit on the number of times that you can drop things off during the free weeks), and ensure that only city residents could take advantage of the opportunity.

With a pass system, we would know exactly how much this opportunity is used by residents, and figure out what it actually costs the city in lost revenue. We could even colour code the passes according to each ward, so we could see in which areas the access is under-utilized, where perhaps a different incentive for yard clean-up would have to be developed.

When I first suggested a pass system a few years ago, city administration was full of reasons why this wouldn't work, and how much it would cost to put such a system into place. I'm not sure why it would cost an arm and a leg to put free passes in with the water bills, since free advertising for the Raiders had been done that way, but this was what we were told.

However, last year, council voted to try out this new system. Imagine our surprise when this spring, free landfill weeks were announced once again, contrary to council's decision. When I asked why, I was given the rather questionable excuse that "they hadn't had time". So the subject came up again at last week's Executive Committee meeting, and is again being discussed.

Of course, any time you provide a free service, it's not really free. In the case of free access, we're reducing the revenue that we get from landfill fees. The hoped-for benefit to the city is the improved appearance of residential areas, encouraged by providing this free access. It's also encouraging residents to do work that otherwise will be done by city staff, when we have to send out extra trucks to pick up the debris in back alleys that is left because it's too big for the bins or dumpsters.

Obviously, I would like to give the pass system a try. I think that it will result in increased revenues from the landfill, since there would no longer be unlimited access during five weeks of the year, and non-residents would no longer be able to take advantage of a loosely enforced check system. And I think that the flexibility for residents of being able to use their pass when it works for them, would be appreciated.

It's unfortunate that we don't know what the level of use has been during the free weeks - then we could make a good comparison on foregone revenues. But I think that we do need to track the usage better, and I think that using a pass system will do that.

" There's no such thing as a free lunch." - Milton Friedman

Budget Talks Before the Budget - What a Great Idea

2011-11-20T12:54:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, council members spent the afternoon with city staff for some early talks about the budget. This is the first time in several years that we've talked about what some city services actually cost, and it was good to see more detailed numbers than we've had in the past. I appreciate the effort that staff put into developing this year's budget binders - it's good to have the additional information, and I know that some of the details were eye-opening for some of the newer members of council.

Having this information available led to the most open budget discussion that I can recall with the current council, and as I've said in the past, the more ideas that are put on the table, the better direction we are able to give city staff, and the better decisions we'll be able to make.

For some services, we were given costs going back a few years, for others, it was just last year's cost, with the projected cost for this year. Having costs going back a few years shows, for example, that our spending on floral decorations has more than doubled, to $38,000, over the last five years. If that kind of detail had been available for last year's budget talks, perhaps we could have identified that we would rather have put the money towards another, less optional, service.

Interestingly, costs for some of the more basic services, such as paving, haven't increased over the past few years. The result is that the gap between what needs to be done and what is actually done is increasing - and roads don't improve with age. This is what has put us into an infrastructure deficit.

And despite all the new construction, both residential and commercial, that has been happening, it was surprising to find out that our tax revenues haven't increased, because assessment decisions have been reversed through appeals processes.

City staff have projected that to maintain the current level of services, a tax increase of 5.5% would be required. This increase takes into account projected increases in staff costs, but doesn't include likely increases for capital and other expenses, such as fuel and utility costs. And as we all know, those costs go up, not down. And remember, the current level of some services is not enough to keep up with the work that should be done; it's just putting us further behind in keeping things functional. I'm sure we all remember what an unpleasant surprise resulted from deferring bridge maintenance work.

I was glad to hear from staff that they have been considering other ways of funding city operations besides tax revenues, such as looking at increasing costs to those who actually use the facilities. For example, those who use the soccer centre should have to pay for maintaining its parking lot. This is a good direction to go in, and I would go further, such as requiring that non-city residents pay higher user fees.

I think that we should also look at the total cost of running city buildings. Did you know that the only city building that pays for its water use is the library? Other buildings - City Hall, the Rawlinson Centre, the golf course, the soccer centre - don't even have water meters. This means that you, as a city resident, subsidize the water used in these buildings. Wouldn't it be a more fair approach if those who use those buildings had to pay for their share of the water? It also might lead to better water conservation initiatives. Perhaps the new water meters that we've decided to pay $86,000 for could be put into existing city buildings, so we can start to get a handle on the real costs.

As I said, this was the most open and informative budget-related meeting that we've had in several years. It revealed some problems, certainly, but only by getting a fuller picture of the actual situation can we develop solutions to these problems.

The meeting was also open to the media, which was a positive thing. I would have taken it further, and made it open to the public, since budget discussions affect the public most directly. It also would have been better if we had been given details on some significant areas of spending - we were given no details on police, fire, sanitation or water costs.

But it was certainly an improvement, and for those members of council who spent the whole afternoon there, it was well worth the time.

"A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it." - William Feather

Communication - It Needs to be a Two-Way Street

2011-11-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

One of the topics brought forward at last week's Executive Committee meeting was a request to approve in principle a new communication strategy. I'm not sure where the impetus for this came from - the need for a new strategy has not been discussed or requested by council. Two of the proposed elements particularly caught my eye - the professed need for a new city logo, and the suggestion that we purchase a flat screen TV, to be mounted outside the city clerk's office, where various updates could be shown.

I find that somewhat ironic - I've often described this council's approach to budgeting as being similar to someone who buys a flat screen TV before fixing the holes in the roof, and now city administration is proposing that we do exactly that.

Now. don't get me wrong - I think that more communication from city council is a good thing. That's one of the reasons that I started this blog - to let city residents, particularly those in Ward Three, know my thoughts on various decisions and dilemmas facing the city. But a lot of what I communicate about is based on questions and comments that I've heard from residents, what is important to them.

That's the essence of communication - it's the act of conveying meaningful information. It requires both a sender and a recipient, and there should be some effort made by the sender to provide information that the recipient wants. I find that what is considered communication by some members of council is more like advertising, which is a form of communication, true, but a form that is used to persuade an audience - in other words, we tend to tell you what we want you to hear, but we may avoid telling you what you're actually interested in. It's like the flyers that come with the newspaper - those that we look at are those for stores we actually shop in, the rest go directly to recycling.

I haven't heard anyone ask for a new city logo. I haven't heard anyone say that they're interested in going up to the second floor of City Hall to look at a new flat screen TV (bought with their tax dollars) to see the latest council meeting schedule.

What I have heard repeatedly are questions like where are the Rawlinson Centre financial reports, or what are the actual operating costs for the soccer centre, or what are the options and costs for repairing the bridge, or what can be done about all the needles on the streets.

Instead of answering these questions, we seem to think that if we only tell people how wonderful Prince Albert is, they won't care about the ongoing problems that are a part of living in any city. If we tell people often enough that Prince Albert is beautiful, maybe they'll ignore unpaved streets, lead water service connections, or boarded up buildings.

Most people aren't stupid. They know that Prince Albert, while a good place to live, is not Utopia. The people that I talk to would rather have the whole picture, including the problems, and then they would really like to hear what our plans are for solving the problems. They know that money is tight, and the vast majority of them would prefer that we spend their tax dollars solving the real problems, rather on new signs, or banners, or weekly infomercials on the local radio station, where the same artificial sunshine is pumped out over and over.

I say let's start improving our communication by answering the questions that are being asked.

"Any problem, big or small...always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening." - Emma Thompson

Remote Water Meters - Our Latest New Thing

2011-10-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

At the Council meeting this week, council voted that the city purchase 250 new water meters, at a cost of $86,000. This was done, despite this cost being $20,000 more than was in the budget, and despite there being several unanswered questions as to the need for this purchase at this time.

These meters will be able to be read remotely, from a vehicle passing by, and thus the reasoning given was that labour costs will be reduced.

So now, the city will have three types of water meters. There's the old-fashioned kind, where the reading has to be made at the meter, written down, and submitted. There's a newer kind, which has the option of being read manually, but it can also be wired to the outside of the house to a pin pad, and thus be read by touching the reading device to the pin, so that access to the inside of the house or business is not required. Less than 50% of the meters currently in the city have this capability. And now there's this newest acquisition.

Now, it doesn't take any stretch of logical thought to figure out that 250 meters isn't very many in a city of this size. Upon being questioned, city administration admitted that these meters will be used in new houses. In other words, we're buying these meters to sit on the shelf for a while.

To me, if the reason was really that we want to reduce labour costs, then we should look at what we currently have, and see if there's a way of reducing the costs of reading those meters. For example, was any thought given to wiring all of the second type of meter so that it could be read from outside the house? I'm thinking that you could hire a summer student to do this for a lot less than $86,000, and the result would be that way more than 250 water meters could then be read more easily. Not as exciting as being read remotely, but remember, those meters aren't going to be read for awhile anyway, and I can't believe that the eventual savings from reading 250 meters will be noticeable at budget time.

I'm also surprised that more of the details of our metering system aren't readily available. For example, when I asked how many residences or businesses had the second type of meter, the best that administration could give me was the "less than 50%" number. I find it hard to believe that we set out to solve problems without having as much information as possible available.

I'm also disappointed, once again, in other members of council who seem to feel that if administration proposes something, then we need to agree to it, without asking questions. Unfortunately, administration hasn't been elected to represent the needs of the residents of the city, members of council have. For instance, I've asked why it isn't possible for water billing to be done monthly, as is done for other utilities, as many residents have mentioned that this would make their financial lives easier. The response is usually a vague questioning look, without a good response.

Council needs to collectively give itself a shake, remember why we're there (and no, acting as an automatic rubber stamp was nowhere in our oath of office), and start asking the tough questions, especially before approving expenditures that aren't necessary, and are outside the approved budget.

"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has ... been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice." - Albert Einstein

Communication (or Lack of Same)

2011-10-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

Once again, I've had to neglect the blog for personal reasons. Andrea had to have major surgery in Saskatoon in September, which has disrupted our lives somewhat, and kept me busier than usual. She's home now, and starting to feel more like herself, although she still has a ways to go.

In the meantime, certainly the status of the bridge is the question that I'm still asked most often. There's no question that the slowing of traffic, and the weight limits, have caused problems both for city residents and those just trying to get through.

And of course, it's renewed discussion about the need for a second bridge. It's unfortunate that, throughout this whole process, going back to the initial report more than three years ago, most of us on council are still being kept in the dark on the details of the situation. I don't understand why those who receive the information feel that it should be released in dribs and drabs, and often to the general public before council.

That original report, of course, had been shared with RM councils well before we got to have a look at it, and that was only after making repeated requests. Just think of where we might have been in the construction of a new bridge if it had been brought to council for discussion and endorsement when it was first released. We might actually be on the priority list for the province, rather than now working just to quantify why we should be on the list.

And then came the fortunate observance by a canoeist who alerted both the city and the province to the state of the current bridge. Again, aside from being invited to a press conference on August 30, we weren't kept informed.

For example, there was a meeting with Highways set for September 22. At the council meeting that week, we weren't even informed that this meeting would be happening. One councillor heard the mayor talking about it on the radio the day after the council meeting, and asked when and where it was, since that councillor thought it would be worth attending. The response was that only the mayor and the city manager were invited to the meeting. Then, when it was found out that RM councillors would be attending, we were then told (the day before the meeting) that we could attend. So I attended, as did two other councillors, where Highways officials told us of the rationale that would be needed to justify a second bridge. Big secret, right? And while this is important in the context of the second bridge discussions, it didn't provide any further clarification on what could be done to alleviate the current situation.

When I raised the issue of not being kept informed, one councillor commented that he felt quite informed, since he had heard stuff on the radio. I'm sorry, but I think that members of council should not have to rely on the media to know what's going on at City Hall - that is, if we're trying to make decisions based on the best possible information, not on a twenty second sound bite.

Council has also delegated the authority for decision-making on the bridge repairs to the city manager, saying that in such an emergency situation, decisions shouldn't be slowed by the democratic process. I don't agree with this. While the situation is serious, so far there has been no indication that waiting the 24 hours required to call a council meeting to ratify a decision would have slowed anything down. I find it somewhat ironic that members of council who love to micromanage such things as banner design, street naming and where city crews should be working are quite happy to hand over million dollar decisions to someone who hasn't been elected. Of course, this isn't the first time that we've delegated such authority - we did it for the construction of the field house a couple of years ago.

In any case, when concerns were voiced about this delegation, the city manager promised weekly updates, which have been happening. The second week of October we were sent a copy of the Emergency Repair Agreement with Highways, which limits the province's share of costs to $1 million (although there is the possibility of revisiting this number once detailed cost estimates are available), as well as a report on the work that needs to be done to repair the crack in the girder. This past Friday we received another update on the work.

I appreciate these regular updates, but so far, we haven't been informed of what the costs are likely to be. I'd be happy with a ballpark figure for now, but aside from the two reports and the contract, that's all that I've been given.

Again, if communications were more open and transparent, we could make better decisions, councillors would feel less frustration and we'd be able to respond better to questions from the public. After all, whether it's money coming from the city or the province, we're just taking it from different pockets on the same pair of pants.

"What we've got here is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke

The Bridge Debacle

2011-09-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness for sharp-eyed canoeists. If a local resident hadn't been canoeing under the Diefenbaker Bridge last weekend, and looked up to see a crack in the girder, who knows when it might have been discovered. The bridge is not inspected annually, and I understand that Highways and Infrastructure is behind in their schedule of bridge inspections. Since the bridge is within city limits, it is likely to be considered a city responsibility, even though many of its users, especially on a long weekend like this one, aren't city residents.

Predictably, the most common cry that has come out is the need for a second bridge. While I'm not denying that need, we also need to take care of the current bridge, otherwise the same scenario will play out again, even after a second bridge is built.

Six or seven years ago, when the bridge was resurfaced, it was identified that the steel structure under the bridge needed to be maintained regularly. The recommendation was that the supporting structure should be sandblasted, inspected, and painted, with an estimated price tag of $2 million. Part of the reason for the high cost is that tarps would have to be put up underneath the bridge, to prevent materials from falling into the river.

This work hasn't been done. It's been identified in city budgets, but both the last council, and the current council, have deferred this work. Other bridges in the city, such as the Central Avenue and Sixth Avenue viaducts, also require maintenance work that has been postponed. When we put our priorities on other projects, both large and small (and I'll leave you to pick out your favourite example of non-essential spending by city council), it shouldn't be a surprise when basic structures start to show serious signs of damage.

We also could have sustained the city's fiscal stabilization fund, which would be able to provide the money to take care of this sort of emergency action. Six years ago there was $2 million in this fund; it has since been depleted for various projects, although this year's budget, for the first time in five years, put $200,000 back. Not much, when we start talking about unscheduled bridge repairs.

However, this has definitely put the bridge report back on to council's radar. Completed in 2008, it was reviewed at that time by the mayor and one councillor, one city staff member, and RM councils, as well as the Ministry of Highways. No report was made to council at that time. Apparently, the original report just showed a bridge outside city limits; the report was then modified to show an option of having a bridge inside the city.

In 2010, a public meeting was held at City Hall, at which the route options were presented. The report itself didn't come to council until this year, when I made a motion in January to bring the report to council for discussion. I thought that, with the twinning of Highway 11, as well as various discussions about annexation of lands south of the city, we should endorse a route option, and we could then consider this route option as part of a coordinated planning approach. When the report was brought forward, it was set aside as a topic for a strategic planning meeting of council, but no bridge discussions have happened yet.

But effectively closing half the bridge has apparently proved to be the incentive to starting serious discussions with Highways about a new bridge. I was rather amused to read in the media that the city now supports a bridge outside city limits (although it's never been discussed at council), which means that the province will pick up the tab. To me that's been the sensible option all along, and we could have made that decision three years ago, when the report was first issued, instead of not talking about it at all.

And perhaps this demonstration of why it's important to spend money preventatively will help in future budget discussions. I know that there aren't nearly the photo ops attached with doing regular maintenance as with opening new facilities, but just as with your car, regular maintenance can save money, and structures, in the long run. Not to mention insanely long line-ups on a long weekend.

"For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail." - old nursery rhyme, supposedly based on Richard III's loss in Bosworth Field)

Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

2011-08-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

As has become the pattern for the last few years, summer time is an extremely quiet time for Prince Albert City Council. Only two scheduled council meetings, and two executive meetings, one in July, one in August, although there was a special council meeting last Monday, for no apparently urgent reason.

While the reason for this slowdown has never been discussed (neither has the meeting schedule, which is set in December for the following year), I'm sure it's because some people like having the summer off. Doesn't work for me, particularly, since we prefer to take holidays in the fall, but for those who own cottages, I suppose that it makes sense.

However, if you look about, other city councils use this time to actually plan for the future. Yes, they hold scheduled, public meetings, that aren't regular council meetings, but are used to discuss how their upcoming budgets should be developed.

You may have noticed that Saskatoon City Council has had several meetings over the summer, reviewing in detail how they spend their money, and where current spending could be trimmed. They've talked about everything from reducing the number of times that garbage has been picked up, to how much they spend on putting up Christmas decorations.

Of course, to do this, they have to have a detailed city budget. Rather than dismissing this as more detail than they want to be bothered with (something some of my fellow councillors have professed), they see having the details as being an invaluable tool in decision-making. While so far they have found little to trim, they are looking, and the public can see, and comment, on some of the potential cuts. And they're doing it far in advance of the actual budget development, so that administration can take direction from their decisions.

That seems to me to be far preferable to being handed a document without much detail, then spending a single day going through said document without time for discussion or comment. In our city's budget process, it's more of an all or nothing decision - either we approve the entire budget, or we vote against it - we have neither the time, nor the detail, to make detailed decisions.

When I was in Ontario in July, the same sort of thing was going on in Toronto's City Hall. While I don't agree with much of what Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says, I do have to give him a great deal of credit for looking to make drastic spending cuts before raising taxes, and for making decisions in the open, even having one meeting where members of the public could make presentations. So many people wanted to speak that the meeting went on until the early hours of the morning. Now there's a council that takes being open and accountable seriously.

That's what I don't get about how this council operates - we don't seem to be willing to spend the time reviewing how we do things, or thinking about whether we're spending money wisely, or looking at ways of spending less, whether through reducing services or just working smarter. Being on council shouldn't be about cutting ribbons, or making speeches at various public functions - it should be about thinking about what we want for our city, having open and civil discussions about all the options, and then putting the structures in place to allow the future that we want to happen. When we don't do that, when we leave the detailed discussion up to administration, we're not doing our jobs, and we're leaving the future of the city to people who haven't been elected to do that job.

"If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else." - Yogi Berra

What Happens When Council Says No

2011-08-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

First, an explanation for my absence from this blog for the past few weeks. In June, my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The prognosis wasn't good, and in early July, we were told that she had only four to six weeks left. I left for southwestern Ontario after the July council meeting, and was able to spend a bit of time with her before she slipped into a coma, and then, a few days later, passed away, several weeks earlier than predicted. Not an easy time for any of us, and I appreciate the many calls and cards of support and condolence that I've received.

I returned in time for last week's council meeting, at which council said no to administration's proposed increase to water rates - a proposed increase that would be on top of the seven-year compounding increase that was put onto residential water users only a few years ago, which was supposed to take care of funding water-related infrastructure. We weren't provided with any explanation from administration as to why the current increases aren't enough, only that the tax payer is expected to pay, once again.

And according to an article in Friday's Daily Herald, some staff just aren't sure how they should proceed at this point, although they do seem to have grasped the concept that perhaps cutting expenditures is a good place to start. Unfortunately, it appears that they can only think of cutting essentials, and they haven't stepped outside their usual box to see if there are other places that revenues could be realized.

There is the potential for something positive to come out of this, of course. If administration realizes that this sort of thinking should happen before the budget is prepared, not halfway through the year, perhaps the next budget process will be better. If they realize that starting from status quo, and just adding whatever increases are needed or wanted, is the lazy way of budgeting, rather than examining how we spend tax payers' money at every step of the process, that would certainly be an improvement. And perhaps they'll put a little more effort into providing a budget with details that members of council can actually examine, and decide what are unnecessary frills (say, putting in a sprinkler system at the soccer centre that wasn't part of the budget), so that the money is there when needed to, as was quoted, "replace the shingles on the roof", because the money hasn't been frittered away on a metaphorical big screen TV.

And I'll even give them some places that they could start to find money in the existing budget, and a couple of places that they could go besides tax payers' pockets to find more money, just to help kick-start their thinking.

Let's start with unnecessary expenditures - let's cut the $35,000 that goes to floral decorations. Personally, I don't think that those pots of petunias in Memorial Square are particularly aesthetic, nor do I think that they attract anyone downtown. In fact, the downtown merchants who have chosen to have flowers outside their businesses are going about it the right way - those arrangements fit better with the environment, are well-maintained, and don't cost the tax payer a cent. The beds at City Hall? How about asking the Horticultural Society to take them on, and provide them with access to water connections? In Andrea's home town of North Bay, that's exactly how the city handles the extensive flower beds along the waterfront that was reclaimed from old rail yards over the last twenty-five years. Andrea's mother used to be one of the volunteer gardeners, who were divided into small groups of six, each group responsible for a bed. And the truly neat thing about using these gardeners was that they populated the flower beds with cuttings and transplants from their own gardens, so there was very little outlay required for plants. I'm sure that you can still see Andrea's mother's rudbeckia blooming away every summer.

Other unnecessary costs? Let's see if the mayor and city manager can get by with sharing one administrative assistant, as previous mayors and city managers did, rather than each of them having two. Let's have a serious look at city staffing, and before any vacant position is filled, make sure that the work can't be handled by someone already there.

Let's look at better coordinating the work that is done, so that we no longer have roads dug up, then filled in because the pipes that were supposed to be put in weren't available. That's just poor planning, and there's really no excuse for that kind of sloppiness.

Let's eliminate Christmas cards for council members, and get rid of the idea that there should be a stash of gifts in the mayor's office for him to hand out to visitors. These sorts of frills can't be justified in any way. Let's stop having bottled water available for staff - city drinking water is safe, and if staff want bottled water, let them buy it themselves.

There's a few ideas for cost-cutting - what about bringing in more revenues from new sources? Well, that compounding increase from a few years back was only put on residential users. How about we apply that increase to commercial users? Not only am I pretty sure that a car wash uses more water than a fixed income senior trying to stay in their own home, I'm also sure that the car wash can pass on any increased cost to their customers.

And what about city facilities that get to use water freely, like the golf course or soccer centre. How about we figure out what their share of the cost is for maintaining the water infrastructure, and start charging the users of those facilities the true cost of having green grass.

And proposed improvements like paving the Art Hauser parking lot? How about putting a small surcharge on each ticket, putting that surcharge into an improvements fund, and then using that fund for such projects. To me it makes more sense to make the users of facilities pay for their improvements, rather than all tax payers.

So, there's a few ideas for administration to look at. I hope that whatever report we get from them shows that they're trying to look at things differently. Unfortunately, I fear that what will happen is that we will get the same thing back, similar to what happened when we asked for improvements to the budget. But a new vote will be called for, and a few of the more flexible members of council will have changed their minds, and their votes. And once again, the tax payer will be footing the bill for the collective laziness at City Hall.

"Thrift comes too late when you find it at the bottom of your purse." - Seneca

A Few Questions About the Proposed New Water Rates

2011-07-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing this council and its immediate predecessor know how to do, it's raising your water rates. It seems to be an almost annual exercise - four times in the last five years. The last time was about a year ago, maybe less, and apparently the calculations at that time were out of whack, so we're back to hit up city residents again.

A few questions that I'll be asking at council tomorrow afternoon:

Why do city residents have to pay more for 100 cubic feet of water than someone who lives outside the city? A city resident will be paying $2.89 for every 100 cubic feet, someone outside the city will pay $2.62 for the same volume of water. A city resident's increase is $0.47 for that volume, the rural resident's increase is $0.34. The rationale in the report is that the rural resident shouldn't have to pay for some operating costs - valve maintenance, fire hydrant maintenance, water crane, meter reading, meter maintenance and water service connection maintenance. To me, we are providing a service to rural residents that would be much costlier to them if they had to operate their own system - having them pay the same rate as city residents would recognize that they're saving money by not having to develop their own system. In that way, the city rate would be lower, the non-resident rate would be higher, but both rates would be lower than the current proposed city rate.

Last year's bylaw set capital fixed service charges for three years. Since the truly costly issues happen on the capital side of things, why can these rates be set for three years, but not the consumption rates?

Administratively, why can't water be billed monthly, like power and energy rates? It would make budgeting much easier for most people, especially now that rates are leaping at 7% each year for residential users (this change was set two years ago, and will continue for another 5 years, although it's hard to keep track, since the changes to the system appear to be continual). I'm half expecting administration to tell me that to do this would cost $85,000 - that seems to be their standard estimate for making any kind of administrative change that might help make citizens' lives easier, like providing passes for free access to the dump, instead of having free weeks.

And finally, what genius suggested that a good spin to put on this would be to tell residents that we're helping them save money by doing this? It's insulting to people - we're suggesting that they all have wasteful water habits, and we're ignoring the fact that water is a necessity of life, and we are increasing its cost. If we were really concerned about reducing consumption, we would provide rebates to people for purchasing water saving shower heads, or low or dual flush toilets. But we're not interested in that, we're interested in getting more money from tax-payers, but in a way that doesn't have to be labeled as a tax increase. We ignore that we're just picking a different pocket on the same pair of pants.

Wouldn't it be nice if, instead of just going back to the same well (sorry for the water-related pun), we tried different ways of raising money instead. This council doesn't give much thought to generating revenues, whether it's through charging adequate direct user fees for city facilities, or doing things like selling advertising on city buses. Our approach is unimaginative and unsustainable, and the people of Prince Albert deserve better.

"In an ocean or in a glass, cool water is such a gas." - The Beach Boys

Demonstrating Respect - or the Lack of It

2011-06-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

You may have caught the story in Monday's Daily Herald about the annual Gay Pride Parade, which was on the previous Saturday. Unfortunately, the focus on the story was that, despite having been invited, nobody from City Council was present to deliver greetings on behalf of the city, and the security staff that had been promised weren't there, so the flag could not be raised.

I got a call from the Herald on Sunday afternoon, asking how this happened. I'm not sure why I was called; perhaps it was because at the previous three parades, I had been asked to represent the city, since the mayor wasn't available, nor was whoever the deputy mayor was at the time. With this mayor, all requests for a member of council to attend an event are funneled through the mayor's office, and he decides who will represent the city. The rest of us usually aren't even informed as to what events are happening. But this year, I didn't receive an email, or phone call, or anything. In fact, it was only the day before that Andrea told me that she had seen a public service announcement that the parade was the next day, but she wasn't sure what time, and she wondered who from the city would be there, since I hadn't been asked, and it hasn't been the sort of event that other members of council rush to be at.

It was bad enough that nobody representing the city bothered to show up, or sent their regrets, but the security that had been promised and paid for wasn't there either.

In my mind, this is totally disrespectful. It's easy to sign a proclamation declaring Gay Pride Week, but a proclamation means nothing if the only public event celebrating this is not supported, and worse if commitments were made and not kept. And, of course, the final disrespectful action was to not apologize for the non-appearance - it wasn't even mentioned at Monday's council meeting.

I realize that the whole gay issue is a sensitive one for some people, but as members of council, we have to remember that we are elected to represent all of our constituents, not just the ones that we feel match our values. And as council, we set an example for the rest of the city. This was the fourth annual Gay Pride Parade - none of the others had caused any problems. It's just a relatively small group of people who believe that gays and lesbians need to be supported in their ongoing attempts to overcome long-standing discriminatory actions from society - a brief parade, a few speeches, the raising of a flag - that's it. But I know that for the participants, it's an important and meaningful ceremony, one which indicates that the city, among others, supports their efforts to be free to be as they are, without fear of recrimination, discrimination, and worse.

I'm not going to say that I know gay people and they're all fabulous. Like any group, they are widely divergent in their interests, their activities, their personalities. But they do tend to be a group that some people feel are an acceptable target for discrimination.

At the first Parade, I spoke about how, a few centuries back, left-handed people were considered dangerous, working on the side of evil, and we still have the adjectives sinister and gauche as hangovers of that now out-moded discrimination. And lefties still have a harder time of it - our son is left-handed, and Andrea still remembers his joy when she got him a pair of lefty scissors when he was about three - finally, he could cut paper. So he is part of a minority - thank goodness, nobody ever suggested that he could be trained out of it, or that this was some sort of choice that he made. And I look forward to the day when being gay is considered the same sort of thing - something that is just as much a part of an individual as their hair colour, or handed-ness, or height, but not something that is considered an acceptable reason to make fun of someone, or beat them up, or that they should be ashamed of.

And I'm afraid that not showing up for the flag-raising ceremony demonstrates that for some members of council, the gay community is less deserving of respect than other groups. It isn't. In one way or another, each of us is part of a minority - whether it be age, race, gender, handicapped - the list is endless. When we allow others to be discriminated against, we increase the likelihood that at some point, we will suffer as well.

"Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoller

The Take Aways from FCM

2011-06-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

The first weekend in June, plus the days on either side, was the annual meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities - a good chance to meet a wide range of city councillors and mayors from across the country and find out how they deal with issues that are common to all of us. There are also educational sessions that provide more in-depth opportunities to find out how other communities operate, and see some innovative solutions.

This year's FCM was in Halifax. A number of tours of various features of the city are also part of the conference package, and it was interesting to see how Halifax takes advantage of its natural features, and is dealing with some of the devastation that events like Hurricane Juan have caused.

So, what did I take away from Halifax? It's a city blessed with many natural features, and it has focused on ensuring that these features are accessible, clean, and safe for everyone to use. Along the harbour there is a new, well-maintained boardwalk which extends from the naval yards to past Pier 21, the museum dedicated to the history of immigrants who landed there. Along the boardwalk are numerous informational signs, which discuss the various points of interest, as well as various vendors, restaurants, and buskers. In the downtown area there is the large Public Gardens, and at the far end of the harbour, Pleasant Point Park, with lots of walking trails. All of these areas are well-used by the people of Halifax, of all ages, whether jogging along the boardwalk, playing Frisbee, or just sitting in the sun. It wasn't uncommon to see women walking, jogging, or just sitting, alone. And each area featured clean, accessible public washrooms.I couldn't help but be struck by the comparison with our riverbank - yes, we have the Rotary Trail, but it isn't lighted, we have no public washroom facilities to make it more user-friendly, and I think that a significant portion of city residents would consider it not safe to walk on alone, at any time of day.

Halifax also has an extremely efficient and well-utilized public transit system. In fact, the waitress at one restaurant said that she knew many people who had given up their cars, because it was so easy just to use public transit, including a passenger ferry that runs between Halifax and Dartmouth, which are now both part of the Regional Municipality of Halifax. One interesting fact - they have found it more cost-effective to lease their bus tires, rather than purchasing them.

I found Halifax to be very clean, with lots of well-designed garbage receptacles - in some cases, bolted a few feet off the ground to light standards, with a plastic internal bin that would be light enough to empty easily, but a bit too high for easy vandalism. Other garbage receptacles, particularly along the harbour, had different sections so that recyclable material, including compostable items, could be separated - a good way of saving space in a landfill.

We did notice far more pan-handlers than in other cities that we've visited, and much of the downtown features empty storefronts and vacant lots, but it struck me as a city that has done a great job in maintaining its considerable historic heritage, while adapting to modern requirements like increased traffic levels, by such things as a network of one way streets to speed traffic flow.

As we have done in the past, Andrea and I took the opportunity to stay on in Halifax for a few days after the conference, and did a bit of touring around Nova Scotia. We had last visited there in 1993, when Andrea had a conference in Halifax, and we found that some things had changed. In 1993, there was one winery in Lunenburg, featuring wines made from blueberries. Now there are seventeen grape wineries all over the province- we visited one of the newer ones - and a whole new area of tourism is developing. We also visited the Joggins fossil cliffs - a UNESCO world heritage site on the Bay of Fundy - where we were free to wander the rocky beach, and saw lots of petrified wood and other plant fossils.

The week after FCM provided a good lesson for all civic politicians, and I'm sorry that it didn't happen until after the other members of council had left. An auditor's report was released on something known as "Cash for Concerts", which was a report investigating a series of concerts that had been held in a public park near the Citadel a few years earlier. Apparently, in the interest of ensuring that these major concerts took place, the mayor of Halifax authorized cash advances to the promoter of these events, without informing the rest of council or following city policies. The result was that more than $300,000 of this money was not repaid by the promoter, leaving the citizens of Halifax on the hook. Apparently, the glory of hosting concerts featuring performers such as Paul McCartney and The Black-Eyed Peas was enough to convince a few people in control that short cuts were justified.

This item topped local news reports for the entire week, and, not surprisingly, both citizens and the other members of council were outraged and looking for answers. Those responsible wanted to focus on "moving forward", promising that it wouldn't happen again. To me, the most telling line in the auditor's report was the one that said "policies to prevent this were in place. They just weren't followed." All members of our city council should take this to heart - we have policies for a reason, and whenever we waive them for expediency, or glory, or bragging rights about first-class facilities, we're not doing our job, and the result can be costly.

"Vanity asks the question - is it popular? Conscience asks the question - is it right?" - Martin Luther King Jr.

Deciding How to Spend Northern Lights Money

2011-06-15T17:20:00.001-07:00

For the past few years, the Northern Lights Development Corporation has given $250,000 to the city. A portion of this money, $50,000, is set aside to cover expenses for the annual pow-wow and a golf tournament; the remainder is spent on various things by council.

Last year, the entire $200,000 went for new garbage cans downtown, and a splash park in the east end. In previous years, money was spent on such things as maintenance at the water park, and a van for Family Futures.

The process? Well, it's not public - we don't invite applications from community groups. Instead, councillors are supposed to bring forward suggestions from groups within their wards - this has turned it essentially into a pork-barreling excercise that I'm sure some councillors will be quick to remind residents of in the next election campaign.

The guidelines? There are none, except that the money is not supposed to be used for salaries. We have no submission requirements - no business plans, no indication of what other funding sources are available, no indication if ongoing operating costs have been taken into account (for example, if we're providing funding for a van, how will ongoing licensing and maintenance costs be handled).

The decision-making process? The usual uneven approach - at Monday's meeting we quickly approved one funding decision ($50,000 to provide new skate changing facilities at Crescent Heights Park), then got into discussion about what we should be considering when we make these decisions, after 1/4 of this year's money had already been decided upon. And our consistency is also lacking - although vans have been approved in the past, all of a sudden we're asking questions, and deciding to only grant half the money requested for two vans.

I've made a few suggestions about how the process could work, but none of these has been acted upon.

To start with, I'd make it a public process, and ask community groups to apply to council as a whole for funding, with a business plan that indicates exactly what they would do with the money, and what programs it would support.

I would set up criteria for assessing these applications - perhaps we could require that other funding partners be involved, or that programs requesting money indicate that they are meeting a need for a disadvantaged sector of society, or improve park facilities in an area of the city that has fewer such amenities. We could reserve a portion of the money for projects that would benefit the whole city - the Rotary Trail is a good example of that. I would suggest that funding requests for matters that should rightly be part of the city maintenance budget - such as maintenance of the water slides - not be considered.

Having criteria would also make it easier to make defensible decisions - being able to say that this project earned 17 points over another project that earned only 10 points would make the whole process much more fair.

And finally, I would try to remove the pork-barreling aspect - if a project is going to benefit only a certain part of the city, such as a splash park, the councillor for that ward should remove themselves from the vote.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, none of these suggestions has made it to the final process.

We have been most fortunate that Northern Lights shares this money with us every year, but we should recognize that we have a responsibility to use this money wisely, and use it where it will have the most benefit.

"The test of our progess is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - Franklin Roosevelt

Friends and Family

2011-05-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't been around much lately. Our daughter Ingrid recently bought a house in Saskatoon, which required some work before moving in - redoing floors, replacing the bathtub, that sort of thing. Fortunately, she has a Handy-dad, so I headed down there the day after she got possession, and I've been there ever since.

Long and tiring days, but I have to say that I was totally impressed by her friends. We've always known that she had the good fortune to meet some really nice kids at the Pottery Club at PACI when she was in junior high. Those friendships have lasted and the group has expanded over the years, and these now young adults come together to help each other out whenever required. So every evening they would come by after work - first to help rip out things, then to learn how to put things back together. Between the Tuesday before the long weekend and the Tuesday after, we ripped out the rotting front porch and replaced it, took out a bathtub, the rotting wall behind it, and the wall and a closet between the bathroom and the main bedroom, replaced the bathtub, sink and toilet, put down new linoleum in the bathroom and new flooring in the kitchen and main bedroom, put up a new wall, and moved Ingrid's furniture and three cats from her townhouse to the new house.

I certainly couldn't have done it as quickly or as enjoyably without their help, but they seemed to think that I was doing them a favour, since they want to learn how to be handy around the house, and delighted in learning how to do things like use a table saw, or glue together plumbing pieces. Their parents have raised them well, and should be very proud of Sarri, Jaryn, Matt, Jen, Susan, Diana, Lana, Stephen and Christina. They would work hard, then take a beer or whatever break, then work hard again, all the while carrying on conversations about life, work and other things.

It was great to be part of a group that had a common goal, and was willing to work hard to reach that goal. No shortcuts with this gang - when one wondered one evening if we really had to make sure that all the details were taken care of, another reminded her that doing slip-shod work was what had caused these problems in the first place. It's great to see young adults in their late 20s and early 30s aware of the importance of doing the job right.

As most of you are probably aware, we have no family close by. Knowing that Ingrid has this group of friends that she can rely on alleviates some of the normal parental worry - these kids have her back.

We all should be so fortunate.

"Friends are God's apology for relations." - Hugh Kingsmill

Flinging Your Money with Wild Abandon, So That Things Will Look Lovely

2011-05-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

At tonight's council meeting, not that it was any big surprise, council voted to spend more than $170,000 of taxpayers' money putting in an irrigation system for two new outdoor soccer fields at the soccer centre. Despite the fact that we just approved the budget for this year, this is a new and additional cost that will have to be paid for somehow. We don't know where the money is coming from, although it was claimed that some of it will come from an $80,000 surplus from last year - the first that I've heard of this surplus.

The statements supporting the motion illustrate the mind-set of most council members.

"We should do it now because it will cost more later" - just like costs for maintaining basic infrastructure will, but we have no problem putting those actions off.

"It's a first-rate facility, so we need to make everything around it first-rate" - let's ignore the various third-rate aspects of our city, like unpaved streets (which are still oiled to keep the dust down), lead service water connections, and ancient watermains that still break regularly.

"It's a beautiful facility, so the landscaping and surrounding fields should also be beautiful" - because, of course, the appearance of special use facilities matters far more than how well the city as a whole functions.

As usual, some council members feel that some projects need to be acted on immediately, rather than waiting until we have the money. Delayed gratification obviously isn't part of their operating philosophy.

When I questioned why this hadn't been included in the many-times-revised-upward soccer centre budget, I was first told that it was. This isn't true - if it had been part of the budget, we wouldn't have had to vote on it, because approval for this action would have been included in council's approval of the most recent facility budget. When I pointed out this discrepancy, I was then told that it wasn't part of the budget, because this is actually landscaping, which was odd, because we were also told that it was needed for two new outdoor soccer pitches, which to me sounds like part of what we're doing for soccer, rather than landscaping. Of course, with this additional action that will require considerable digging and placement of underground pipes, these fields won't be ready to play on real soon.

What I find particularly interesting about this single item is the number of complaints about the proposed funding that have arisen since the report was presented at Executive Committee last week. One citizen sent a email to all council members, suggesting that there are more pressing needs in the city, and considering the recent tax increase, this expenditure shouldn't be considered at this time, and that the vote on this should be recorded so that people could see where each member of council stood. I had a phone call from a resident of Ward Three, saying that the proposed expenditure made no sense at this time, and asking if there was any way of impeaching certain members of council. I had to tell him that I agreed with his take on the expenditure, but sadly, legislation provides no way of removing council members just for doing stupid things. Perhaps residents are starting to get tired of the continued lack of accountability in the way their money is spent.

Once again, image trumped common sense. For the record, we did have a recorded vote, and Councillor Miller, Councillor Cheryl Ring and I voted against it.

"You will find that truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fantasy and disagreeable fact is unequal." - Adlai Stevenson

Keeping the Faith

2011-05-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, the budget passed third and final reading at a special council meeting on Monday, April 18, called in conjunction with the regularly scheduled Executive Meeting. We were given less than the required twenty-four hour notice of the meeting, but, as usual, that wasn't a problem for most of those in attendance. The job for many councillors appears to be to show up and vote without questioning anything.

A question that I often get from people is "How do you do it? How can you keep on beating your head against the wall?" I think that implicit in their questions is "when it appears that nothing is going to change, that most members of council are quite happy to keep collecting their salaries just for showing up and raising their hands when required".

My standard answer is "You do what you can." Perhaps at some point something so outrageous will be proposed that even those who regularly look to the front of the room before they vote will make an independent decision that actually considers the good of the taxpayers of Prince Albert. Or perhaps people represented by other members of council will let their councillor know that they aren't doing the job they are expected to do. Change will come - it is the way of the world. I keep hoping.

But in the meantime, I do it because that's what I was elected to do. The people who voted for me aren't around the council table, and they elected me to stand up for them. To not do so, to just vote with the majority of council because the conclusion is inevitable, and that way we'll give the illusion of being one big happy family, wouldn't be doing the job, as I understand it. I will continue to raise questions about proposed decisions, because that's how the best decisions are arrived at. And some questions I have to raise over and over, because I don't get answers.

Is it frustrating? You bet. Do I get tired of it? You bet. Am I going to change the way I approach the job? Not a chance. Too many people whose opinions I respect and value keep telling me to continue the fight, so I will.

"The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in sticking to the purpose he sees to be best." - George Eliot

Limping to the End of the Budget Process

2011-04-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

We had the first vote on the budget last week. Despite the initial information that was provided in December, indicating that 16% increase would be required to meet all of our delayed maintenance and other obligations, what has finally floated to the top is a $60 base tax and a 3.25% increase. How administration can line up these two widely disparate numbers is beyond me, particularly when the latest mantra is that the flat tax will go into a reserve fund - we'll see how long any reserve lasts with this council and its practice of spend first, budget later, most recently illustrated with the I-pad purchase.

I've blogged so much about this budget process that I'm tired of repeating myself, but I will say that I can't support this budget for several big reasons.

First, I can't support the flat tax. It puts a proportionally greater burden on low and fixed income residents. I know that $60 doesn't seem like much; I also know that now that the precedent has been set, it won't stay at $60.

Second, I can't support a budget that did not look at reducing spending - didn't even try. This council and administration follows the easy route of going to the tax payer rather than looking at spending first. This is lazy budgeting, and the citizens of Prince Albert deserve better.

Third, we are getting less and less information in the budget. Last year it was a one line police budget; this year, more and more detail of the other parts of the budget is getting summarized, which makes it difficult to figure out if we're spending too much in any area, or note areas where expenditures could be reduced.

Finally, the whole process is too secretive. We had too many meetings in which the budget was discussed, but which were labeled strategic planning so that the public wasn't allowed to watch. This is wrong.

Despite all of these problems, which are pretty basic as far as I'm concerned, most of council voted in favour of this pathetic excuse for a budget. Maybe they don't understand all of the implications, maybe they do, and just don't care, maybe, as one councillor told me after the meeting, they're just tired of the process and want to get it over with.

That's not why I was elected. Our job on council is to ask the hard questions, to look at all the alternatives, to think about what is best for all of the citizens of Prince Albert, and to think things through until we've come up with the best solution possible. A budget that has gone through that kind of thinking, I could support. Not this one.

"Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid." - John Wayne

Ongoing Budget Confusion

2011-04-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

Council continues to muddle through the budget process. Perhaps part of the strategy is for members of council to get so sick of the process that we just pass the thing at the next opportunity, so we can get back to talking about less stressful matters. But I would contend that setting the budget is the most important thing that a council does, far more important than any ribbon cutting or welcome speech giving, and it deserves all the time that we've given it, and much more thought and serious discussion.

I think that the flat tax (or base tax) concept is still not clearly understood by some members of council. At last week's executive meeting, it was suggested that the base residential rate be reduced from the proposed $100 to $60, and some members of council thought that sounded like an improvement. They may not have thought through all of the implications of even setting a base tax - once that is in place, our tax system will have fundamentally changed, and there will be nothing stopping future councils from increasing the base from beyond $60, or beyond $100, or whatever magical figure they pull out of the air - because, remember, there was no reasoning provided as to why $100 was a good rate (or $60).

Other members of council keep saying that people should pay their fair share. This seems to be based on the assumption that I mentioned in my last post - that everyone should pay an equal amount for fire and police services (as if that is all that your taxes go towards). One of the gaps here is that the police chief says repeatedly that a good portion of the people that the police deal with aren't from Prince Albert - how are they going to pay their fair share?

I wouldn't mind the fair share argument if we considered extending it to all of the services that all tax payers pay for. How about increasing user fees for such city-subsidized facilities as the golf course, the Art Hauser Centre, the Rawlinson Centre, the arts centre, or the field house? Not one of these services are used by a majority of the tax payers in the city, but they're all supported with everyone's tax dollars. People who use these facilities do not pay the full cost, which means that if your kids are in hockey or soccer or pottery classes at these facilities, the city helps to pay the freight, but if you have them enrolled in dance or piano lessons, you're paying the full amount for those activities to a small business owner. And many of the users of those city-owned facilities don't even live in the city, so they're not even paying the additional levy on your taxes that goes straight to the field house, rather than into a basic infrastructure maintenance fund. Perhaps we should have differential rates for non-residents as a start.

And, of course, we haven't seen any detail on the police budget, which will consume one-third of the budget. And for the remainder, there isn't sufficient detail to be able to compare, for example, how our snow-removal budget compares with other cities, so that we can determine if we're providing a reasonable level of service, or if other cities pay less per capita for such a basic service. I'm not talking about needing to know what is spent on pens and pencils in a year (although, mind you, if that number is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, we wouldn't have any way of learning that with the current budget), but of knowing where the money is going, and identifying where we could and should be spending less.

We should approach the budget from three directions - where could we spend less (reducing discretionary spending, reviewing where staff cuts could be made, handing over city-owned and maintained buildings that are for specialized groups), where could we recoup some of our costs (increasing user fees, having people pay for parking at city-owned facilities - those lots don't plow themselves, you know), and finally, and the last place we should be looking - increasing taxes based on the assessed values of properties, both residential and business.

This council assumes that we should keep on spending what we've been spending (and more), that staff levels should keep increasing, that more and more staff should be moved to management (and higher salaries), and that asking people who directly use city facilities to pay more for what they've always received for below market value might cause riots in the streets. Instead, council has been offered options for various tax increases, and each of these options will increase taxes at greater proportional rates for those residents on lower incomes. That's lazy and ineffective budgeting, and it just isn't good enough.

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to." - Dorothy Parker

Three Big Reasons Why I Can't Support the Flat Tax Rate Proposal

2011-03-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

As we come closer to the actual vote on the budget at tomorrow's council meeting, I thought that I would mention why I can't support the proposal that we received from city administration - and my reasons fall into three areas.

First, the proposal is unfair. Our previous tax system was based on the assessed value of a property. The reasoning behind that long-practised system is that people who own more expensive homes likely can afford to pay more taxes than people who own less expensive homes. It also indirectly recognizes that more expensive homes tend to be located in areas of the community which have a greater level of services - more parks and green space, for example, newer infrastructure, paved streets.

The new system will put in a flat tax of $100 on every residential property, then add on a percentage tax increase. One of the reporters for a local web-based news site has done some number-crunching that shows that applying this system will mean that a small home with an assessed market value of less than $100,000 will face a increase of about 10%, the owner of a mid-range property ($100,000 - $200,000) will face an increase of about 5.1%, and the owner of a high range property with a value of over $200,000 will face an increase of less than 3%.

There are some members of council who will say that the high-end property owner is still paying more tax, on a straight dollar to dollar comparison, than the lower or middle range property owner. I know that. The idea is that, similar to income tax, those who can afford to pay more should pay more. Presumably they have more disposable income, and, along with their more expensive home, can afford to pay more taxes. A 10% increase for a widowed senior living on a fixed income is going to cause far greater problems for her than a 3% increase to a double income family that has far more disposable income. And of course, the option for moving to a smaller house in a less prestigious part of town is always open to those who feel that the current system is unfair, but you don't see too many people doing it.

It's interesting that the proposed tax rate for commercial property owners is graduated, because it was seen as unfair to have the same flat rate for a small business owner as for a large business. Even so, the same projections show that a small business owner will have a tax increase of about 17%, the medium business an increase of about 6%, and the large business an increase of about 3%.

My second objection is that the proposal shows serious inconsistencies. The difference in approach between commercial and residential properties is one inconsistency. Another is the arbitrary difference between apartments and detached homes. A detached home will have a flat rate of $100. Apartment buildings will be assessed at $35 per apartment, even though an apartment will likely be home to the same number of people as a small house.

My final objection is the distinct lack of rationale for the setting of any of these rates. The only apparent objective was to raise $1 million through the flat tax alone, to be used in setting up a capital reserve fund (although this council has a bad habit of raiding its reserves for such initiatives as Neat and Clean). While setting up a reserve is certainly a sensible thing to do, and one that previous councils did through the debt reduction levy, which has now been directed solely toward the soccer centre until 2017, I wonder where the $1 million number came from. It doesn't appear to relate to the various numbers thrown out for future needs or for making up maintenance shortfalls from previous short-sighted budget decisions.

I wonder how we got to solving all our problems with a flat tax and a general increase of over 3%, when initial numbers suggested that a 16% increase would be required to meet all of our neglected maintenance needs. I would like to see proposals that clearly identify what money is needed, what money can be saved (and no, proceeding with status quo on discretionary expenditures is not acceptable to me), and then, options for finding the needed money, whether it be through increasing user fees, increasing the mill rate, reducing levels of service, or some combination.

What I find really disturbing throughout this whole discussion is the implication from some that those in lower-priced homes aren't "paying their fair share." In fact, in the anonymous comments sections of any of the articles on this topic, you're sure to find several comments along the lines of "people who live in those lower income areas are the ones calling the police and fire departments all the time, so they should pay more." What's most disturbing to me about this undercurrent is that somehow, people who live in the poorer areas of town deserve a lower level of service. The city would be better served if people realized that we need to get rid of this "us and them" thinking, and bring all levels of the city to a point where your address shouldn't matter.

I'm sure that both the police and fire get calls from all over the city. The only truly "fair" way of dealing with this would be to charge callers directly. And we could take this further - those with more children should have to pay more for education, and those who want to walk in Kinsmen Park should have to pay at the park entrance.

We don't, of course, because underlying the whole concept of municipal taxes is the idea that the city as a whole benefits from having a police force, whether we call them or not. Same with the fire department. We recognize that an educated population benefits society as a whole, and we are willing to pay for it. We recognize the value of green space, of parks, of community halls, of recreational and arts facilities. All of those amenities are supported by your tax dollars, as are streets, sidewalks, water mains, and other basic infrastructure.

I wish that council would spend its time trying to figure out how to bring up the basic level of amenities, across the city, to an equitable level, rather than worrying about complaints from people who point fingers at others, claiming that they aren't "paying their fair share", and not being thankful for the level of service that they enjoy.

"Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking that they hit a triple." - Barry Switzer

An Excellent Example of How Not to Prepare a Budget

2011-03-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

If there's anything to be learned from how this council works, it's that we are an ongoing example of how not to do things. We're consistently inconsistent, we ignore the rules, we pick image over substance at every opportunity, and speed over thoroughness. We claim to be open and accountable, but make decisions based on backroom discussions, and refuse to provide the most basic information about what it costs to run the city.

And what should be most concerning to the taxpayers: it appears that most members of council are quite all right with this, and see no reason to change the way we do things.

The recent budget process was, once again, an excellent example of how to bungle our way to a result that is confusing and inconsistent.

We first received the budget documents in late December. In late January, instead of passing the budget in a one-day cram session as has been our practice in the past, most of council voted to send it back to administration, asking for more details, for a list of discretionary expenditures that could be reduced and a plan for staff reductions. In the intervening six weeks, a few staff members' jobs were abolished, but we saw no plan or reasoning behind those abolishments. We have not received any more budget details, including details about the police budget, which is one-third of the city's budget. We have received nothing on what the city's discretionary expenditures are, or how they could be reduced. We did receive a rather disappointing report on implementing a flat tax a few days before the final budget meeting. That's it.

What we haven't seen is a breakdown of the budget that shows where the money is being spent, or any initiatives to reduce costs - limiting our paid advertising, or cutting down on floral decorations in Memorial Square, or cutting out custom-made Christmas cards, as a few examples that I've mentioned before. It seems that we're not willing to look at our spending patterns, and see where we could cut back. There have also been no suggestions as to other ways of covering our costs, such as increasing user fees at facilities. We'd rather just keep on doing what we've been doing, and bill the taxpayer for any shortfalls.

As a way of hopefully kick-starting some people into actually thinking of ways to save money, I had given notice of motion to freeze salaries for out-of-scope staff. Not only would this save money, since traditionally these staff get the same increase that is negotiated with unionized staff, but it would also send a message that, as a council, we are trying to reduce costs across the board. This made for some lively discussion at Monday's council meeting, as well as the usual ill-informed comments from some other council members. On Monday, I had suggested that I would be willing to amend my motion to limit an increase to cost-of-living, whereupon another councillor wondered where such information would come from, as though I was suggesting pulling a number out of the air. I'm rather surprised to find out that he doesn't know that these numbers are published regularly - Saturday's Star-Phoenix indicated that in February, the annual consumer price index had increased by 2.2% - there's a number that hasn't been pulled out of the air, and that I would be quite comfortable in setting as a cap. At any rate, after some discussion, which included suggestions from several members of council that this topic should be left to our budget meetings set for Friday and Saturday, I withdrew the motion. The result? When I raised it on Friday, other members of council claimed that they had made no commitment to discuss this, so it didn't happen.

What has been brought in, without much open discussion, is a flat or base tax. This has been brought forward at least once in every council term that I've been part of. It's based on the idea that everyone should pay at least a basic amount in taxes that isn't related to the assessed value of their home. I have consistently opposed a flat tax, because every report on it that I've seen shows the same thing - it means a greater proportional tax increase for low and middle income residents, and it isn't based on the full spectrum of benefits that come from the city. The usual simplification focuses on police and fire services, but ignores things like paved streets, green spaces, sidewalks, or access to recreational facilities.

At a council meeting in January, I believe, it was brought forward that a flat tax be part of the budget discussion. I objected at the time, partly because this was focused on residential properties, with no mention made of how such an assessment would be applied on commercial properties, and partly because it hadn't been discussed in council previously, and appeared to be made in this way so that the flat tax would be brought in the back door, as a way of achieving the agenda of some members of council. However, most other members of council voted in favour of this.

We got a report from the city manager last week, with just a few days to review before the budget meeting, which outlined a few projects that could be removed for budget savings, but with its main focus being options for a flat tax. Unfortunately, it appears that the various options have been pulled out of nowhere - there is no reason for the various numbers proposed, such as a connection to level of service provided. The main target appears to be to result in an income level of $1 million. Some councillors have suggested that this money be set aside in reserves, but it isn't clear for what, or what a target should be. We do have a mechanism for establishing reserves - the capital reserves levy. Unfortunately, that levy has been earmarked for a single purpose, the soccer centre, until 2017 (the original date was 2013, but overruns and additional embellishments took care of that).

As in previous years, the actual budget meeting took less than a day - I was home before 5 p.m. on Friday. Much of the time was spent debating the difficulty of setting a flat tax for commercial users. Apparently other members of council were able to recognize the inequity of having the same tax for a large store in a big box development and a small business downtown - that wouldn't be fair, someone said. But they have no difficulty in doing exactly that to a senior citizen who lives in an 800 square foot war-time home in Midtown, as compared to a two-income family in a 3,500 square foot house in Crescent Heights - that inequity is okay.

Although the budget was passed by the budget committee, it hasn't been passed by council yet. That will happen at the next council meeting. There is still time to voice your opinion to any member of council. Since we have a history of approving the budget as fast as possible, through special meetings, I would recommend making your opinion known quickly and directly.

It's too bad, really. I'm sure that most people, before being elected to council, intend to do their best to speak up for their constituents and the rest of Prince Albert. I guess, that for some, when the going gets tough, it's not worth the effort.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Preparing (again) for the Budget

2011-03-06T11:25:00.000-08:00

We're back to a more regular meeting schedule now that February is over, with an executive meeting tomorrow, and council next Monday, four weeks since the last council meeting. After that will be our budget meetings - set for Friday and Saturday, March 18th and 19th.

In late January, when we delayed our budget deliberations because we had insufficient information, I had hoped that in the intervening time we would get more information from city administration, specifically in the areas of discretionary spending (where could we cut back on what we currently spend), staffing (what positions could be eliminated), and financial information about city facilities. Well, a few jobs have been cut, but we haven't received an overall review of all positions and potential reductions. And we've received nothing on potential savings in current spending, or financial reports from some city facilities.

At the last council meeting, I proposed that we take at least one step to save money - freeze the salaries of out-of-scope staff for the next year. I'm looking forward to our discussions on this at our next council meeting.

I proposed this for a few reasons. The main reason is that we are in serious financial difficulties as a city - the city manager has told council, and some members of the public, that the city is broke. When you're broke, you look to reduce costs wherever you can. Salaries are a large part of our costs, and any step that we can take to limit these costs is worth at least some discussion. Right now, raises for out-of-scope staff usually follow whatever raise that the unions negotiate, and the city is heading into these negotiations this year. Council does not participate in these negotiations, but we do approve the out-of-scope salaries, and I think that it would be prudent to decide ahead of time that we can't afford raises for everyone this year.

Another reason is that I've been disappointed with the initiative shown by administration in cutting costs. Their initial reports indicated that, to make up for past neglect in things like road maintenance (caused in part by a zero per cent increase a couple of years back), we should be raising taxes more than 16 per cent. This would be huge, and before we should even consider such a thing, we should be cutting anything and everything that we can, that wouldn't affect the basic operations of the city. I've mentioned before that expenses like pots of flowers on Memorial Square, meals for members of council, custom-made Christmas cards, gifts for the mayor to give visitors to his office are all things that could be cut from the budget without affecting how well the city runs. We could also look at reducing costs by having facilities like the soccer centre open fewer hours, or by handing over city-run facilities to the organizations that benefit directly from them. But we have yet to see a budget that cuts any of these nice-to-haves or suggests other changes (and the budget that we got this year had so little detail that we couldn't see how much such things cost). So I thought that I would make a suggestion that would make them sit up, take notice, and perhaps provide us with some cost-savings alternatives.

I'm sure that I didn't make any friends among city hall staff with my suggestion. That doesn't bother me - that's not why I was elected. And I'm also not surprised that the usual gang of on-line critics has taken a few irrelevant shots at me on various web-sites. I realize that many of them like to use the anonymity that these sites provide to vent their anger at me for a variety of my past decisions. I wish that the discussion would focus, not on me and my many failings, but on my suggestion, and what the pros and cons of the suggestion are - just leave the personal insults out of it. It's a bit like road rage - people say things on anonymous forums that they would never say to your face. I've learned that it goes with the territory, but those who unleash their anger at any elected official in this way should pause for a moment and wonder if perhaps that's one reason why it can be difficult to find people willing to run for council, where your ideas and opinions aren't anonymous. Just a thought.

In any case, in my ten years and a bit on council, this is the most difficult financial situation that the city has been in. Our budget discussions need to focus on how best we can solve our spending issues, without burdening both current and future tax-payers. To do this we have to look at everything that we spend money on and figure out if we can still afford to do so. We need to look at other options for increasing revenue, rather than just taxing residents (sharing water rate increases with commercial users, charging for parking for events at the Art Hauser Centre are just a couple of ideas). We need ideas from everyone, not just from a few. And we have to be prepared to make whatever changes we can, while keeping the city functioning.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." - Anonymous

A Late Winter Break

2011-02-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

Andrea and I don't usually take winter holidays. Neither of us is a great fan of hot weather, or of lying on beaches working on a tan. But our train trip to Ontario last fall provided us with an incentive to take another train trip, which resulted in a late winter break to a slightly warmer clime.

I believe that I mentioned in my blog about our fall holiday to Ontario that our train trip didn't start well - the train was three hours late getting into Saskatoon, and the lateness of it only increased the further east that we got. And the final complication was the derailment of a freight train between us and Toronto, which meant that we had to finish the trip on a bus. By that point, I was ready to give up on train travel for ever, although our return trip a couple of weeks later went much more smoothly.

When we did finally arrive at Union Station in Toronto, we were told to line up for a refund for not getting a full night's sleep - a bonus available to us because we had been in a sleeper car. The VIA rail employee who was directing people to various line-ups also told us to ask about the late credit - available because the train was more than four hours late. When Andrea asked the woman who was coordinating the refunds (a direct refund to her credit card of $100 each, nothing to sneeze at) about the train credit, she was told that she would have to contact the VIA head office, but it would be a credit on a future trip.

We had tentatively planned on using it for another trip east this upcoming summer or fall, but when Andrea sent an email inquiry, the response was that it would have to be used within six months of our late trip - by the end of March, in other words. And the value would be half the price of an economy fare from Saskatoon to Toronto. When Andrea told me this, she was a bit dejected, since going east in winter wasn't something that we particularly wanted to do, but then I asked the fateful question - so where could we go? She suggested Vancouver, since going through the mountains on the train is supposed to be spectacular. And we picked late February, since train fares are half price in winter, and there are no council or executive meetings in late February, to accommodate the travel plans of other members of council.

So the Thursday after Valentine's Day we boarded the train in Saskatoon. The afore-mentioned travel credit didn't actually kick in until we picked up the tickets in Saskatoon, but it made it affordable for us to have a cabin for two, rather than an upper and lower berth. I slept much better in the cabin, I think because the beds are perpendicular to the way the train is going, so there's less rolling from side to side. Having a cabin also allows you to get dressed standing up, and there's a great deal more head clearance than in an upper berth. As on our previous trips, the food was great, and there was even entertainment on board - musicians who get to travel free in return for putting on a couple of shows each day. On the way west, it was two guys who played a variety of instruments (violin, harmonica, banjo, guitar), providing old-style musical entertainment. On the return trip, it was a young girl who sang and accompanied herself on the guitar. Both added something to an already relaxing and enjoyable trip. As promised, the mountains were spectacular, and we saw moose, elk, and mountain sheep.

In Vancouver, we stayed at the Barclay House Bed and Breakfast, which was extremely comfortable, and had huge breakfasts which kept us well-fueled until supper time. It was just a couple of blocks off of Robson Street, and five blocks from Stanley Park - very conveniently located. We walked all over the downtown area, seeing Gastown and Chinatown on our first day, Stanley Park and Granville Island on our second day, the Science Centre, the Olympic Village, and more of downtown on our third day, and back to Stanley Park and walking along the sea wall on our last day, before leaving Tuesday evening. It was hard to realize that it was still February, when crocuses were blooming, lawns were being fertilized, and people were barbecuing. We were also very lucky in the weather - Monday afternoon there was a bit of rain mixed with snow, but other than that we enjoyed sunny days.

I found a few surprises in Vancouver. One was the lack of a visible police presence in the downtown. The most police we saw was on the Sunday, when a street was blocked off for a film shoot. Other than that, even when we were walking in Stanley Park, we didn't see police. Lots of people though - walking, running, biking, or just sitting on benches enjoying the sun. I can only imagine how crowded it would be in spring or summer. The streets were very clean, and we didn't see a single needle. We did see what appeared to be homeless people, wearing high-visibility vests, picking up garbage, particularly in Chinatown, which was probably the sketchiest area, with the most visibly poor people, that we visited.

We took the Skytrain to the Science Centre. We were given directions at the tourism information centre, but were quite surprised when we got to the station - only machines to purchase tickets from, no people. Another commuter helped us with the machine (although we probably could have figured it out by ourselves), and showed us the way to the platform, but there was no place to turn in your ticket. And there is no driver on the train. Ah, we thought, you must have to turn it in when you leave. But no. It acts as a transfer, and we could have have used it anywhere within the first zone over a time period of ninety minutes, even returning to our starting point. Very efficient, and I'll be looking for members of Vancouver's city council at the FCM convention, to find out what their cost savings are versus losses to people abusing the system. It would also be interesting to find out how costly it is to have automated ticket purchasing - if feasible, we could provide transit ticket machines in more locations around the city, rather than having tickets only available at a few locations.

At the information centre, they had a booth where half-price tickets could be purchased for various plays, concerts, and other entertainment, as well as information about other things going on that they didn't have tickets for. We got half-price tickets for an evening of improv theatre on Granville Island that was a good evening of fun - what they called rookie night, so it was the first performance for these young people, and they were remarkably good. It got me thinking - what if visitors to Prince Albert could buy tickets to various events at our Tourism Centre - whether to a performance at the Rawlinson Centre, or dinner theatre, or to a hockey game - that might help people access the various forms of entertainment we have here.

We got back Thursday morning, and it was a bit of a shock to get off the train into -32 weather. But we are well-rested. I was glad to see the city manager quoted in the local paper as saying that, because so many members of council are on vacation, city hall staff will have ample time to prepare for our upcoming meetings in March, including the budget meetings. I trust that means that they will be providing the information that I have requested on, for example, how much the custom-made Christmas cards cost, how much the Positive Attitude pins and related material cost, what cuts could be made in discretionary spending, what further staffing cuts or freezes could be made, the Rawlinson Centre financial reports, the operating costs of the soccer centre, and more - I have made numerous requests for information on these and related matters going back several months, years in some cases, so I'm hopeful that staff will have made their way to the bottom of the proverbial pile, and we'll have some answers.

"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop." - Ovid

Spending Decisions - How to Choose, How to Choose

2011-02-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

At last week's Executive Meeting, we had our first discussions about where we should spend the Northern Lights Development Corporation funding this year. A few years ago, NLDC made a five year commitment to donate $250,000 to the city annually, to be used for projects that would enhance or rejuvenate Prince Albert. Of the total, $50,000 is used to fund a golf tournament and a powwow for NLDC, the remainder is spent by council, with no real limitations on how the money should be spent. We're about at the half-way point in the term of this funding. In past years, it's been used to pay for such things as the new garbage containers downtown, a new splash park in the east end, and to do maintenance painting at the Kinsmen Waterpark.

Unfortunately, we don't solicit the public for ideas for the use of this funding. Councillors have brought forward ideas, there hasn't been much discussion, and the decisions are made. Last year the entire amount went on the downtown garbage cans and the east end splash park - several smaller projects didn't even get into the discussion stage.

As well as opening the process up to the general public, I wish that we would establish some clear and fair guidelines for how the allocation decisions are made, with need trumping nice-to-have. For example, in the past, community groups funded and paid for splash parks in their own playgrounds - now, we appear to be giving them away (at a price tag of $160,000 each), while those groups who paid for their own have been unable to access lesser funds to replace aging equipment. Another guideline should be that the city doesn't use these funds to pay for their own responsibilities (such as maintenance of city-owned facilities). And we should limit our ongoing liability - if we fund playground equipment at a school, the school then is responsible for maintenance. If we fund playground equipment along the Rotary Trail, we've just added an additional ongoing maintenance responsibility to ourselves.

We should also be asking the groups that bring forward proposals what other funding arrangements they have made, whether it's approaching other funding organizations (like the Lottery Corporation), or an internal fund-raising program. I'm more comfortable if these funds are used to augment a group's efforts, rather than replace them.

The list of requests for this year totals $642,678, including new splash parks in Crescent Heights and the West Hill, new vans for a couple of groups, new playground equipment in a couple of different areas, a new skate-tying room in the Crescent Heights Arena, new chairs for Midtown Hall, and the SPCA Spay and Neuter program, among others. The total is actually now higher, since one councillor added one to the list last week - a new sound system for the Kinsmen Park amphitheatre. These are only the requests brought forth by councillors, and there may be more urgent needs out there that we don't know about.

Eventually, (maybe as soon as Monday's council meeting), we'll have to make decisions about this funding. It would certainly help the process if we agreed on the rules ahead of time.

On another topic, we're now officially into the I-pad age, and I'm not that impressed. It's much more time consuming to move back and forth through the agenda, as the screen goes blank quite often, so you don't know where you are. It takes time for a document to load; I can turn pages faster than that. And we can't print out the material, so for someone like me, who's used to marking up my document with a highlighter, to point out areas that I want to ask questions in, or to mark inconsistencies, it's not working well. There is a highlighter function, but it's hard finding the page that you want to highlight. Also, I used to chuck the promotional stuff that is included - press releases, that sort of thing - now I can't get rid of it. Once a page is up there, it is quite legible, but then, so were the paper documents that I had. But for those on council or in administration who wanted the latest gadget, I'm sure it's satisfied that itch for them.

"Vanity asks the question - is it popular? Conscience asks the question - is it right?" - Martin Luther King Jr.

Doing is Better than Talking

2011-02-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

On Friday evening, Andrea and I went to the Citizen of the Year Banquet to help in honouring Frank Moore. I've known Frank for about ten years, since my time on the Habitat for Humanity Board, when he was still president of that board. He was the driving force behind bringing Habitat to Prince Albert, and spent several years just getting the organization going, before any houses could be built. The surprising thing is that it's taken this long for him to be recognized by the city for his efforts.

A few things crossed my mind as I listened to the various tributes to Frank. First was that he didn't rush into anything. He certainly believed that Habitat was an organization that could help Prince Albert, but he made sure that the necessary groundwork of setting up the organization and ensuring that it would succeed, was solid and complete before taking the first visible step of starting the construction of the first house. He made sure that we walked before we tried to run.

Second, he made it very clear that it was the organization that was the reason for the success, not just him. He pointed out others in the audience who were at the initial meeting to discuss the concept, and was very gracious in sharing the credit for all that Habitat has accomplished. It's no wonder that so many people, including me, enjoy working with Frank - he's a very quiet and humble guy who refuses to take all the credit, even though it was quite evident that it was his vision and determination that have made Habitat what it is.

Third, he did this to make Prince Albert a better place to live for less fortunate people, by figuring out a way that more people can own their own homes, a basic necessity of life. So often it seems that the focus of the city is on the extras that make life nicer for a few. Frank put his energy into making changes that didn't benefit him personally, but that made life better for people who have faced challenges that most of us have been fortunate enough never to have to deal with.

It's humbling, really, to realize that, through his work with Habitat, Frank has made a bigger difference in tackling housing issues than city council, despite all our committees and conferences. He's done it, not by talking and studying and drafting reports, but by organizing and recruiting an ever-expanding group of people to take action, and by being part of that action. So far, that's resulted in eight houses, I believe. Obviously, we still have housing issues in the city - it was mentioned that more than sixty families have applied for the next house - but it's eight more families in their own homes than would otherwise be the case.

Frank more than deserved this award. What a great example he provides for the rest of us.

"Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often." - Mark Twain

If We Followed a Sensible Process, We Wouldn't Be in Such a Mess

2011-01-30T13:52:00.000-08:00

A couple of things happened at last Monday's council meeting that are good illustrations of how our uncoordinated way of doing things and our inconsistent processes cause us problems. One was the motion from one councillor to bring back to the table the decision made at a previous council meeting about the new licensing bylaw. As you may recall, at a previous meeting the bylaw, which had been prepared by Bylaw Enforcement, after consulting with the SPCA, was abruptly amended by the mayor, who didn't consult with council, or with anyone else. The amendment removed the licensing differential between fixed and unneutered animals, contrary to the advice from the SPCA, and the examples from other licensing bylaws from across the country. Unfortunately, most members of council were fine with this, and voted accordingly. And because it was third reading that night, the bylaw passed.

The reaction was immediate. The SPCA representatives let it be known how disappointed they were, and the comments on various news web-sites were strongly against the amendments made to the bylaw. I think that it was the feedback from the public that caused some members of council to wonder if we needed to rethink the last minute change. And so now we will have the opportunity to review the decision that was made, and possibly change it to something that will accomplish the original purpose of the bylaw, which was to both raise funds for the SPCA through additional licensing, and also to encourage people to get their pets fixed, in order to reduce the number of unwanted animals that tend to end up at the SPCA.

I don't disagree with the need to bring the bylaw back. I just think that it's unfortunate that most members of council don't appear to be aware that we have options when faced with a last minute idea. The first, and most obvious, was to vote down the amendment. Unless we were presented with some brand new information from a reputable source, that would have been the wisest action. Another option would have been to send the bylaw back, asking for further discussion between Bylaw Enforcement and the SPCA, and asking them to investigate the proposed change to the bylaw.

That being said, I hope that when the proposed bylaw comes back for a vote, members of council remember to think through the consequences of their vote before they raise their hands. And I commend any member of council who comes to the realization that thinking for yourself, and listening to the input of the public, is part of doing the job right, and is willing to get up and say that we need to rethink a decision.

While thinking of the SPCA, the animal rescue site is running another contest, through which the SPCA could get money. Just go to http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/ to cast your vote.

The other instance of poor coordination occurred when a councillor proposed that we not provide taxpayers' dollars to any organization which doesn't provide a financial report to us on how they spend your money. To me, and some other members of council, this is a no-brainer. But instead of getting agreement that this should be a first step to any request for funding, whether through a grant or an ongoing funding arrangement, we got excuses that this wouldn't be fair to the organizations and agencies (no concern about the fairness to the taxpayer), and a statement from a member of administration that we had no legal way of demanding that information. That excuse just doesn't make sense. If they want to use taxpayers' money, then we have the right, through the budgeting process, to expect an accounting of how they have used the money in the past, before granting further funding. This is particularly key for facilities such as the Rawlinson Centre, which has asked for ever-increasing funds, but hasn't given us the financial report for 2009 yet. Perhaps they legally don't have to give us a financial report - fine. We don't have to give them money. It doesn't seem complicated to me. Our budgeting process should be clear and coordinated between council and administration, and our expectations for all agencies should be consistent. As an example, we expect (and receive) a financial report from the library each year before approving their funding in the budget - we look uncoordinated and inconsistent to have different rules for other agencies.

No Executive Committee this week - SUMA is going on in Saskatoon, so the mayor and a couple of councillors are there. I took a pass on SUMA this year - I didn't see anything on the agenda that was particularly compelling.

It's not a completely meeting-free week though. We are having another strategic planning session on Friday. This will be about the budget, so really should be open to the public, but labeling it as strategic planning allows it to be kept in camera. I don't agree with the secrecy, but I'm glad that, for the first time in four years, we're spending more than just a couple of days on the budget process.

"Openness brings accountability to government, promotes honesty in official dealings, and above all, assists citizens in making the informed decisions that are necessary to democracy." - Lamar S. Smith

Why We Should Talk About the Transportation Planning Study

2011-01-23T11:46:00.000-08:00

In 2006, the Prince Albert Area Transportation Study was commissioned by the provincial highways department, in cooperation with the City of Prince Albert, and the RMs of Buckland and Prince Albert. You may have heard it referred to informally as the Bridge Study, because part of its focus was a second bridge. The study was completed in October 2008 - more than two years ago. It has never been discussed by city council as a whole.

When it was initially received, comments on it were made by two members of the then-council (one of whom is no longer on council), and administration. So the consultant revamped it somewhat, to include a second option for the location of a new bridge - at the base of 6th Avenue East. The other option was to have a new corridor around the eastern perimeter of the city, with the bridge located closer to the airport.

The idea that a highway should pass through a city is old-fashioned, to say the least. The idea seems to be that if you force people to go through the centre of the city, then they will stop to buy locally, rather than carrying on to their destination. Of course, by doing this, traffic is slowed considerably, and the danger of accidents is increased. And if you think about what is located along Sixth Avenue, there's more than a few homes along there, as well as two schools and a church - this is not an area suitable for a high-speed road.

Rather than trying to route high-speed traffic through the city, we should be more concerned about the long-term economic benefits that we could access if we had a fast, efficient way of getting industrial vehicles where they need to go (anyone want to mention the long-awaited diamond possibilities?) - and consider that industry, and the services that they need to access, aren't going to be in the centre of town.

The smaller towns between Prince Albert and Saskatoon are being passed by in the construction of the four-lane highway - speed and safety trump the concern that someone might pass through a small town without purchasing a cup of coffee.

Most people who are heading north will have already purchased their groceries and other supplies. If they haven't, they will stop in for whatever they need. We have to recognize that we are not a shopping mecca for people coming from larger communities to the south - we are the shopping destination for people coming from smaller communities in the north. The destination. As in, they are coming here to do their shopping, not pausing here on their way to somewhere else.

The report is now public, but it hasn't been discussed by council at all. At our last council meeting I made a motion that the report be brought before council because I think that discussing the recommendations is crucial when we formulate our plans for the future. For example, it was mentioned this week that engineering is going to look at coordinating signal lights to improve traffic flow. This is a good step, but we should be looking at future traffic flows as well, thinking ahead to determine what possible problems might be, and trying to avoid them.

We've also had some preliminary talks about annexation. Before we make any decisions there, we should have some idea of what highway corridors might demarcate the outside perimeter of the city, and zone accordingly.

However, as is often the case, the advice from adminstration for this report, two years in the making, and on the shelf for more than two years since originally received, is that we receive and file. In other words, that we not talk about it in council as a whole, possibly because one of the recommendations, the one preferred by the province, isn't one that some members of council want to hear. We should just carry on in our usual way, complaining that we only have one bridge, spending money on other things, and wondering why we can't take advantage of opportunities to share funding with other levels of government by proposing a solution that meets the best interests of all, not just a few.

But in the meantime, instead of focusing on discussing the results of a report that cost us a fair amount of money, we'll continue to spend time and money coming up with a new slogan that might make you forget your impending tax increase, just like "Proud to be PA" did, or "You can't spell paradise without PA". Or maybe it won't, because people realize that a slogan won't build more affordable housing or a second bridge, or reduce the crime rate, or reopen the pulp mill. It will take more than a slogan to solve our budget problems or plan for the future. It takes hard work, and difficult decisions on the part of council, not pretending that our problems can be wished away.

"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue, a French pharmacist, proposed this positive thinking mantra at the turn of the last century

More Budget Fun

2011-01-16T12:52:00.000-08:00

This week has been about as exciting as council gets, with things happening that I'm sure no member of council could have predicted, but the result is one that I'm sure most members of council feel good about.

As I mentioned last week, Monday evening was the only opportunity for people to comment directly to council on the proposed budget, although several people had taken the time to send emails or call me about their specific concerns. We had well-thought out presentations from the SPCA, the library, and the Community Service Centre on behalf of Senior's Transportation, all providing their reasons for requesting budget increases. Interestingly, we had no presentation from the Arts Board on behalf of the Rawlinson Centre, despite their requesting an additional $122,000 for this year, to add to the additional $50,000 that they asked for last year, which was supposed to be conditional on the submission of their financials for the previous year. We haven't yet seen their financials for 2009, but who knows if they got that $50,000 or not - we haven't seen their 2010 financials either. And yes, we are supposed to receive financial reports from any agency that we give money to, before we give them more money. This is the responsible way to run a business, particularly when you're spending taxpayers' money.

We also had a presentation from the Chamber of Commerce, pointing out some deficiencies in the budget - there should be a debt reduction plan (makes sense to me), agencies asking for city funding should be required to submit financial reports before getting funding (another no-brainer), we need a report on revenue and expenses for all city facilities (excellent suggestion). They also said that the suggested tax increase levels could be problematic. As is often the case, the mayor argued with the Chamber representative, suggesting that increased tax levels were necessary to prevent another Walkerton. The reality is that improvements to the water treatment plant are being paid for through your ever-increasing water rates, which is totally separate from this budget discussion.

Following the public meeting, we moved in camera for our "strategic planning" session. Once again, no actual strategic planning was done, but it means that the discussions that happened there are considered confidential.

On Tuesday, the mayor started calling and emailing members of council, asking each of us what percentage of increase would be acceptable. I refused to give him a number, because to me, setting the number is the last thing that you do. First, you cut discretionary spending as much as possible, then you set your spending priorities based on what needs to be done, then you figure out what tax increase is necessary. But until you've looked at your previous spending levels and identified superfluous spending (purchasing bottled water for city staff, creating and mailing custom-made Christmas cards for members of council, for example), figured out ways to improve efficiency by focusing efforts on needs rather than wants (let's use city crews for doing road maintenance rather than shifting cement planters around Memorial Square), and figured out where we can cut costs by reducing services (if not enough people are using the soccer centre during the day to pay for staff being there, why not only open it in the evenings and on weekends; does the lawn in front of city hall have to be cut more than once a week?) - after this work is done, then you can set a budget that will not waste people's tax dollars. Yes, there will likely be a tax increase, but if this work is done, it will be the lowest possible, without neglecting work that has to be done. So I didn't give him a number.

On Wednesday, the mayor called other members of council to tell us that he had decided that, rather than discussing the whole budget on Friday and Saturday, as had been planned, we would be meeting on Friday to only deal with the capital side of the budget. This involves things like equipment and project funding. The other side of the budget, operating expenditures, would be looked at the following Wednesday, January 19.

I had some problems with this. While there are two pieces to the budget, they are interconnected in many ways, and need to be discussed together. As well, we weren't being provided with any additional information, and without more detail, including details of the police budget, I can't approve a proposed budget.

So first thing Friday morning, when the mayor asked if any member of council had any comments, I decided to speak. I thanked the staff for the hard work that had been done, but said that sadly, I still had far more questions than answers. Council has gotten itself into this situation, by not providing input to staff before the budget was prepared. And we shouldn't be going as individual members of council to suggest budget directions and strategy - we should be making our decisions collectively. Therefore, I made a motion to delay both part of the budget, both capital and operations, until March. This would give staff time to provide more information, and would give council and the public time to review what I hope will be a budget with considerably more detail about discretionary spending reductions, opportunities for improved efficiencies in service delivery, and an examination of current staffing levels. I want to see a report (I've been asking for this for seven years) on the 48 buildings that the city owns. Each of these buildings costs us money - maintenance, utility costs, major repairs - some return revenues, others do not. We need to decide which should be handed over to their user groups, which are no longer feasible to operate at all, and which we should retain responsibility for. I later amended my motion to leave the setting of our budget meeting up to council as a whole to decide. My initial suggestion of March was based on the need to give staff time to put together this information and make budget revisions, and on the fact that some members of council have February holidays planned. But if late February is a possible target date, that would be fine with me.

After more than an hour and a half of quite lively discussion on my motion, with a few members of council making half-hearted excuses as to why we should continue as planned, the motion passed, almost unanimously. We then moved in camera to discuss some of the confidential items in the budget. This one section of the budget took the rest of the day to discuss, with additional information being provided by staff at this time. This is the first time in four years that council has had this kind of in-depth discussions with staff, which means that for seven members of council, it's their first time ever in a true city budget discussion. As far as I could tell, for most members of council, it was a day well spent. Sadly, it's the kind of discussion that should happen at the beginning of the budget process, not the end, and it should happen every year.

I hope that staff takes this direction from council to come up with a budget that contains enough information to allow us to have good budget deliberations, whenever that happens. If staff feel that further direction is needed, then we all need to sit down together again, until we all understand and agree on the direction that we need to go to set the city on the right financial path.

This is how we need to operate, to be seen as open and accountable.

"I like a little rebellion now and then. It's like a storm in the atmosphere." - Thomas Jefferson

Some Really Good Budget Questions

2011-01-09T17:33:00.000-08:00

All members of council got a good email from a city resident this week, posing some excellent and thoughtful questions about the draft budget. This individual had spent considerable time going through the document more thoroughly than some members of council, I’d be willing to bet, and I appreciate his taking the time to do so, then taking the time to send us an email and share his thoughts.

Here are some of his questions, paraphrased (my comments in italics):

The proposed costs for computer replacement - $60,000, or $1,500 each. Is that a reasonable amount to pay for a bulk purchase? Have we tendered out these purchases, to ensure best price?
Costs for a 2-man preventative maintenance team - $131,990. This is to maintain 48 city-owned facilities. Could some of these be sold to private operators? I’ve been asking for an inventory of city-owned facilities for some time. For instance, we own the Girl Guide Hall. Not that I have anything against Girl Guides, being married to someone who was both a Brownie and a Girl Guide, but why are we providing them with a building, and not other organizations that are just as worthy?
Revenues for the soccer centre are projected to be $214,530 in 2011. Even if these revenues are generated, this facility will be operating in the red this year. Are there contingency plans for further shortfalls? Or are there plans for reducing costs this year (by operating for fewer hours each day, for example)?
$130,960 to maintain the Social Development department, even though funding for this department from both the federal and provincial governments has been withdrawn. Why is the city trying to maintain this department? Should the city not get rid of it altogether? I’ve always questioned the need for this department, which was created when the current mayor took office. Its mandate is outside city responsibilities, and duplicates work done by both the federal and provincial governments. Funding that was provided by these levels of government was through grants for specific projects, which are now complete.
The road repair backlog is estimated to be $50 million dollars. $3.5 million is allocated in the budget for this year. This is the minimum that should be invested each year, so that the backlog doesn’t increase. This is one item that we probably should have paid more attention to before investing in new capital expenditures. This is analogous to fixing the leaky roof before you buy the big screen TV - good thinking for the future.
Increase to the PA Arts Board of $122,730 (a 65.5% increase). Perhaps this group should look at some fund-raising projects to raise their own funds. I’ve often wondered why we expect the SPCA to do major fund-raising, but have continued to increase funding to the Arts Board under the current mayor, without, at a minimum, getting the required financial statements that would show us where the money is being spent.

These are good questions, and they deserve good answers. They are excellent examples of the sorts of issues that should be raised in budget discussions – here are some areas where costs could be saved, here are some areas that should be made priorities, here are some mistakes that we should try to avoid in the future.

Since all members of council, as well as the city manager, received this email, I’m hopeful that we will have good discussion of these questions, and perhaps his questions will generate more from council. However, history would dictate that answers, or further discussion that might slow the process, will be discouraged.

Tomorrow we’re having another “strategic planning session” to further discuss the budget (read – meet behind closed doors about how we plan to spend your money). This will be after the council meeting, but presumably before the public budget meeting. And then, next Friday, we’ll be having our final budget committee meeting – open to the public, but no input allowed. As has been the case for the past few years, we’ve set aside two days, but have forewarned people that we usually rush the review through in one day. If we really wanted to show respect for questions such as those outlined above, we would be giving the whole budget process a lot more time for discussion, questions, and answers.

“He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak” – Michel de Montaigne

New Year, Same Old Games

2011-01-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

My apologies for my quietness on the blog front - I've been having a few computer issues. Hopefully this entry won't disappear into the ether.

Christmas was the usual relaxing time for us. Since most of our family is in Ontario, and we've chosen never to travel east at this hectic time of year, our celebrations are quiet, with just the four of us, although we did get a surprise visit from Santa on Christmas morning. Ingrid was able to be home with us from the day before Christmas Eve until yesterday - she also brought her three cats with her, but surprisingly there were few cat skirmishes. They establish their territories, and pretty much leave each other alone. Guthrie also had a four day break over Christmas, and fit in a one day road trip to Edmonton the day before New Year's Eve to see a concert. Andrea managed to take off most of the two weeks that she'd booked off, although she did go in for a couple of meetings, as well as to feed her office fish and water her plants.

So it was a good rest, with lazy days filled with relaxing, reading, watching old movies, enjoying the usual Christmas treats and traditions, and quiet evenings visiting with friends. We find it a great way to end off the year.

Of course, council also had a couple of weeks of no meetings. We did get the draft budget after our last meeting, and I've fielded a few phone calls and questions about my thoughts on it.

As is often the case, I have difficulties with the whole budget process. With previous mayors, council as a whole would give city administration direction before the budgeting process began, to set priorities and establish some basic principles. That no longer happens. I'm sure that administration gets direction, but it doesn't come from council as a whole. And for the first time in memory, we've been given three alternatives, much like the porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears - high, medium, and low, although even the low figure is well above inflation. One can rest assured that the high number won't be the final one - but you'll be expected to feel grateful, because, see, it could have been worse.

One of the faults of the way we've been budgeting lately is that there seems to be an assumption that we will just start with what we spent last year, and add to it, without reviewing to see if there are areas for improvement with our current spending practices. If you were preparing your own household budget, and your costs had risen faster than your income, your first step would be to look at what you were spending, and see if there were discretionary areas where you could reduce your costs, to help to bring things into balance. Perhaps you would decrease your cable package, or stop eating out as often, or buy generic brands rather than name brands at the grocery store. Similarly, administration and council could look at things such as staffing levels - are there positions that could be left vacant when someone leaves or retires, or are there projects that are complete, where positions could be abolished, or are there positions (such as the individual whose job it is to track the contributions to the soccer centre) that could probably be handled by someone else as part of their regular duties? Are there buildings that we pay costs for, either completely, or partially, where we should be making those who use those buildings pay for things such as utilities? Are there city facilities, such as the soccer centre, that could reduce their hours to save a few taxpayers' dollars? These are areas that we should look at, before we assume that we can just ding the taxpayer more and more each year, without showing any overall improvement in services - in fact, while falling behind on things like infrastructure maintenance.

The budget is in a new format - I'm not sure why. We actually had a special "strategic planning meeting" (no strategy, no planning, but some members of council tend to label meetings that they want to keep private with that name) after today's Executive Committee and Committee of the Whole meetings, where the new format was supposed to be explained to us. It lasted maybe twenty minutes, and I'm no more enlightened than I was before.

New format or not, I can see that we have been provided much less detail than in budgets of previous years. We're continuing down the slippery slope that was started last year when the Police Commission decided that council as a whole couldn't be trusted with seeing the police budget, even though some members of the Commission aren't elected (one doesn't even live in Prince Albert), and the police budget makes up one-third of the total budget, an amount that taxpayers certainly deserve to be able to review in detail. Last year's excuse was first, that they didn't want criminals to be able to figure out crime-fighting strategies from the budget, then it was that the Police Act prohibits the release of a the budget in detail, which is not true. Why they would even try such a lame excuse, when other cities (and Prince Albert, until last year), make their police budgets openly available, is beyond me.

In any case, the draft budget provides little detail about how your money will be spent, or what our priorities are. And yet, there are some on council who continue to insist that we operate in an open and accountable manner. To keep saying that, while doing the exact opposite, makes all of our actions questionable. It's the same as claims that all of council is involved in the final decisions about the budget, when the practice has been to rush through the process, discourage questions from both the public and members of council, and treat any disagreements as though they were evidence of high treason. And it's unfortunate, because it also makes claims that the good of the city is the foundation of all our discussions appear to be just another soundbite. Taxpayers deserve more substance than image, and most would welcome it, I'm sure.
　
"I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow." - Woodrow Wilson

Making It Up as We Go Along

2010-12-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

Imagine how it must feel to work at the SPCA - you spend a great deal of time working with Bylaw Enforcement and the city, having input into a new animal licensing bylaw which should both increase revenues to the SPCA, and include measures to reduce the source of their biggest problem, the uncontrolled reproduction of kittens and puppies, which usually results in unwanted animals being dumped at their doorstep to deal with. Progress has been good, and the bylaw has had its first two readings.

And then, the mayor makes a unilateral decision to remove the differentiation in licensing costs between neutered and unneutered animals (a differentiation that was in the current dog licensing bylaw), removing any financial incentive for pet owners to do the right and responsible thing. Taking a step backwards, making us the only major city in Saskatchewan to not recognize the importance of spaying and neutering. And he chooses to bring this forward, not at Executive Committee the week before, when we could have discussed the pros and cons of doing this, and other options for finding solutions, but when the bylaw is introduced for its third reading. One has to assume that this brilliant thought occurred to him on the spot, because he didn't even have his proposed changes in writing.

Some SPCA representatives were in the audience at the council meeting last Monday evening, and I saw the disappointment and disillusionment in their faces when the changes were proposed, and then passed. Their advice and input, not to mention the time and expense of the report prepared by Bylaw Enforcement, had been cast aside without so much as an apology.

The mayor's changes were apparently made because he heard that some people, who already own unneutered animals, feel that neutering their animal is an expense they can't afford. I would be one of the heartless individuals who suggest that if you can't afford to be a responsible pet owner, then you shouldn't have a pet. If you can't afford the surgery, how can you afford the other basic costs of pet ownership, including regular vet check-ups and vaccinations? And presumably, since the current dog licensing requirements had a cost reduction if your dog was neutered, you haven't been licensing your animal anyway.

Concern for those who feel that they can't afford the extra cost of neutering, was why part of the SPCA proposal was to set up a subsidized neutering program. For the SPCA, the biggest problem isn't funding, it's getting control of the animal population, which in turn would reduce both their costs, and the inevitable stresses that they have to deal with when they have to turn away strays because they're full, and the even worse stress of having to euthanize perfectly healthy animals.

I'm a realist, and I know that for someone who already has an animal, they may have a problem. But that doesn't mean making changes on the fly to a bylaw that had been prepared with considerable thought and consultation. A more sensible approach would have been to request that third reading be delayed until we had a chance to consult with the SPCA and Bylaw Enforcement, and perhaps develop some alternative solutions for those who already have an animal, but are worried that they won't qualify for any subsidized program.

Another alternative would have been to defeat the proposed amendments to the bylaw. Council always has that option, in fact, that's why the third reading process is in place, to allow for changing your vote should circumstances or information change. But this is a council where most members, for reasons that remain beyond me, fear that standing in opposition will result in some horrific punishment from above. And that's sad, because we all were elected to voice our own opinion, not just vote in concert.

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else." - Judy Garland

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Budget Time

2010-12-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

As you're probably aware, the way the current council prepares its budget is a constant concern for me. As a council, we don't meet to discuss what direction to give administration in their preparation of the budget, our review of it is perfunctory and rushed, with no time for questions, and last year, we weren't even allowed to see the details of one-third of proposed expenditures, that of the police portion of the budget.

What is probably most concerning to me about this is that, for most members of council, this is okay. Their job of representing the citizens of Prince Albert apparently doesn't extend to doing any detailed research into their obligations, or to asking questions that might make other members of council uncomfortable or angry. And the city as a whole is the loser in this equation, as expenditures go unchallenged and savings are depleted.

It is a reflection of our poor planning, and willingness to buy now, pay later. A good example is the request at last week's meeting for an additional $80,000 for irrigation of the outdoor soccer pitches at the soccer centre - why wasn't this considered when the decision was made to have those soccer pitches? And then, the viewpoint was aired that this wouldn't add to tax rates. Instead, your involuntary donation on your tax bill, already extended once to 2015 because of the project was already a half million dollars over budget, will be extended further. But because the mill rate won't go up to pay specifically for this, some can delude themselves that it isn't a tax increase. I disagree - money that could be used for other purposes will be directed for this. The money that will be needed for other purposes will probably require a tax increase. Your taxes were higher last year because the previous council decided, in an election year, that a zero per cent increase would look good. There was no discussion as to what was needed to run the city properly.

We were supposed to get the budget documents before the end of the year, but now apparently, it won't be in time for tomorrow night's meeting, the last council meeting scheduled before the end of the year. We did, however, have a forewarning that the police budget won't be included. At last week's Committee of the Whole (in camera) meeting, the police chief gave us a one page budget summary, which included no detail, but which we had to return at the end of the meeting. You may recall that last year, we were told that, unlike the other cities in the province, we weren't allowed to see the detailed police budget because criminals might use that information to figure out police crime-busting strategies. Considering how council is being treated again this year, perhaps we're suspected of having criminal leanings.

And, of course, we've already spent money that will come out of next year's budget - it's so much easier to put things on a credit card than it is to figure out how to live within your means. Those iPads, for example, will be paid for out of next year's budget. And in the meantime, we're told that there's no money for proper snow removal left in this year's budget. There was, however, money for each member of council to get full colour Christmas cards, twenty-five each. At least this year's cards don't contain a total fabrication about Prince Albert being known as Canada's Christmas city, and I hope that, unlike in one past year, any copyright concerns were dealt with ahead of time. Because dealing with potential court actions is also a drain on your tax dollars.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery." - Charles Dickens

Fewer Meetings, Fatter Agendas

2010-12-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

We didn't have an executive meeting last week, even though it was two weeks since the last one. Or a council meeting. No reason was given.

In theory, we're supposed to have council meetings every other week, with an executive meeting the week in between. Our last council meeting was November 22, which means that last week should have been an executive meeting, but there was nothing.

I found this odd, so I checked the 2010 meeting schedule, or at least the latest revision, which we received August 26. While it would be a logical assumption that there should be 26 council meetings a year, one every two weeks, this council will meet only 20 times in 2010. Two meetings in January, March, April, May, June, September, October, and November, but only one meeting in the months of February, July, August and December. I don't recall previous councils skipping meetings with that frequency - the work of running the city doesn't take a holiday, and neither should council. About the only times that I can recall meetings being rescheduled would be if the scheduled meeting was set to fall during either SUMA or FCM, when most of council is away at those meetings, but there was none of this going weeks between meetings for no apparent reason.

A cynic might suggest that someone is arranging meetings to fit with a holiday or other planned absence schedule, so that one could take breaks but still have a perfect attendance record.

So why is this a problem? One reason that it poses a problem is that agendas then become very lengthy. For tomorrow's executive and committee of the whole meetings, we have more than 1,000 pages of material to review. This is material that we received late Thursday, then more documents came by email on Friday. This is a lot of pages to go through, think about, and mark for questions and comments, over a few days. And the matters in the committee of the whole agenda tend to be subjects that haven't been raised before, so we're usually starting from ground zero for those.

I'm not sure how long tomorrow's meeting will last - our last executive and committee of the whole meetings, on November 15th, went from 4 p.m. until almost 8 p.m., which posed a bit of a logistics problem for those of us who had tickets to Ron James at 8 that evening. It can be a real temptation just to let things slide as the evening wears on, and thought processes do get more difficult.

Another reason that it's a problem is that fewer meetings means fewer opportunities for the public to keep track of what's going on. I know that the meeting schedule is posted on the city web-site - it may come as a shock to some of the electronically addicted out there, but not everybody goes on a computer to get their information. And I know that it's also in the paper, but if Saturday's paper is any indication, it can't be counted on, since it indicates that tomorrow's meeting is scheduled for next Monday, where it will run smack into the next council meeting.

We've already become more inaccessable, after moving council meetings to 5 p.m. from 7 p.m., and shifting committee of the whole (our in-camera session) to follow executive committee, rather than the previous practice of having it immediately before the council meeting. Add to that the habit that some members of council have adopted of moving the acceptance of all matters considered at committee of the whole in a block, at a special council meeting that is set immediately after committee of the whole. That's right, the same evening. Remember, these are matters that are usually brand new to council, and they're being passed in a block the same day that they're discussed, so are never put on the agenda that is available to the public before regular council meetings, or openly discussed or voted upon at a regular council meeting. Further adding to the obscurity - council meeting is the only place that a recorded vote can be requested, so for these matters that are passed in a block it gets even harder for members of the public to follow what decisions are being made, and why.

At our last strategic planning session, I proposed that we go back to having council meetings weekly, and getting rid of executive committee altogether, since I don't think that having that committee has improved our performance as a council at all. If we're going to be meeting weekly, why not have the most open meeting that we can? You can imagine the lack of support that my suggestion received.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but if we really mean to be open and accountable, then our actions have to match our words. And, while I'm not afraid of reviewing a reasonable amount of material before a meeting, I think that everybody's work load would become more manageable if we had less to focus on each time, but focused more often.

"Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?" - Charlie McCarthy

Changing the Rules as We Go

2010-11-28T13:10:00.000-08:00

I've written in this blog before (July 3, 2008) about how members of council don't always seem to understand the processes that we're supposed to follow, or even the actual responsibilities that each member of council has. To compound the problem, some members of council appear to be quite satisfied with their ignorance, with making up rules to suit the whims of others, and with ignoring basic democratic principles. And some members of council seem to be quite all right with giving away their rights and responsibilities.

A couple of years ago I suggested that it might be beneficial if all of council were to have someone from the outside come in and give a presentation on how council is supposed to work, and on the parliamentary procedures that we're supposed to follow. Not surprisingly, considering it was my suggestion, other council members at the time felt that it was too late in our term to try to improve (the phrase "better late than never" being something that they obviously don't believe); others declined because they didn't want to bring in the individual that I was suggesting (which I found odd, because I hadn't suggested anyone). And the new council has shown no indication of being interested in learning about rules and procedures if they're going to slow down the process, and possibly prevent some individuals getting their way.

I was reminded of this recently when some inconsistencies occurred when I tried to recover my expenses for attending one of the committees that I've been placed on. This current council has given away their opportunity to have input to membership on city committees, instead ceding that authority totally to the mayor. In his wisdom, he has placed me on three committees that meet out of town - the North Central Saskatchewan Transportation Committee, which meets in locations ranging between here and the Alberta border, the Saskatoon Airport Authority, which meets in Saskatoon, and the North Saskatchewan River Basin Committee, which meets in North Battleford. I'm not sure how particularly useful it is for the city to have representatives on these committees, but we've been invited, and I do my best to get to these meetings and provide the city's perspective on matters being discussed. For these types of committee meetings, the practice in my ten years on council has been that a councillor who has to travel out of town to attend a committee meeting is reimbursed for vehicle mileage. This was not considered as part of the individual's travel budget, which is used to attend conferences.

Until now. Maybe. I've been told a couple of different stories. It started when I attended a meeting of the North Saskatchewan River Basin Committee in August, and I submitted my expense claim to the city manager's office. The former practice (and no doubt the practice followed still by other members of council) is to submit expenses directly to the mayor's office. I haven't done that for a couple of years, after an incident which occurred while I was in the process of submitting an expense claim to one of the administrative assistants, when the mayor came out of his office and told the assistant not to bother helping me, since I "didn't matter". I don't know about you, but when I get treated with gratuitous rudeness, I won't go out of my way again to deal with that sort of behaviour. So I spoke with the city manager, and my procedure since then has been to submit expense forms to his office, which had been working without incident until now.

When I didn't get reimbursed for that August meeting for several weeks, I called the city manager's office. He told me that I wouldn't be getting reimbursed, as I had now exceeded my travel allowance. I explained to him that the travel allowance was for conferences, that I had been to only two (SUMA and FCM) and didn't believe that those two conferences had put me over budget, and that this travel had been for a committee meeting, a committee that I hadn't asked to be put on. He didn't have any good answers, so I raised it at my first council meeting after returning from holidays.

Well, it seemed that the reason had now changed; I hadn't been reimbursed because apparently there was an error in the form that I submitted. And I received a cheque, although not for mileage, which is the usual practice, but for an amount considered to be equivalent to rental of a vehicle.

But the confusion over my travel budget persists, at least with some. At this past week's council meeting council approved a new travel policy. At least the matter of committee meeting travel has been clarified, and travel expenses for committee meetings will not be taken out of an individual council member's travel budget, which is $3,600 annually. At this meeting, the mayor said that I was the only council member who had exceeded their travel budget, which I find hard to believe, since the conferences that I went to were attended by most other members of council, so why wouldn't those who went to both SUMA (five of eight councillors) and FCM (all members of council) also be cited for being over their travel budget? Administration has not provided me with any documentation on my alleged over-budget status, either.

Also in the new policy are a couple of interesting items - the mayor and the city manager are now allowed to use the city credit card to entertain (I'm not sure where we have budgeted for that sort of expenditure), and the mayor now has the authority to approve any in-province travel, even if you're within your travel budget.

So council has decided to let the mayor decide if you can go to a conference within the province, even if you have travel budget funds remaining - previous mayors seemed to recognize that a councillor could track their own use of their budget, and left the discretion with the individual councillor. And I don't recall there ever being an issue with councillors abusing this discretion. The mayor has already taken over what used to be a council responsibility - approving out-of-province travel, although when he tried to prevent me from attending a housing conference in Toronto a couple of years ago, I brought it to council, which resulted in him changing his mind before a vote could be taken.

With this new council, there seems to be the misconception that the mayor is the boss of council, and councillors should just do as they're told. Well, a read of The Cities Act would probably be a worthwhile effort for several members of council - nowhere is it indicated that all votes must be unanimous, or that one member of council has more authority than another when it comes to decision-making. And when council members give away their authority, either because it's the easy thing to do, or because they want to avoid conflict or being treated badly, or for whatever reason they can come up with, they're not doing their job.

"I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others." - Thomas Jefferson

The Cat Came Back (Maybe)

2010-11-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

You may recall that about a year ago, at the very first meeting of this new council, I proposed that we investigate the feasibility of licensing cats, as a way of providing increased revenue for the SPCA, and possibly making it easier to find the owners of abandoned cats, rather than having to have so many of them euthanized.

I wasn't proposing specifics, just that we look into the matter. Nonetheless, at the next council meeting, the motion received limited support and was defeated, with some councillors suggesting that they wouldn't be willing to support such a move unless there was a report first, which I found rather confusing since that was what I was proposing.

In late June, we received a report from the SPCA proposing a subsidized spay program for low income families. We referred this report to administration, and asked specifically that administration look into whether other cities have a subsidized spay program for low income families, and whether other cities require the licensing of cats. Better late than never, I suppose.

The preparation of the report included consultation with both the SPCA and the bylaw manager, so it's good to know that those most directly involved with the problem support the idea of a "Responsible Pet Owner Bylaw". Ideas put forward include the recommendation of licensing cats as well as dogs, as currently happens in both Regina and Saskatoon, eventually moving the location of licensing to the SPCA, giving all licensing revenues to the SPCA, and having a fairly hefty fine for having unlicensed pets. There is also a proposal for a subsidized program for low income families specifically geared towards spaying cats, and a "Get Out of Pound Free" program, which would apply to licensed animals which are picked up and taken to the pound. In essence, the first time that your pet was taken to the pound, you would be allowed to retrieve it for free, and not be charged the usual impoundment fee. This is an excellent incentive for licensing.

I support all of these ideas, and would encourage the SPCA to look into allowing pet owners to purchase additional escape insurance, so to speak, allowing more than one impoundment free of charges, if you pay an insurance fee beforehand. Our cats are mostly indoor cats, but when we had a dog, she was an amazing escape artist. She was never picked up by bylaw enforcement, but more than once I was called to Riverside School, as she had slipped out of her collar and headed down there to play with the kids at recess. So I realize how easily animals can escape, even when you think that they're secure.

I also think that the licence fee for unneutered or unspayed animals should be much higher than the basic fee - the proposal right now is a fee of $15 for a spayed or neutered cat, $30 for an unneutered or unspayed cat, and $20 for a spayed or neutered dog, $60 for an unneutered or unspayed dog. We should at least have the fees parallel, with the fee for an unneutered or unspayed animal three times the fee for having a fixed animal.

Public education would be a huge part of making this successful. In Saskatoon, bylaw enforcement goes door-to-door to ensure that animals are licensed - this adds to the cost, but also to the revenue. Unfortunately, it also would make us look a bit heavy handed. I would try the education and incentive method first, then get tougher if the level of compliance isn't where we need it to be. That's the problem with new bylaws - you have to be able to enforce them when they aren't followed, otherwise you might as well not bother. But you want to give people a chance to comply voluntarily first.

I'm glad that council has looked into this, even if I couldn't get their support on the matter last fall. I understand that the SPCA has had to stop taking in cats at this time because of lack of room - that's the clearest indication that we need to start making people more aware of the responsibilities of pet ownership, and let them know how they can be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the difference between dog and man." - Mark Twain

The Complications of Annexation

2010-11-14T15:24:00.000-08:00

It was good to be back at council last week, after a month away. I found that coming back reminded me of why I like this job - the opportunity to ask questions, and force others around the table to think, rather than just vote mechanically, is my favourite part of council meetings.

Most of the media coverage from that meeting has been on the proposed annexation of land south of town, to provide more land for industrial development. This land, currently zoned as agricultural and part of the RM of Prince Albert, would be rezoned as industrial. The problem, of course, for residents of the area next to the proposed annexation, is that they aren't interested in living next to industrial development. You would think that, after the ongoing conflicts raised by the residents who live next to the Belly-Up Bar, a situation in which the area had been zoned commercial for quite some time, this council would be wary of getting into what seems to be a fairly obvious area for potential conflict.

And the residents have taken the opportunity to let their concerns be known - first, at the council meeting on Monday, and then again, at a meeting in the neighbourhood, at which, despite being held at an inconvenient time (5:30 p.m.) on an inconvenient evening (the night before a statutory holiday), more than 100 residents showed up to ask questions and express their opinions.

There are several steps to annexation - it basically means taking land from the rural municipality, adding it to city land, then rezoning. This doesn't happen for free - the RM has to be compensated for loss of taxes, for example. In this case, apparently discussions with the RM have already set the price - the same that Saskatoon paid to the RM of Corman Park for a recent annexation. That land, of course, already has industrial development and some servicing, so for Prince Albert to agree to pay the same level of compensation for land without industrial development or servicing, seems to be a bit naive.

Land within the area that is privately owned may also have to be purchased, should the owners not be interested in living within an area zoned for industrial development, so that will be an additional cost. Finally, the provincial government has to approve the annexation.

As is often the case, council members have only been provided with partial information. I was quite surprised, at the Wednesday evening meeting, to see maps and reports that hadn't been provided to council. I'm always amazed that there are people who think that information should only be doled out to us in dribs and drabs, and who don't recognize that we can't do our jobs properly without being provided with all relevant information. It's interesting that as soon as problems were identified, out came the information.

Do we even need to annex this land? That should be the first question. I'm not aware of any situations where we've turned away potential industrial development because we had insufficient land. Are there other options? How about the much-bragged about green industrial park, which as far as I know, is still tenantless. Or there's an area west of the current landfill, which was identified for potential industrial development during the site selection process for the green industrial park - I think that it would have been a better site, since it wouldn't have been limited by the airport. That land is still there. And of course, there's industrial land along the highway to the pulp mill which is also available. What we should try to avoid is putting an industrial boundary about the city, which will cause problems when residential areas try to expand. An example would be the relocation of Barzeele and Burkowsky, which took several years of discussion, when their historic location started to conflict with commercial development and the associated traffic patterns with the Cornerstone development.

The city manager was fairly insistent that this has to be done, but didn't provide any reasons that I found particularly compelling. For example, he stated several times that we can't afford to develop anywhere else, ignoring the fact that developing this land will have a cost. It's also somewhat ironic that the previous council managed to find $12 million dollars to service potential residential land in the west hill - this is land owned by private developers, who now have serviced lots to sell, but even having that incentive has not caused a wave of residential development in the area. When we want to, we seem to find the money.

A number of residents have pointed out that this potential development is not included in the city plan released to great fanfare not that long ago. Of course, the soccer centre wasn't included in the west hill development plan of a few years back either. This is not a council that worries much about plans that have been developed, which makes one wonder why we go to the effort and expense of preparing plans, and asking for public input on them, if we're only going to ignore these plans once complete.

The maps showed the proposed area divided into three phases. An attempt was made to placate residents by saying that only the first phase was likely to be serviced - phases two and three would be too expensive to service. This brings two questions to mind - why, then, annex it all, and, is this council going to continue the pattern of the previous council, and rezone with abandon, whenever the spirit strikes? If so, don't count on these comforting words to hold much weight down the line.

Council postponed its decision on Monday, to wait until after the public hearing, which is part of the process when applying to the province for annexation. Wednesday evening's meeting was actually supposed to be that public hearing, but the unexpected level of opposition changed that plan.

Another factor that will be key in the equation is the location of the new bridge (the report on which has yet to be presented to council). A new bridge, and any supporting highway, will undoubtedly have an impact on land uses at the edge of the city.

Once again, we're approaching things in a piecemeal, uncoordinated fashion. We've had the west hill residential development, the green industrial park, and now this new proposed industrial annexation, all brought before council as separate, unrelated developments, without an overarching plan that sets priorities and funding requirements. Until this happens, we'll continue to lurch about, making decisions that in the long run, will cost the taxpayers far more money than if we did our homework and looked at the big picture.

I commend the citizens who took the time to come to either the council meeting or the public meeting, and who presented their concerns respectfully and coherently. Despite whatever reassurances some members of council or administration may have tried to provide, the truth is that no one has a crystal ball - we can't promise what will or won't happen on this land in the future. And, as has been demonstrated once again, the voices of private citizens get the attention of some members of council in a way that their colleagues don't seem to be able to.

"The most important political office is that of the private citizen." - Louis Brandeis

Acting on Impulse

2010-11-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

When making decisions, this council seems to follow one of two paths - topics are either discussed to death, with decisions being delayed and deferred for what can seem like forever, or else a suggestion is leaped upon as though it is a limited time offer that will solve multiple problems, and acted on immediately, without being thought through as to all of the possible consequences, or even evaluated as to whether the solution is appropriate to the issue. The first method is frustrating, because it can seem as though some members of council are afraid of making a decision in case it upsets somebody, so they would rather wobble on the fence indefinitely, asking for more reports and opinions. The second is probably more expensive, as the action taken usually has a cost, and can have impacts down the line that also have costs that could have been avoided if we had better discussion up front. Short cuts can be great, but they can also get you into trouble.

An example of the second kind of decision-making is the current thinking around moving to electronic, rather than paper, copies of meeting agendas and reports. Actually, it won't be moving from one to another, it will be doing both.

The initial impetus for this discussion came from concern about the amount of time it takes city staff to make and distribute multiple copies of the material required for each Council and Executive Meeting. Along with that, for some people, is the desire to reduce the amount of paper used. When it comes to staff time, I would point out that this is only an issue if it requires overtime - otherwise, they're being paid for doing this work, even if it is boring, and unless we plan on reducing staff levels, it shouldn't be an issue. As for the concern about using paper, my forester wife often reminds me that paper is a renewable resource, and messages such as "Save a tree - think before printing out this email" are misguided and not really helpful to the forest industry. And there would still be the need to produce paper copies of agendas and information for the many city committees that exist.

However, the concern was raised, and a few months ago someone in administration suggested that Kindles (electronic readers) should be provided to council, rather than the binders of material that we receive weekly. At the time I pointed out that the local public school board has been using laptops for this purpose for a few years now, and that a laptop would be more practical and have multiple uses, rather than a single use gadget such as a Kindle. Before our recent vacation, someone suggested to Andrea that she should get a Kindle, so that she could load up several books on one book-sized object, rather than bringing along a dozen or more books. She responded that if she dropped a book, she could always find her place again, but if she dropped a Kindle, she would be out both the books, the gadget, and the purchase price. However, she did try a demonstration model in a Chapters in Peterborough, and found it quite frustrating - it took longer to load a page of the book than it did for her to read the page. And when we both finished books on our vacation, we left them behind in hotel rooms or on the train, for others to enjoy - no such opportunity to share with a Kindle.

Nothing further happened with the Kindle idea for council, but now it has resurfaced in a slightly different form. The suggestion now is that each member of council, plus several senior staff members, should get I-pads - 22 in total. Agendas and attachments could be sent out electronically, rather than being delivered to each councillor every Thursday, as is the current practice.

I have several concerns about this - one is that this is a fairly new gadget, and I don't believe in buying the first version of any new electronic gadget. There are just too many operational issues that aren't usually resolved until subsequent iterations, and the price also goes down. I was reminded of my first term on council, when the then-city clerk purchased a new gadget (for $70,000) that was supposed to help the office run more efficiently - it was never even taken out of the box, because it turned out not to be suitable for the purpose in mind.

Anyway, I checked on some web-sites about problems that have been occurring with I-pads, and apparently there have been a number of complaints about users being unable to download sent information, and difficulty in making connections to wireless networks - these problems would be directly applicable to the purposes for which these I-pads are being proposed.

Another concern that I have is that this expenditure has not been budgeted for (not a surprise with this council and administration, but still not a good way to operate), and the proposed solution from administration is that for the eight councillors, we could pay for them using our communications allowance for the next two years. This is the allowance ($500 annually) that we can use for our home office expenses - computers, newsletters, fax paper, that sort of thing, but not cell phones. The mayor, of course, doesn't have to pay for his office expenses, nor is administration proposing that he pay for his I-pad. And of course, the dozen or so that they are proposing be purchased for city adminstration would be paid for out of the city budget.

I resent the assumption by administration that they can redirect the allowance that I get for my home office expenses. I also resent that this hasn't been discussed by council - not how serious the issue is, or whether this is the appropriate solution. Once again, it's as though some members of council (and administration) want to get their hands on the latest toy out there, whether it's what we need to do our job well.

The final irony to this proposed solution? Paper copies of everything will still be on our desks for every meeting. The only savings will be in not having the material delivered by hand once a week.

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." - Beverly Sills

More Transportation Thoughts

2010-10-31T14:13:00.000-07:00

First blog entry in a month - as you may have guessed, I was on holidays. Then I was at a Citizens' Advisory Committee to the Penitentiary regional meeting in Calgary, then I was at a transportation conference in Saskatoon for three days. Finally made it back to my own bed this past Wednesday, four weeks after leaving it.

Our traditional holiday trip back to Ontario took a different format this year. Usually, we would drive (three days) - this time we tried the train. Andrea had taken the train to Toronto last year for a reunion with her sisters, and had loved it, claiming this to be the first time that she had come back from a trip to Ontario feeling rested. So I agreed that it might be worth trying. Our plan was that we would take the train from Saskatoon to Toronto, then to Guelph, which is close to where my family lives, and then rent a car for our travels about Ontario.

It didn't start well. The train was more than three hours late getting into Saskatoon, so not only did we not get breakfast on the train, but we got to know the Saskatoon train station (which is several miles out of town) really well. Once the train arrived things went better, although the hoped-for making up time never happened, and by the afternoon of day two, train staff had conceded that connections to be made in Toronto would be missed. Then, we found out that there had been a freight train derailment between Parry Sound and Sudbury, which meant that we had to take buses from Capreol (west of Sudbury) to Toronto, which certainly wasn't part of our plan. Once we got to Toronto there was some confusion, but eventually we found the appropriate line to stand in to get our new tickets to Guelph, as well as compensation and food vouchers to use while we waited several hours for the next train.

The rest of our vacation went much more smoothly - a few days visiting my family, a few days in Stratford, Thanksgiving weekend in Millbrook with Andrea's youngest sister and her family, the next week with another sister's family in Toronto, where we went to the Royal Ontario Museum to see the special exhibition of the Terra Cotta Army of the First Emperor of China, a weekend in Deerhurst (where the G8 summit was held last June) for a reunion with most of Andrea's sisters and their families, then back to the Guelph-Fergus area for a couple of days before catching the train to come back. Fortunately this train trip was mostly on schedule, and I'm thinking that train travel is not such a bad thing. The meals are great, it is restful just to read, nap and watch the country go by, and you meet interesting people from all over the world - in our case, people from England, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, as well as from several places in the US. Unlike on a plane, socialization is encouraged, and people aren't in a rush.

We were able to see most of our Ontario-based relatives, and touch base with a few friends as well. There's never enough time to catch up with people, as well as spend time alone, but it was a good few weeks, and we're so lucky to have family and friends who provide us with beds, morning coffee, delicious meals, and the occasional bonus (like Nick Lowe concert tickets from Andrea's brother, who had to head to Ottawa for a conference - not something that we would have thought of doing on our own, but it was a fun night out with Andrea's sister and brother-in-law).

Now that we're back, we're enjoying the company of my nephew Steven, who is finishing a month-long practicum in Occupational Therapy here. Coincidentally, after my last post on encouraging the use of public transit, Steven has been using the bus to get to the hospital every day, and has pointed out that using public transit in this town isn't easy. To start with, he couldn't buy tickets at City Hall - its hours coincided with his time at the hospital. And there are only three other places to buy tickets - SIAST, Gray's Chemists, and a convenience store on the west flat - none of these places is within walking distance of our house. Andrea went to City Hall to buy him tickets last Monday, and was quite amused to find that the sign on the door saying that bus tickets were available had an outdated price list - it claimed that you could get 10 tickets for $18, rather than the actual current price of $20.25. Now, if we really wanted to encourage people to take the bus, tickets should be available all over the city - places like grocery stores, high schools, the malls, the soccer centre - it's a city-owned facility that's open 18 hours a day, unlike City Hall. And other cities have an information number that you can call to find out which bus you should take to get from here to there, and have route information posted at bus stops - we don't have these refinements to our system.

I'm getting caught up on council goings-on in my absence, although in these days of email and texting, I wasn't kept completely out of the loop. When I've caught up with meeting minutes, I'll be posting my thoughts on some of the decisions made in my absence. I was rather intrigued when a gentleman at Sarcan spoke to me on Friday, questioning some of the "bone-headed" things that had happened while I was away. That's the problem with taking vacations in the off-season - life goes on in your absence, and there aren't enough members of council who are willing to ask the questions that should be asked, or who support the brave individuals that try to ask these questions.

The good thing about holidays is that you come back rested and refreshed, ready to start back at it again. And I will.

"The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are." - Samuel Johnson

Changing our Transportation Habits

2010-09-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

A number of people this past week have commented on the picture of me and my bicycle that was on the front page of last Saturday's paper. Considering that the article was about Car-Free Day, which was this past Wednesday (September 22), it was somewhat ironic that the picture was taken in front of another councillor's gas-guzzling truck, which he regularly uses to go the five blocks from his workplace to city hall.

How I ended up in the paper was a result of the reporter calling me to ask if I would be riding the bus to city hall on Wednesday, which was something that had been proposed by the Saskatchewan Environmental Society. They had sent all members of council a free bus pass for that day, suggesting that we could all ride together to city hall for a photo op. I told the reporter that it was closer for me to walk to city hall than to walk to the nearest bus stop, and that I didn't see the point of pretending to ride the bus to get there. I suggested that improving conditions for other options, such as walking or biking, would be a more effective way of discouraging car use - the reporter asked if I would mind riding my bike down to the Herald office for a picture, and what you saw in the paper was the result. I don't want to give the impression that I ride my bike to meetings at city hall - council meetings require business attire, and suits and biking don't mix. But I do walk if the weather is good, or if I'm not coming to the meeting from somewhere else.

For the actual event on Car-Free Day, three of the four members of council who did take this opportunity drove their vehicles to city hall, then walked up to the $600,000 bus transfer station on 14th Street and Central that's still under construction, then rode the bus four blocks back to city hall. Councillor Miller was the only one who actually took the bus from her home in Ward 1, thus achieving the original intent of the idea. For the others, it was more of an illusion.

I do agree with the intent behind such days as Car-Free Day - these are opportunities to look at what we can do to encourage people to reduce their environmental impact by finding greener ways of doing things. That's one of the reasons that Andrea and I have chosen to live in the mid-town area - she has always been able to walk to work, and does. We can also easily walk to the library, to our church, and to the Co-op for groceries, and it's comforting to know that should we be left without a vehicle for whatever reason, we won't be stranded.

But I don't think that city council is doing a very good job of trying to encourage people to find alternative ways of getting around town. Instead of encouraging bicycle use by providing bicycle lanes, we try to figure out what signage and penalties will stop people from riding on sidewalks downtown. We're very good about providing lots of car parking for our city hall employees, but the bicycle rack at city hall only has space for three or four bikes, and it's not very secure. I know that the couple of people who bike to work take their bikes inside the building to ensure that they're still there at the end of the day. Contrast that with the Forest Centre just across the street - it has a large bike rack out front for visitors, in full view of the security guard, but it also has a locked bicycle storage area in its basement parkade for the use of employees who bike to work, and showers and change rooms as well, so that you can change out of your biking clothes. The Forest Centre also has preferential parking spots for people who car pool or drive high efficiency vehicles - check the signage at city hall to see who gets preferential parking, and trust me, neither of those people is part of a car pool.

As far as encouraging use of public transit, we haven't offered city hall employees any incentives to use the bus. A slight subsidy of bus pass costs might convince some to take the bus to work, then perhaps they might look at remaining downtown over the lunch hour as well - if we put back the benches that used to be around the fountain in front of city hall, that might encourage people to have their lunches outside, making that area appear to be more than just a place to walk through quickly.

I'm hopeful that the slight extension in bus hours will encourage more SIAST students to take the bus, but we probably could have done more. For example, I'm not aware of any overtures that were made to the people at SIAST to see if there was the possibility for a bus pass partnership, such has been done with the students at the U of S - Saskatoon Transit saw their ridership increase significantly after a bus pass was included in the registration cost for U of S students - a win for the transit system, and a win for the university, which saw a reduction in its parking problems.

And we haven't done a very good job of encouraging people to live close enough to downtown that car use isn't required. We invest a great deal of money in developing areas that are far from the downtown, but don't spend much on maintaining the infrastructure or the services in the area surrounding the downtown core. And while it's a predictable refrain that we need to do "something" about the downtown, to make it more attractive so that people will want to be there, we don't do much beyond pots of petunias set out in regimented lines in front of city hall.

We need to realize that it takes a great deal of thought and effort, looking at a variety of options and possibilities, to change people's habits. And our job as members of council goes far beyond posing for pictures which suggest that we're doing the right thing - it means figuring out what we can do that will actually influence change, and taking concrete steps to do so.

"Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching." - Jim Stovall

Why I Disagree with a Flat Tax

2010-09-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Once again, the idea that Prince Albert should have a flat base tax has been raised in council chambers. In my ten years on council, I think that this is the fourth time that it's been raised, always by a councillor from a ward on the hill, saying that it isn't fair that residents of their ward pay more than their perceived fair share of taxes.

City administration will give us another report that will not tell us anything that we don't already know.

Resdential taxes are set as a percentage of the assessed value of a property. On average, properties in the hill areas of Prince Albert have higher assessed values, and thus pay higher taxes. Properties in the flats have lower assessed rates, and thus pay lower taxes. The assumption is that, if you can afford to live in a more expensive house, you can afford to pay higher taxes. To some (those paying the higher taxes) this somehow is not fair. They may point out that everyone should pay the same proportion of costs for fire and police, and they may even imply that those in the lower taxed area of town use these services more, and are thus being subsidized by those who pay higher taxes.

They will, of course, avoid arguments about these lower taxed properties having to deal with older infrastructure, resulting in issues such as frequent water main breaks, lead service water connections and unpaved streets. They will avoid arguments about lower proportions of green space in these areas, green spaces which are paid for out of the same pool of taxes that also pay for those police and fire services. They will stick to the police and fire arguments, claiming that those other things which make an area more pleasant to live in are too hard to quantify, and should just be left out of the discussion.

Of course, how do you factor in the police claim that 40% of crime is caused by non-residents? How do you make that fair? How about the taxation costs that are assessed against all residents for the soccer centre, whether or not you or any of the people in your house play soccer? Is that fair?

In fact, many of the beneficiaries of your city taxes are the residents of the surrounding rural municipalities. Do we have higher user fees for non-residents for such city-supported facilities as the soccer centre, the golf course, the Art Hauser Centre, or the Rawlinson Centre? We even pay a higher proportion of the regional library costs than the smaller communities that benefit from access to the regional library system.

In my opinion, the fairest tax is the sales tax. You buy more, you pay more. And you usually (although not always) have a choice in how much of this tax you want to pay. If you want to buy the more expensive option, you will pay more sales tax. Buy the cheapest possible option, or forgo the purchase altogether, and you will pay less.

I'm quite certain this report will show that a base tax will result in a tax reduction of a few hundred dollars to high value homes. It will show a similar tax increase for homes in the mid- and lower ranges. Proportionally, the decrease to the high value home will be smaller than the increase to the low value home. If you're currently paying a $4,000 tax bill, a decrease of $400 is 10%. If you're currently paying a $2000 tax bill, an increase of $400 is a 20% increase. And I would suggest that if you're a senior on a fixed income, just trying to stay in your own home for as long as possible, that additional expense might be enough to push you out of your home. I would also suggest that the $400 break that the more highly assessed family might receive would not be as life-changing.

Most of the residents of Ward Three would be negatively affected by a flat tax. As their representative, I will continue to argue against the imposition of such a tax. If we're so concerned about our tax revenues, let's look at ways of decreasing our expenses. Let's truly review the entire budget this time, instead of rushing it through and not even looking at the largest piece of it - the police budget. Let's look at ways of ensuring that all users of city facilities pay a fair rate for their use, instead of facing constantly increasing deficit financial reports from the Rawlinson and Art Hauser Centres (and the expected deficit from the soccer centre). But let's not put a heavier tax burden on those who live in the lower income parts of the city, who are also the least likely to speak up and complain about it. And for goodness sake, let's not be telling the public that this will make little or no difference to people - if it made no difference, it wouldn't have been proposed.

"There is no such thing as a good tax." - Winston Churchill

An Evening of Fine Local Food

2010-09-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

Last evening, Andrea and I had the good fortune to attend the dining event at the Forest Centre, coordinated by the PA tourism group. Not surprisingly, it was sold out, and it turned out to be a great celebration of local foods, prepared and presented by local chefs. Everything from the appetizers to the dessert, including the wine (several varieties made from rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, and cherries) and beer, was made from Saskatchewan products, and were excellent examples of the creativity that local culinary artists are eager to share with consumers. People often talk about the creative arts community that we have in Prince Albert - last night is the first time that I can remember that we've enjoyed a similar celebration of food.

The location, in the atrium of the Forest Centre, was also great. I go there often, since Andrea is fortunate enough to work there, but several people mentioned to us that this was their first time there, and they were amazed by its architectural beauty. It's one of the buildings in Prince Albert that I think would fit very well with an Open Doors Day - one where buildings are open to the public, which gives them a chance to see the inside of buildings that otherwise, they would have no reason to visit. This concept has worked well in other cities, and I think it could work here too, perhaps in conjunction with the Street Fair. And add me to the list of people who think that more than one street fair a year is a good idea - if we could think of different themes, such as this day which was focused on food, that might provide enough variety so that people would want to keep coming back.

After dinner, we went across the street for the third annual outdoor cinema. The crowd was smaller than in the last two years, perhaps because the evenings are chilly now, but it was a perfect night for watching a movie if you were prepared for the cold - clear, no wind, no rain, and it got dark early enough so that the movie was over before ten. And as veterans of this, we were prepared, with lawn chairs, sleeping bags, and hats. This year's movie was Alice in Wonderland, and although Andrea complained at length afterwards because it didn't resemble the book much, it certainly seemed to engross those who were there.

I enjoy these events where the focus is on the downtown. I wish that more of our civic leaders, and the businesses which are located downtown, would actively participate. There's always lots of talk about needing to revitalize our downtown - we need more people who do more than talk, but who actually show up and help with the celebrations. In this case, those who weren't there missed a great meal, and a good movie experience afterward.

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." - JRR Tolkien

2009 Financial Report

2010-09-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

Our special council meeting last week was to review the 2009 Financial Report, which has to be submitted to the province by September. For the first time in a financial report, the first half of the report was filled with pictures and bragging about what a good job we're doing. In my opinion, spending city dollars on something that verges on electioneering is a waste of money, putting it in full colour is an unnecessary expense, and including pictures of the current council, when the 2009 budget and spending was the responsibility of the previous council, is somewhat misleading. But it was good to finally see the actual numbers.

And the result showed that we ended 2009 with a debt load of close to $26 million dollars. While we still would have incurred some debt, it would have been less if the previous council had not decided to have a 0% tax increase that same year (an election year, by strange coincidence). The supposed words of comfort from administration that we don't need to be concerned because our debt limit is $40 million, so we're well within that, ignore the fact that we voted to increase our debt limit in order to remain within it. It's sort of like feeling richer after your credit card company increases the limit on your Visa - you're no richer, but you've been given permission to spend more money - at a cost of course. The cost of servicing this $26 million of debt? That will be $5.1 million, not an insignificant amount of money.

The other attempt at misdirection, the statement that most of this debt will not be borne by the taxpayer, is ludicrous. Just because the only debt that shows up on your residential tax bill is your share of the $6.73 million dollars to pay for the soccer centre, that statement ignores the fact that the people who pay water bills, which are now significantly higher to pay this debt and will continue to increase every year, are also tax payers. Just because it shows up on a different bill, doesn't mean that it isn't being paid by the same group of people - different pockets, same pair of pants.

In fact, the rural water users, who get their water from the city, are not paying the considerable increases that have been added to water bills through the sewer rate and the infrastructure rate, although they will benefit from the upgrades done to the water treatment plant.

I wish that we would be more upfront about the choices that we make on behalf of the taxpayers. For example, if we had said when the budget was set at a 0% increase in early 2009 that this would result in a higher debt load at the end of the year, with the resultant higher cost in the long run, people would have been able to see the true cost of the 0% increase. But it's more politically expedient to brag about the 0% increase, knowing that the financial report showing more of the story won't be made public for more than a year after the decision, and relying on people's short memories to prevent them from connecting the two.

"Let us all live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with." - Charles Farrar Browne

The Positive Side of Being Negative

2010-08-29T14:50:00.001-07:00

Occasionally I'll hear, usually second-hand, that I'm considered a negative person.

I admit, I don't have the happiest face - I'm just not a smiley-face person. Fortunately, in the smile department, both kids took after their mother - they all have great smiles. I don't, and I suppose I do look grumpy a lot of the time, which is not necessarily reflective of my actual mood at the moment. My sister gave me a coffee mug for Christmas once that was labeled My Many Moods, which was covered with identical pictures of a grumpy cat, each one of which was supposed to indicate a different mood - confused, grumpy, content, happy, sad - the expression never varied. My family got the joke at once - I couldn't figure out why she'd given me a mug with cat pictures all over it, or why everybody was laughing. Then I got it.

And my kids' friends were often intimidated by me when they were younger, solely because I looked angry all the time (according to the kids). After helping my daughter move in Saskatoon once, one of her friends told her that he no longer was afraid of me, after we spent some time driving around, trying to figure out how to dispose of a wrecked couch, and coming up with all sorts of ludicrous alternatives before finally taking it to the landfill.

So if you're one of the people who thinks that I'm constantly miserable, just because of the expression on my face, stop to chat, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

And some people think that my tendency to question ideas that come to council, rather than just adding my voice to a chorus of praise, is being negative. Technically, I guess, sometimes they're right. Voting no is coming down on the negative side of a decision, something that many members of council appear to be reluctant to do, even though they might not agree with the decision in question. But if questions aren't asked, if nobody points out areas where improvements could be made, or highlights the potential downside of new initiatives, then how can we expect things to get better? Think of the problems that could have been avoided if enough members of council had asked the right questions at the right time, and voted accordingly.

I will admit that, with the current council, there don't appear to be many councillors who are willing to voice their concerns, and that does tend to make those of us who do so stand out from the rest. To be painted as being negative for doing so is unfortunate, but I'm comforted by being told by many residents that they think that I'm doing a good job, and they wish that more members of council would ask questions and demand believable answers, rather than just going along with the majority every time.

Perhaps of more of us did that, if it became the normal way of doing business, asking questions would no longer be considered being negative, but would be seen as what it is - a necessary step in a good, functional, decision-making process.

"A grouch escapes so many little annoyances that it almost pays to be one." Kin Hubbard

More Special than Regular Meetings

2010-08-22T14:58:00.001-07:00

I've mentioned before that for some reason, not discussed in council, there were only two regular council meetings this summer - one in July, one the first week in August. This assumes that nothing much happens in the summer, and also gives those who take summer holidays the chance to take those holidays without affecting their attendance record.

But this August we will have not one, but two special meetings, one tomorrow, the other the following Monday. You probably won't be aware of these; they weren't mentioned on the city page in yesterday's newspaper, even though the next meetings in September were. And that's my big problem with these so-called special meetings - they are very poorly publicized (notice on the city web page and on a bulletin board on the second floor of City Hall allows us to meet legal requirements, but not the ethical requirements of openness). They also aren't emergencies - often they're set to have the third vote on a issue that didn't receive unanimous approval for a third vote in a single meeting, often caused by me exercising my rights as a councillor for the opportunity for sober second thought before finally making a decision. Can these decisions wait until the next regular meeting, and be included in the agenda then? Of course, but this way, members of council are inconvenienced, and it looks like it's my fault for holding out for democracy.

This week's special meeting is to have third vote on changing the time of regular council meetings, from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m. I disagree with this move for a few reasons. My main one is that this makes meetings even less visible to the public. At 5 p.m. most people are leaving work, heading home, starting supper preparations. It's not usually a good time for sitting down and watching a council meeting on television, and you'd be surprised at the number of people who make a point of watching our goings-on regularly. And while we don't have a lot of members of the public who attend our meetings in person, this will make it more difficult for those who do. I know that some members of council would be quite happy not to give the public the opportunity to voice their opinions in the council chambers during public forum - this will make an already restrictive process even more so.

The change will also make it more difficult for members of council, both now and in the future, to attend meetings without affecting their other, full-time job. Being on council is supposed to be a part-time job, reflected by the fact that it doesn't pay a full-time salary. Moving the meetings means that those whose jobs have regular-type hours needn't bother to apply - you will have to take time off work to attend meetings. And not just every two weeks - the Committee of the Whole, in camera meeting, which currently is held a couple of hours before council, will be moved to the other week, before Executive Committee meetings, that have always started at 5 p.m. And there's the additional time required to clean up and put on a suit, as "business attire" is required for council meetings. Not a problem if you're in an office job, more of a problem if your job isn't one that requires a suit. Taking this extra time might not be a problem if you're in a job with flexible hours, or if you're the boss, or if you're retired, but most people don't have that sort of freedom to leave the job a few hours early, every week.

So, what's the impetus behind this move? Well, some members of council find that going so late into the evening (meetings usually end around 8:30 p.m.) is tiring, so they would like to go home earlier. Apparently they missed the part of the job description that says that being on council isn't intended to be a full-time, and certainly not an overtime, commitment, and trying to live up to that expectation could prove to be tiring. Nobody is forced to be at City Hall at 7 a.m. every day, and nobody would have a problem with committee meetings set later in the day, particularly on council meeting days or the day after.

But it's way easier, I suppose, to set meeting times to fit one's personal preferences than respect the public's opportunity to watch and participate in those meetings. The only possible benefit to the earlier meeting time is that it should remove the need to provide meals, not only to council members, but also to staff who attend these meetings, at the tax payers' expense. But that's a small price to pay for making our decision-making processes less visible to those who have to pay for those decisions.

Next week's special meeting is to see the 2009 financial statements for the city. These have to be submitted to the province by the end of August. A more logical approach would have been to include these in an earlier, regular meeting, with sufficient time for council to review before forwarding them to the province. In fact, I'll be interested to find out why these are being reviewed so late in the year, and at a special meeting, to boot. It's not as if this is a new or sudden expectation of the province.

So why two special meetings, and not just one? Who knows. We're just told when, and what's on the agenda. And too bad if you planned your holidays based on the announced schedule of meetings.

I often think how much easier it would be if I could just accept the various actions that are proposed to council at face value - if I could believe, for example, that we were moving council meetings earlier to make it easier for people to attend meetings, which was the reason put forward to the press. But even the slightest consideration of the change shows far more negatives than positives, and it's part of my genetic make-up, I'm afraid, to point these inconsistencies out. And while my pointing things out rarely changes the votes or the minds of others at the council table, at least I'm doing my job in making sure that other points of view are put on the table for discussion - a basic tenet of the democratic ideals that should be driving everyone on council.

"All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility." - John Stuart Mill

A Few Facts About Recycling Bins

2010-08-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

Prince Albert's current residential recycling program isn't working. And, unfortunately, rather than admitting that it isn't working and trying to figure out how to make it work, some civic leaders are minimizing the problems, and suggesting that the problems are not as widespread as they actually are. I'm not sure why we think that the way to solve problems is by ignoring them, or by trying to mislead people about the scope of the problem.

The city has had a recycling program for about eight years, although the entire city wasn't provided with this service until the last year. The service is provided either through individual blue bins at each home, or large communal bins, the last to be provided, in the Midtown and East Hill areas.

These bins are meant for recyclable materials - paper, cardboard, milk jugs. The material goes to the material recycling facility which is on 40th Street, at the south edge of town. Once there, it is sorted, and sold to the markets that can be found for these materials.

From the beginning, with the individual bins, there have been problems with garbage being included with recyclables - to put it plainly, people were treating blue bins like garbage bins. In the worst situations, potentially dangerous materials, such as used needles, were tossed into bins. The garbage required extra sorting, and thus extra handling costs, at the recycling facility. The needles added a level of hazard that is unacceptable. The two areas noted for having a high level of contaminated blue bins are the West Flat and the West Hill, which have the individual bins at each residence. In some areas, the problem is so ubiquitous that the bins are taken directly to the landfill, without bothering to take them to the recycling centre for checking.

The problem has been brought to the city several times. The city's most recent solution has been to have someone inspect the bins before pick-up, and tag them if they are contaminated, and thus not suitable for recycling. It would appear, however, that this has merely been a make-work project. When one councillor followed the recycling truck on its route, the result was a bit of a surprise - even untagged bins which were presumably free of garbage were taken directly to the landfill.

The large communal bins are also subject to this sort of contamination, and face another problem as well. They are so poorly designed that water leaks through the hinge on the lid at the top, meaning that the material within gets wet with every rainfall. The bin contents are weighed at the recycling centre, and if they're too heavy, are sent to the landfill, since that means that the material within is either wet, and thus not recyclable, or someone has dumped heavy garbage in there. It's disappointing to me, after waiting for seven years to get a recycling service that I had been paying for from the start, and after noting that my neighbours appear to be extremely respectful of the recycling guidelines, since our bin contents seem limited to paper and cardboard, that one good rain every two weeks makes our good intentions pointless.

The whole point of residential recycling is to reduce the amount of material going to the landfill, to save the city money in having to develop a new landfill area. It's also the right thing to do, from an ecological perspective. But obviously these reasons haven't been enough to persuade some residents of the city to make the small effort of separating their garbage from their recyclables.

I think that the hard truth is that for most people there has to be some sort of financial incentive. For example, in Ontario, where there is residential recycling for a host of materials, including aluminum cans, we see pop cans all over the streets when we head there for a vacation. In Saskatchewan, where we pay a deposit on cans and bottles, which is then returned when you take your cans to the Sarcan depot, any can or bottle left on the street is picked up in short order, and the line-up at Sarcan is often quite overwhelming because the program is so popular.

So what sort of financial incentive could the city provide to get people to follow the fairly simple rules for recycling? How about, in order to get a recycling bin for your home, you have to sign up for one, and doing so gets you a reduction in your sanitation fee, or your property taxes. That way, only those who were interested would have bins. Then, if there were problems in a certain area, the inspection process could be used to identify the abusers, who would then lose their bin, and their lower tax rate or sanitation charge.

One of the reasons that we signed up for the Crown Shred and Recycling plastic recycling program, even though it costs a nominal amount, was the good feeling that comes from knowing that the materials that we put in our blue bin every two weeks are not adding to the problems at the landfill. But not many people are willing to pay for that sort of environmental service, and for those people who need extra incentives, we have to admit that our current residential recycling efforts haven't been successful, and find a way to make it financially attractive for people to do the right thing.

Finally, just a response to Thomas's comments on the last blog - sadly, Bylaw Enforcement isn't proactive, they are complaint driven. I agree, I think that when they notice a problem they should take action, even if there hasn't been a complaint. And regular inspection tours would be a way of identifying potential problems before things get out of control. And I've asked about the cameras as well, but as is often the case with my inquiries, I have yet to receive a response from city administration.

"To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival." - Wendell Berry

A Few Midsummer Thoughts

2010-08-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

Summertime is a time when City Council activities slow to a crawl. For reasons that I'm not sure of, we only have two real council meetings in summer - one in July, one in August, which will be tomorrow afternoon. It does allow those who take their holidays in summer an easier time to do so without missing meetings. And for those who have cottages, they don't have to bother coming in for meetings.

Andrea and I don't have a cottage, nor are we lake people. Which is odd, now that I think of it, when you consider that we met in the summer, when we worked for a canoe outfitting company in Algonquin Park, living right beside a lake. We prefer to take holidays in the fall - crowds are smaller, and since we usually go to Ontario to visit relatives, the weather is more tolerable and the fall colours are an added attraction. In summer, our favourite relaxation spot is our screened side porch - a great place to relax with a book and a beer, without all the work that goes into having a cottage.

And summer is now on the downward slide, with the usual signs. Days are getting noticeably shorter, and in the early morning there's that slight chill in the air. And the Exhibition is over for another year. Councillor Miller, Councillor Whitehead and I walked together in the parade this year, which was a pleasant way to spend the evening, greeting people and giving out candy. Fortunately it didn't rain, although it looked threatening earlier. Not only was it good exercise, but walking the route brings you closer to people than being in a vehicle, and you have a little more flexibility to pause and chat. It was warm, and we neglected to bring water with us, (add that to the list for next year) but fortunately we were able to replenish our fluid levels afterward, as we socialized in our backyard.

My major renovation project this summer was replacing our bedroom windows - the old, rattling single paned sash windows have been replaced with triple-paned units which I lucked into at the Recycle Store. With the major wind storms that we've had, we've noticed the decrease in rattling, and hopefully the winter time drafts will be a thing of the past as well. I've also ripped out the carpet in the living and dining rooms, and found that the original fir flooring is in not too bad shape. The fun of a century house - never an end to the projects.

Weather-wise, it has been an odd summer, not much heat, lots of rain. Those July wind storms have really done a number on city trees, which is a good reminder to Council that we need to have an ongoing plan for our urban forest, to remove aging trees before they become a threat, and also to replace them with long-lived species that perhaps won't rot out as quickly as a species such as Manitoba maple. And we will also need to look at replacing a number of the green ash which suffered winter kill and have dead and dying tops, particularly in the downtown.

But for these next few weeks, I'll try to concentrate on enjoying the last half of summer.

"Summertime, and the living is easy." - DuBose Hayward

Discouraging the Misuse of Handicapped Parking Spaces

2010-07-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

People who don't have to shouldn't be using handicapped parking spaces. That shouldn't have to be said. I'm not sure why people feel that it's all right to do so - perhaps they think that it does no harm to only use one for a few minutes, perhaps they feel that their right to convenience trumps all others, perhaps they're just thoughtless, perhaps they think that the signs refer to the mentally handicapped.

Andrea's theory is that if you use one of those spaces when you don't need to, you're tempting fate - that if you want to use handicapped parking spaces so badly, the fates will arrange it so that you can, legally.

For whatever reason, the spots that are set aside for those with mobility issues are often used by those who don't, and we're not very good at ticketing offenders when it does happen. And many of the spots that are misused, aren't under the city's control - they're on private property, such as a mall parking lot. With some of those property owners, such as the Co-op and the Forest Centre, we have a contract with them to do parking enforcement. But with others, such as Cornerstone, we don't. And we don't do a particularly good job of enforcing those which are under our control - you're far more likely to get a ticket for an expired meter than for parking in a handicapped zone.

But because we like to be seen as taking action, at council this past Monday we passed a bylaw which will give us the authority to take action on people who choose to park in these spots, even on private property. I don't disagree with the intention (but unlike one council member, I can't confess to having pent-up rage against these people - I tend to pity them instead), but we shouldn't be adding another bylaw that won't be enforceable because we don't have the staff. We can't enforce this on the spots that we're responsible for now, and we've just added several areas to the mix. We have a tendency to pass bylaws that we can't enforce, just to give the illusion that we're attacking the problem. When it comes to bylaws, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs.

Enforcement of this is supposed to be the responsibility of bylaw enforcement, but we haven't added any additional staff to a group which already has a difficult time keeping up with an ever-increasing workload. When I asked about this, I was told that enforcement would be done on a complaint basis. In other words, if you see someone parked in a handicapped zone at Walmart, you're supposed to call bylaw enforcement, and hope that they get there before the offending vehicle is gone. Good luck with that. I might have more faith in improving things if there was going to be a regular spot checking done, as happens with parking meters.

However, I was called by someone on Saturday morning, saying that five police (not bylaw enforcement) vehicles were at Walmart, ticketing vehicles in handicapped spots and fire lanes, and also passing out a couple of tickets to taxis who were picking people up, which I think is carrying things a bit too far. I'm also wondering how much it cost the city having five police vehicles handing out tickets, rather than doing what they're supposed to be doing.

But perhaps having an initial flurry of ticketing will get people's attention, and we'll see less abuse of these spaces. And if nothing else, I hope that the councillor who parked in a handicapped zone at St. Mary's School for the mayoral debate during last year's election campaign now realizes that he shouldn't have done that - educating ourselves is sometimes the most difficult part of change.

"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it." - Garrison Keillor

Emergency? Not Really, but It Looks Like We're Doing Something

2010-07-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday council had a special meeting, which the local newspaper the next day referred to as an emergency council meeting.

Unlike the last term of council, when special meetings were called almost as often as regular meetings, this term has not featured as many of these special occasions, for which I am grateful. Too often special meetings, which only have to have twenty-four hour public notice, have been used to rush through decisions in a forum which doesn't have as much public exposure as our regular meetings.

Not this one, though - all the media were there, for a meeting which lasted five minutes.

It really was a no-brainer decision - council agreed to apply for the emergency funding which has been announced by the provincial government as being available to help with the various storm-related problems that have plagued the province this spring and summer. Of course, Prince Albert has been relatively lucky compared to others - our worst storm was last Friday evening's rain and wind event, during which hundreds of trees and branches came down. But compared to massive flooding in Maple Creek and Yorkton, or the tornado near Raymore, we've gotten off easy - no homes destroyed or uninhabitable, and a week after the storm, most of the damage has been cleaned up. And the loss of trees, while lamentable, will not be eligible for funding from the province.

But I agree that it's worth the effort to apply. Benefits, if any, wouldn't be to help the city recover its costs in dealing with the storm aftermath - our losses weren't eligible. It would be to help individual homeowners deal with uninsurable damages that fit within the province's criteria.

But was agreeing to this funding such an emergency that we had to have a special meeting? No, that was merely for optics; the resolution could have waited until Monday's regular meeting. Calling a special meeting made us look like we weren't wasting any time, but any relief won't come any more quickly. The actual deadline for applying isn't for several months. I worry that residents might get the idea that by applying for this funding, that somehow the city will have quick access to money. We won't - the decision on whether we get funding will rest entirely with the province, according to the province's timetable.

In fact, this five-minute special meeting cost you money - because it was held at noon, it was felt necessary to bring in lunch. As though members of council couldn't survive a five minute meeting without being fed afterward. I did - I went home for lunch.

"What good is speed if the brain is oozed out on the way?" - St. Jerome

Defining Success

2010-07-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

Like many of you, I hope, I paid my municipal taxes this week - one day early, in fact. And when we retrieved our tax notice from our files, it was still in its envelope, and we still had the full-colour (which is more expensive than black and white) information sheet. Not only does it include good information on where our money is being spent, it also included some questionable propaganda, including the statement that the budget is a success.

I found the use of the word success to be a bit odd in relation to a budget that is still in its early days of implementation. Yes, council has approved a budget, most of which we weren't allowed to see in any detail - perhaps in the eyes of some, keeping council in the dark on how we plan to spend citizens' money is a success. But really, a budget is just a spending plan, in which we try to forecast how much we need to spend on various projects, as well as on regular maintenance work, salaries, and the other usual things that a city has to spend money on. In my mind, the budget can only be judged a success at the end of the year - were our projections on target? Did we manage to save money here and there? Were we able to avoid borrowing money?

I've used the analogy before of your household budget. You set out how much money you have each month, figure out what you have to spend on the various parts of your life, put aside money for emergencies and for major purchases, and that's your budget. If you're sensible, your various spending and saving targets fall within your monthly income. If they don't, you start trimming on the non-essentials, perhaps putting off major purchases for another year, or scaling down on your vacation plans. And then (and this is the hard part) you spend according to the plan that your budget has laid out. That's if you're sensible. If you're not, you make a slapdash attempt at budgeting, miss a few vital expenditures (oops, you forgot to include vet bills for the cat), and have a hard time resisting impulse spending. And your solution when you come up short is to dip into overdraft, the line of credit, or apply for another credit card.

So when the city prepares its budget, one would hope that we start with the basics, identify necessary projects, set aside something for emergencies, and then look to finding efficiencies, because nobody likes to go to the public for more tax dollars without being able to show that your current taxes are giving you good value for your money. One would hope that it would happen that way, but we haven't been preparing budgets following a process like that for the last few years, and this year, the assumption before we started (an assumption that wasn't approved by council, by the way), was that we would spend the way we did last year, plus more.

And that, apparently in the minds of some, is successful budgeting. It gets even more ironic when you consider that, at the last council meeting, we approved adding $20,000 to the budget for additional transit hours, with no plan as to where that money is to come from. One councillor did try to suggest that we take the money from the bridge maintenance budget, claiming that the report for that project that we had been given some time ago was inaccurate, but since we lacked a new report which showed this, his motion wasn't supported.

And then yesterday Andrea asked me why the city was going to borrow $12 million to meet current operating expenditures. She had gone to the city website to check out a press release on why the green ash in the city have large expanses of leafless branches, to see if the city's reason and prognosis for the trees matched hers (as a forester, she notices these things). Anyway, while on the website she wandered about, greatly amused by the press release announcing "Proud to be PA Day", which was apparently last Sunday (oh, did you miss it too? Just another sound bite creation out of city hall that council had nothing to do with), when her eye was caught by public notice of a borrowing bylaw that will be brought forward at the next council meeting on July 12.

The city does borrow money in the short term. Like all borrowed money, it needs to be paid back. And it is usually for individual projects, not for ongoing operating expenditures. That's like putting your groceries on your credit card because you don't have enough money in the bank to pay cash or by debit card. It will get you groceries, but at some point, you'll have to pay the money back, and interest charges will be involved.

I realize that, at this point in the year, not everybody will have paid their taxes. I realize that we need to do some borrowing to ensure that the cheques don't bounce. This $12 million is within the amount of money that we are allowed to borrow, based on the restrictions set out in The Cities Act. That total amount is based on our overall tax revenue, and currently is about $40 million, although we have $20 million in outstanding long term loans. So at least we're not going to completely max out the credit card.

But even though I realize that we are following proper procedures for doing this borrowing, I will be asking how this amount compares to amounts borrowed in years past, what the borrowing costs will be, and how long the projection is for repayment. I will also ask what the alternatives are to short term borrowing, to see if perhaps next year, we can avoid these extra costs.

But wouldn't it be great if our finances were in such good shape that we didn't have to borrow almost one quarter of our budget, and instead had spending reserves of our own that we could borrow from, and then replenish, as taxes come in. Oh, yeah, I forgot, we spent those already.

"Let us all be happy and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with." - Charles Farrar Browne

Budget? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Budget

2010-06-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

With apologies to the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, for revising the quote from the bandits who steal from Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston.

But really, what else can you say when some members of council seem to think that the whole budget process is just an unnecessary action that they go through (as quickly as possible), only because The Cities Act says that a city council has to set a budget every year. But they don't want to spend a whole lot of time or effort on it - they would rather just spend tax payers' money whenever they want, on whatever pops into their mind. Why use the budget process to plan and set priorities and limits?

Why am I on another budget rant, when the whole budget process was over months ago?

Because at last week's Executive Committee meeting, it was decided to add $20,000 to the budget, to allow for additional transit costs. It has been decided that the city bus service should start fifteen minutes earlier every day, and end fifteen minutes later. This will add $30,000 to its cost to the city. However, the idea is that, between the increased fare costs, and the increased usage that this extra fifteen minutes on either of end of the service will bring, revenues will go up $10,000, so the actual hit on the budget will be only $20,000. We can only hope that it's that low.

But isn't it a good idea to encourage more use of public transit? Of course it is, although council wasn't shown any studies or surveys that were done showing that there is a great demand for this additional service, any more than there were studies showing that the new transit mall being built on 14th Street behind the old OK Economy building (also currently over budget by a couple of hundred thousand dollars, for which we're hoping the federal government will cough up some more funds) would increase ridership on the buses.

My point is that, worthy cause or not, all proposed expenditures should be brought up as part of the budget process. If we followed the process, then all the various things that we could spend money on could be weighed, both their costs and potential benefits, and as a council we could set a spending plan for the year that wouldn't contain such surprises. There will always be emergencies, of course, and for those, part of the budget process should also set aside a contingency fund. And when you do things as part of the regular process, with the whole thing available to the public for comment and review, then as a council, you are being open and accountable.

Adding another item to the budget at this late date ignores the fact that the budget is the tool used to set the residential tax rate. That rate is set now; in fact, your taxes are due by this Wednesday. That's a big part of our operating money for this year. We can't increase our take from the good citizens of Prince Albert at this point, not this year, anyway.

This particular proposal isn't an emergency. And it isn't just a last minute thought, either. I had heard it mentioned a few times before the budget was prepared, but it wasn't in the budget, nor was it brought up during our mad rush through the approval process. Why it's being raised now I can only speculate on - perhaps it's because it's close to summer, and people won't be paying much attention; or perhaps the promoter of this particular idea doesn't think that he should have to follow the rules, because his ideas are just so darn good.

When it was pointed out that this wasn't in the budget, the response was predictable - "We'll just have to find the money somewhere." Well, if past years are any indication, we rarely underspend on anything - our contingency fund is usually scraped bare in adding to the budgets of various projects which go over-budget for a whole range of reasons. Unlike the days of Neat and Clean, there isn't a large slush fund to be accessed on a whim, either.

So at the end of the year, some projects already planned for will be delayed, others will silently die, and the fiscal reserve fund that at one point, under the leadership of other mayors, had $2.4 million in it, and this year has about $200,000, will be back down to zero, so we'd better pray for no real emergencies. And we will, once again, have failed to provide a good fiscal example to the tax payers, and some members of council will continue to think that this is how you lead a city.

"Unfortunately, you can fool too many of the people too much of the time." - James Thurber

Information, Please

2010-06-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

It should go without saying that the more information that you have, the better decisions you are able to make. One would also hope that this information would be as complete as possible, and be provided with enough time to be reviewed.

Too often, with this council, we're expected to make decisions quickly, without sufficient information. This means, sadly, often decisions that are then regretted later, when the full impact of those decisions is realized too late.

This year's budget discussions were an excellent example of this - insufficient information, which we then had to rush through, for no good reason. And now, we're living with the result. I had another member of council ask me why we spend money replanting ferns in the flower beds around City Hall - this expense might not be required, since ferns are a perennial that spread easily and enthusiastically. But this councillor didn't take the time, or ask questions, about that part of the budget, instead voting to support something without reviewing it thoroughly and asking questions to find out the details of how money is being spent, to note areas such as this where cost savings could have been realized. So when I pointed out that this is just one result of supporting the budget, and the rushed process, the response that I got was "but there wasn't time." Again, a misconception based on taking the information offered by some members of council and adminstration at face value - that the budget has to be passed as quickly as possible. If this councillor had done a bit of research, even just checking to see when other communities pass their budget, or looking over the past ten years to see when our budget bylaw has been passed, such research would have shown that some years, the budget hasn't been passed until late May, with sufficient time for questions and well-researched answers.

And at last week's council meeting we had a couple more examples of rushing to decisions without having all the information. In the first, discussion was raised around the previous week's Executive Committee meeting vote, in which council had approved the removal of a controlled crosswalk at Sixth Avenue West, because the electrical box controlling the crosswalk was blocking motorists sight-lines. In fact, one councillor declared himself giddy at this coming before council, claiming that it was something that he had been working towards for quite some time. However, this week, after realizing that removing the electrical box would mean removal of the cross-walk, we have decided to send this back to administration for another look. Perhaps if we hadn't tried to rush to the solution before reviewing all of the implications of that decision, we wouldn't look as though we were reversing ourselves.

Another example is with the ongoing battle for the parking lot at the Belly-Up Bar. When the requirements for the parking lot were provided by administration, the bar owner did some of his own research, and found out that the requirements were not those for the size of parking lot which is being proposed. As a result, what we thought was a way to move forward has been delayed once again, because incorrect information was provided, for reasons that haven't been explained. If we are going to have more stringent requirements in this case, we have to be sure that all similar situations are being treated in the same way; that's the only way to be seen as being fair. As well, this new information was not provided to us on the Monday morning of council, as the local paper reported, but at the start of the actual meeting, 7 p.m., so that there was absolutely no way of reviewing it before the meeting. As you may have figured out, this is frustrating when one is trying to move ahead with resolving issues.

Sometimes it seems as though accurate, timely information is getting harder and harder to obtain from City Hall. It shouldn't be that way. Everyone involved, from council through all levels of administration, should recognize the importance of getting information out quickly to anyone who is interested enough to ask questions. Those of us to do ask questions shouldn't be treated as though we are nosing about in areas that we have no right to ask about. In fact, it should be the other way around. Those who cheerfully vote on issues without asking any questions ahead of time, or take direction from other members of council without considering the long-term impact of making decisions that way, should be asked why they have given up their responsibility to carry out the job of member of council to the best of their ability.

Information - the more we have, and the more we use it, the better off the city will be.

"The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes." - Mark Twain

FCM in Toronto

2010-06-06T17:43:00.001-07:00

This year's annual meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was held in Toronto the last week in May. Everyone from the current council attended this, which rarely happens, but perhaps the lure of Canada's biggest city, with all its attractions, was an opportunity too good to be missed. Of course, while it was cold and rainy in Prince Albert, it was extremely hot and humid in Toronto - not my favourite weather, but I shouldn't complain.

About 1,500 delegates, plus civic administrators, plus a fair number of spouses, makes for a huge conference. There are several days of educational sessions, as well as tours of various city facilities and initiatives - a full range of topics from cultural through housing, green initiatives, waste management - it's a long list, and the hardest thing is selecting which sessions and tours will be most beneficial. And of course, there are also social gatherings, which provide the opportunity to network, catch up with old friends, and meet new ones.

I enjoy FCM because it's the chance to learn how other municipalities are trying to deal with their issues. While we may be much smaller, we can still learn from what other cities try, and adapt their initiatives to our own community. For instance, affordable housing is a concern everywhere, and in Toronto, it's quite common to see people living on the street, sleeping near warm air vents, and spending the day moving about with shopping carts full of their possessions. So Toronto spends quite a bit of effort trying to find housing solutions - one example that we were shown was an old hotel that had been converted to men's housing - people are allowed to live there for up to four years, recognizing that for some social problems, there are no quick fixes. But to help them, services are available right on site - things like employment services, addiction counselling and social workers. These services are available to others in the community, not just the residents, but they are closest to those who might have the hardest time accessing them otherwise.

New housing initiatives, such as new developments along the waterfront, are required to include a mixture of housing types, from high-end condo developments through affordable housing, including some Habitat for Humanity homes. Toronto has recognized that all of its residents deserve to have decent, safe places to live, and is doing what it can to make that happen. And it makes a conscious effort to put services and amenities close to where people live, so that they are accessible to the maximum number of users.

Toronto is, of course, of a size that's hard to imagine when you live in Prince Albert. It's population is more than 3 times that of Saskatchewan, but crammed into a relatively small space. Last Sunday, the Toronto Star (yes, the newspaper is out seven days a week), interviewed ten delegates, three of whom were from Saskatchewan, to find out what the best and worst things were about Toronto. Uniformly, people liked the variety of things that you can do there; they also found the number of people and buildings the worst thing.

But despite its size, it's very easy to get around there - it has a first class public transportation system - subways, streetcars and buses, all interlinked. And, because there are so many people around, in the downtown area, day and night, I never feel in danger. That's not to say that there aren't incidents - Councillor Miller and I were sitting on a bench at Nathan Phillips Square after attending a reception at Toronto's City Hall (where, incidentally, her husband Dave got his picture taken with another David Miller, that one the mayor of Toronto), when there was a bit of a scuffle in a group near us. Tour bus drivers who were parked nearby came to help, and then police on bicycles were there very quickly. We're still not sure what happened, but help, and the police, were very close at hand.

For me, a bonus was seeing family that I don't get to see that often due to geography. My sister Laurie and her husband Don drove in from Fergus one evening, and we had supper and a good visit. I had breakfast with Andrea's sister Rhondda one morning (she's a nurse at St. Michael's Hospital, which is right downtown, but lives near Peterborough, about an hour's drive east of the city), and the next day had lunch and some time with her husband Nathan, (who was at a conference at the same hotel as I was staying), and their daughter, my niece Gillian, who was thrilled to tour the FCM trade show with me, and pick up all kinds of goodies. And I had supper one evening with Andrea's sister Fiona, her husband Stu, and Andrea's brother Len, who all live in Toronto. It was good to catch up on family news, and share the usual family jokes.

Although I certainly enjoyed my time in Toronto, it's good to be back. Now we have to figure out how to put whatever we learned there to work.

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." - George Burns

A Couple of Forthcoming Motions

2010-05-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

One of the procedural rules of council is what is called "notice of motion". Members of council can't just put forward a motion on the spur of the moment. Instead, the process is to notify council that at the next meeting, you intend to introduce a motion about a specific topic. Then, at that next meeting, hopefully with a seconder prepared to help you get it on the floor for discussion, you present the actual motion.

Once you have made the notice, you are then required to either make the motion, or withdraw it. In the last term of council, one member made a notice of motion, which then turned out to be more complicated than he thought it would be (renaming city facilities may offend those who were involved in the initial naming, I guess), but instead of withdrawing his notice, he chose instead to rise in each subsequent meeting to postpone introducing the motion. I suppose, with the end of the last council term, his notice just died, but it indicates the importance of doing your homework, and knowing procedure, before giving notice.

Anyway, at tomorrow's meeting (delayed one day because of Victoria Day) a couple of members of council will be introducing motions for which they gave notice at the last meeting.

One notice had to do with a proposal to stop all street oiling by 2012. For those of you who live in newer parts of town, you may not be aware of this practice, but for those of us who live in areas where not all streets are paved, this is an ongoing, if environmentally questionable practice, intended to help reduce the dust that flies about in the summer. Until a few years ago, the avenue that runs past our house was oiled every year, which was a pain on oiling day, as we had to keep our animals out of the oil, and Andrea had to detour in her walk home from work, to avoid getting oil on her shoes. Fortunately, the avenue was subject to the modified paving program, so there's no more oiling, although the modified paving has proven not to last, and those avenues and streets where this was done are now starting to fall apart.

The cost of oiling is included on an affected residential tax bill, as a local improvement. Residents on a street or avenue can petition against oiling, but are then left with the dust. The current street paving program requires that residents who want to have their street paved must get a petition signed by the majority of residents - not always easy to do, since it means an increase in the tax bill for all residents.

No question, oiling is not the thing to do environmentally. But I'm not sure if some councillors aren't rushing to show how environmentally friendly they are without considering what alternatives we should be offering. Are we now going to embark on a program to pave all city streets? If so, we should be aware of what the costs are, and figure out how those costs are going to be covered. As well, we need to do the job right - modified paving may be cheaper to start with, but the ongoing maintenance requirements quickly push the long-term costs considerably higher.

I'll be interested to see if the councillor who made the notice of motion has considered all of the implications in carrying out such a motion.

Another notice of motion was made by the mayor. His motion is to have council meetings start at 5 p.m., year round, rather than the current practice of starting at 7 (except for summer months). Rather than having Committee of the Whole meetings immediately before the Council Meeting (that's our in camera session that usually starts at 4 p.m.), these meetings would instead be held before Executive Committee meetings (which usually start at 5 p.m.) on alternate weeks.

I'm interested in hearing what the rationale will be for this change. In my opinion, having council meetings start at 5 p.m. is another step in making our decision-making processes harder for the public to access. I have to wonder if Shaw Cable will be able to get its volunteers out to broadcast meetings that start exactly when most people's work days are ending. It also makes it less convenient for council members who hold a nine-to-five job to get there for start time. That may not affect many current councillors, but these changes may make being on council less convenient for those thinking of letting their name stand in the future.

About the only benefit that I can think could come from this might be that tax-payers would no longer be funding an evening meal for most members of council (I no longer participate in this meal, since I heard clearly from city residents that they didn't think that this practice was right). But that would be a small benefit, compared to the cost of making council deliberations harder for people to follow.

Some members of the current council talk endlessly about being open and accountable, but their actions - passing items discussed at Executive in blocks, rather than discussing them individually at the actual council meeting, rushing through budget discussions in a single day, and even refusing to open up critical sections of the budget or provide information about operating costs of city-funded facilities - instead say that they don't believe that council or its decisions should be open to the average citizen, the people who are actually paying the bills. Too often, it seems that the discussions about various aspects of running the city are happening behind closed doors, with the final council vote a mere formality.

I know that there are members of council who think that they know what is best for the city, without asking for outside opinions. I know that there are those who think that discussing things in private, and figuring out how to get the results that will benefit them and their supporters, is the way that the world works. But I still believe that if we are doing the right thing, we shouldn't be trying to hide our processes, but instead we should be trying to be as open and forthright as possible. We all need to recognize that, although we have been elected, that election didn't automatically confer wisdom or infallibility. And sadly, the record of some of our actions really underscores our need to consult more widely and discuss more fully.

Just once, wouldn't it be nice if we thought of what might make things easier for the tax-payer, rather than figuring out how to keep our actions less visible.

"The smaller the mind, the greater the conceit." - Aesop

Learning the Rules of the Game

2010-05-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

In my previous term on council, I suggested that council could use some outside advice on how it operated - people seemed to not understand how the council process worked, or what their role, as members of council, should be when it came to decision-making. Most of my then colleagues didn't see the need for such assistance, with one council member suggesting that it was too far along in the term for such advice to be of any benefit.

And now, with this newer council, I'm seeing many of the same problems. Members of council don't appear to be familiar with such basic actions as making motions, or how to allow fellow councillors to make their motions without being interrupted, or how to properly chair a meeting, or when it's appropriate to abstain from voting, or what the various parts of the agenda are to be used for. And it's not that the information isn't out there - it's just that, with the current council and administration, each councillor needs to do their own homework.

This was emphasized to me after the last council meeting, when one of my favourite constituents called me, to ask why things seemed so disorganized, and why the council member who was chairing part of the meeting was allowed to question the councillor who was trying to make a motion, rather than allowing her to finish. Part of it might be bad manners, part of it might be confusion over the responsibility of the meeting chair - the person in that position is merely the traffic coordinator, not the boss, and as chair, is not supposed to participate in discussion at all.

The motion in question was to have council do something that is already their responsibility - have committee appointments come to council, rather than decided solely by the mayor, without any review by council as a whole. Committees are supposed to be appointed by council; this council chose to give away that responsibility earlier this term, when they allowed the mayor to make all appointments without questioning either the process or the results. As a council, we have the authority - we just chose to give it away. As with most authority, once you've given it away, it's hard to get back. But making a motion to get something that we already have isn't the way to correct the situation.

At that same meeting I used my time during councillors' forum to ask where in the Police Act legislation it said that the police budget was to be kept confidential, and couldn't be shared with the public. I raised the question, because when I asked during the budget vote why we weren't provided with the complete police budget, I was told that it wasn't allowed under legislation. I've been told things that aren't true frequently by both adminstration and other members of council, so I did some searching through the legislation myself, and couldn't find anything. And because the budget is no longer on the agenda, I couldn't ask the question during the main part of the meeting. But councillors' forum is not intended to be a mere recital of social engagements that one has attended on behalf of the city, it is supposed to be for councillors to raise concerns and ideas that are outside the regular agenda, but still worthy of raising. I'm surprised that a veteran councillor first resorted to name calling (suggesting that I'm a whiner for asking a question about information that has been improperly withheld), then told me that I was misusing councillors' forum. Okay, I'm not that surprised, because it seems that most councillors are just willing to go along with the crowd, and not make waves or ask questions, because then they might be punished by being removed from a committee that is dear to them.

Part of the problem is that people come on to council with only a vague idea of how things work. Most have never attended a meeting, or reviewed a budget. Most don't know (and neither does the general public, I'd bet), that we don't follow Robert's Rules of Order, but a different system- that's why the chair gets a vote every time, not just when there's a tie. Most rely on other members of council for guidance - this is fine, up to a point, but we have to remember that other members may not know any more than you do, or may have their own agendas. I remember one member of a previous council who said that you were supposed to vote the way the mayor did, simply because he was the mayor. I can only imagine where he got that idea.

When it comes right down to it, council members are not elected to be rubber stamps. We each have a responsibility and obligation to educate ourselves about the job - each member should read The Cities Act at least once, for example - that's the law that we're supposed to follow. And each council member needs to follow their own principles and beliefs, and not vote just because you think that it will make things easier for you down the line. And don't be afraid to ask people who are no longer on council how things were in the past - they can provide useful advice, without the biases that current members of council may have.

It's a tough job, without much training available. But to continue to fumble along, to the point where people watching start to wonder why we look confused, shouldn't be considered our only option.

"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary." - Robert Louis Stevenson

A Small Tale of Crime

2010-04-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

Last June, I was barbecuing some burgers for lunch, after being out all morning. While I was barbecuing, I heard the garage door opening, and looked up to see a kid, maybe twelve, sneaking down the driveway. I chased him, but he had the advantage of a head start, and being some forty years younger, although I did get close enough for him to turn and threaten to hit me. I wish that he had - I would have grabbed him. When I got back to the house, Andrea said that when she had arrived home for lunch there was a young girl sitting on a bike in the driveway. When Andrea asked what she was up to, she said that she was looking for her brother, then she rode away.

When I looked in the garage, I saw that Guthrie's bike had been taken down from the rafters. So, in retrospect, I guess these two criminals-in-training had been interrupted - the girl acting as lookout, closing the garage door so the boy could get the bicycle down without being observed. The girl rode about the neighbourhood for awhile, probably wondering if the boy was still inside the garage. I actually saw him that afternoon in city hall square - when he saw me he took off. And I saw him a couple of weeks ago, riding a bike around the Co-op parking lot - I almost stopped to ask him where he'd stolen it from.

Fast forward to this past Friday morning - I was heading upstairs to the attic to check out my emails, when I saw this same kid looking in the bed of a pick-up truck parked behind one of the apartment buildings behind our house. While I watched, he hopped into the bed of the truck, then slid the back window of the cab open and squeezed in. I called the police.

By the time I got out to the back alley, he had taken off, running between the houses toward Ninth Street. The truck alarm was going off, and the owner of the truck soon came out. As I was talking to her, the police arrived. I told the officer where the kid had gone, and he went off to look for him. Then we saw the kid coming down the back alley, having removed his jacket. The truck owner and I confronted him, and he took off. I called dispatch to ask them to let the officer know that the kid was no longer wearing the jacket, and the dispatch person told me that they were not going to pursue this, because the truck owner had said that she knew the kid. Then we saw the police vehicle pass the kid, now strolling casually down Ninth Street, the proud owner of at least one new CD.

Now, what the truck owner had told the officer was that she thought that she knew the kid, that possibly his grandmother lived in her building. What she hadn't said was that it was okay for him to have broken into her truck, but that seems to be the conclusion that both the officer and dispatch came to. I told dispatch this, and the next thing I know, the officer is at my door, after having paid a visit to the truck owner, to ask me what my problem is.

According to the truck owner, when the officer stopped in to talk to her, he advised her against pressing charges, because to do so would likely result in some form of retaliation, such as her tires being slashed. So apparently, when these petty crimes happen, we're not supposed to call the police, because they are unwilling to do anything, even when the criminal is identifiable, and walking past you.

So, yes, I have a problem. Two, actually. The first is that, given the opportunity to let a kid know that there are consequences to breaking into a vehicle and stealing someone else's property, the officer chose to do nothing. The second is that the officer actively discouraged the victim from pressing charges, because to do so might encourage the criminal to take further action.

I will say that I have since been contacted by the police, who have told me that they know this kid, that there are parenting issues, because apparently he doesn't go to school, but that they are going to follow up with the family. And I appreciate their attention to this, somewhat after the fact. Although I wonder what the odds are of there being some sort of improvement to behaviour, if the family doesn't care enough to get the kid to school.

Now, I know that the police are busy. I know that crimes like shootings and murder are of much greater importance than truck break-ins. But I can't help but think that the time taken for follow-up visits with both the crime victim and me would have been more productive if instead the officer had grabbed the kid, put him in the back seat of the car, and suggested to him that he was going to be on their radar, and any time they saw him in a back alley or hanging about with other kids, they would be pulling over to find out what he was up to. Or why not just toss him in a cell for a few hours, then follow up with the family? In other words, put some fear into him of the consequences of breaking the law, no matter how relatively minor it may seem.

It seemed somewhat ironic to read in the paper that same day that, according to a speech given by the police chief at a Chamber of Commerce lunch, their approach to crime is to "fix it (criminal behaviour) at the lowest level". He even suggests paying "a lot of attention to" people in the fifteen to twenty-four age group, since it's people in that age range who commit the most crimes. This kid is younger than that - now would be the time to let him and other junior criminals know that this behaviour is not acceptable - to me, that would be a logical action to take if the police are serious about this approach.

So that's my crime story for this week - nothing major, but sadly, a newcomer to our city (the truck owner) has had a not very positive experience, and a kid who hangs around my neighbourhood has not been discouraged from what will likely turn out to be a life of ever-escalating crime. But I won't forget what he looks like, and I'll be watching.

"Pardon one offence, and you encourage the commission of many." - Publius Syrus

The Budget Vote

2010-04-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

The budget meeting last week, sadly, wasn't much of a surprise. Despite the glaring inadequacies of both the process and the resulting documents, I was the only member of council to vote against what really is an incomplete effort, both in process and in result.

In fact, this really isn't a budget in the true sense of the word. It sets out, in varying levels of detail, how we propose to spend money this year, and how much more money we will be taking from the taxpayer to fund these efforts. But there was no attempt made to look at previous spending (in fact, when I raised the issue one councillor even claimed that we'd agreed to stick with status quo spending - obviously at one of those meetings that I wasn't invited to). There was no setting of objectives. There was no plan as to how to meet our various obligations - only deferral of things like road maintenance (where our neglected obligations are already at a multi-million dollar level) to some vague future time, when the costs will certainly be greater.

If this were our own personal budget, that's one thing. Let's say you're setting your own household budget. If you decide, for example, to continue buying a full cable package, even though the person in the family who wanted all the sports channels has moved out, well, it's your money. If you want to spend it on non-essentials like cable channels that you no longer watch, rather than fixing the roof, you'll be the one stuck for the damage when the roof starts leaking. But for council, it's not our money, it's the taxpayers who have to trust us not to spend more than we have to, who have to trust us to look at every expenditure to see if it's necessary, and who have to trust us to be spending their money first, on the necessities, then on the nice to haves. Taxpayers could certainly ask why, for example, the mayor and the city manager each need two administrative assistants, for a total of four, when in previous administrations the mayor and the city manager were able to get by sharing one. Ironically, before the budget, it was announced that $4,000 would be cut from the mayor's office budget. That savings was going to be accomplished by leaving one admin assistant position vacant for a month. However, even that small savings won't be realized, since the position has now been speedily filled after a councillor had the temerity to ask during the budget meeting if the position was really necessary.

We also should follow our own policies when doing the budget. For instance, our policy says that we require financial reports from all the entities that we support - the library, the Art Hauser Centre, the Rawlinson Centre, for example, before we approve granting them money for another year. Yet again, the Rawlinson Centre has not provided financials for last year. Not only do we continue to fund them, but this year we have decided to give them an additional $50,000, without even a written request as to why this additional funding is needed. When this sort of thing happens, people start to question what appear to be backroom deals. We talk about being open and accountable, but our actions are exactly the opposite.

We received, once again, a grant from the Northern Lights Casino. This grant is supposed to be used for things that are over and above regular city responsibilities. This year, the money was rolled into the budget, rather than being dealt with separately. This is just wrong, and shouldn't even have been considered.

And finally, and most significantly, the police budget came in with no detail. This has not happened before in my ten years on council. All of a sudden, we are supposed to assume that the police commission is not to be questioned on matters of budget, even though last year they originally budgeted $24,000 for a remote control gadget (which came out of the plans after it was made public), and this year we found out that the local police department replaces its vehicles after only two years of use, even though a bit of investigation by a reporter showed that no other community in western Canada replaces vehicles that quickly. The question that I'm hearing from the public now is "What are they hiding?" If you have a reasonable budget, you shouldn't be afraid to let people see it.

Of course, the response that I got from one councillor was "that's all we legally have to provide". I suppose that legally, he's right. Ethically, it stinks. Perhaps next year the entire budget will be approached that way, as it already is for the police, and the mayor's office budget - forget any detail, let's just have one number for capital expenditures, one for operating expenditures. Because legally, perhaps that's all that's required.

So, after all's said and done, aren't we stuck with this budget? Is it too late to fix it? No, it's not too late. I remember years when the budget wasn't set until May, and somehow, we survived. I realize that a great deal of work has been done; the problem is, the job isn't finished. And instead of just throwing up our hands and accepting a substandard job, we should be digging in, asking questions, cutting unnecessary expenditures, figuring out how we're going to deal with the backlog of poorly maintained roads and lead pipes still in place.

And we should be sharing this process with the public, and seeing how we can improve how we tell people about how we're spending their money.

I can't support this budget, and I can't support the process that was followed. So my only option is to vote against the budget bylaw. I can't support actions of council that so directly contradict the basic tenets of democracy, and that fly in the face of all the promises that are made during elections, and when council is first sworn in.

Open and accountable - no. Closed and arrogant - yes. Sadly, that's not nearly as catchy a slogan.

"It is no use saying 'we are doing our best'. You have to succeed in doing what is necessary." Winston Churchill

A Job Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Well - Or Maybe Not

2010-03-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

The pattern of the previous council of treating the budget process as a sprint, rather than a well-thought through marathon, has sadly continued with the current council. I can see so many opportunities for improvement in the process, that would likely result in an improved product that better served the tax payers of Prince Albert, but there doesn't seem to be much appetite for improvement around the council table, or with city administration.

To begin before the beginning, council as a whole was not asked for input before city staff began developing the budget - no questions about priorities, goals, or objectives. It could be compared to going to a travel agent to plan a vacation, and they develop a complete plan without asking you where you want to go, what sights you're interested in, or how much money you have to spend. The opportunity to do this could have happened in November, at our so-called strategic planning session, but it didn't.

As well, the assumption is made that whatever is currently being spent will continue that way. The option of zero-based budgeting, in which every current expenditure is looked at, evaluated, and justified, might show some areas for cost-savings - are there some city positions that are currently vacant, that perhaps don't need to be filled, for example. If we increased our vehicle maintenance budget, could we perhaps extend their life, and save money in the long run, would be another example. But apparently it's not worth the effort of thorough examination. Expectations that city facilities such as the Rawlinson Centre submit financial reports before the budgeting process are ignored by administration, who instead suggest increases to organizations which don't even bother to report on how they're spending tax payers' dollars.

And some areas of the budget are not provided in any detail. This year, the budget contained no detail about what is included in the mayor's office budget, for example, or in the budget for the city manager's office. And, most egregiously, and for the first time (although the director of finance tried to tell me that we never receive details on this) the police budget was a single line, with no detail about how they propose to spend more than 11 million dollars, more than 30% of the total city budget. And when I asked to see last year's police budget for a comparison, administration refused to provide it to me.

As I have often pointed out, we rush through our review in a ludicrous amount of time. Council members received budget documents last Friday, March 19. The public didn't have access until Monday, and the public meeting about the budget was on Wednesday - less than two days to review almost a thousand pages of numbers - I've been reviewing city budgets for ten years, and it's never been an easy process, since there's always cross-referencing and moving between the capital and the operating budgets, to find out where items are. No wonder there were only three submissions from the public, and the meeting was over in nineteen minutes.

Then council is supposed to meet on the Friday and Saturday to review the budget, which we've had for less than a week. I'm lucky - I don't have a job outside of council. Other councillors with full-time jobs, or who are taking courses, have to work their way through the documents in less time than I have.

Although we set aside two days to review the budget line by line, this is the fourth year that we've only used half that time, and believe me, the documents haven't gotten any thinner. Items are numbered, and the expectation of the chair seems to be that we can review items in blocks of more than 100 or more - it's hard to keep up, to comment on or ask questions about those items that I've highlighted in my review, and comments and questions are not encouraged.

We started the review at 9 a.m.. We broke for lunch at 12:30, went back at 1:30, then carried on until 6 p.m. Any suggestion that we break for the evening, then reconvene in the morning, wasn't brought forward, since the mood of some in the room was getting a bit testy. Taking a break, then meeting again in the morning, as was already scheduled, would have given us a chance to review what we had done, and ask any questions that might have gotten lost in the blur of speeding through the pages.

The next council meeting will be April 12, at which time we will vote to pass or reject the budget. For council, that's less than a month to review, discuss, and approve a document that in essence sets out our priorities, and decides what is done for the city for the next twelve months. Somehow, I feel that we should put more time and effort into the process - as with most things, the result would probably be something that everyone would feel better about.

"Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything." - Wyatt Earp

Another Landfill Debate

2010-03-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

At Executive Committee this week we had our annual discussion on free weeks at the landfill. With previous councils, free landfill week was in the spring, to fit with most people's time for cleaning up the yard. With this council, we've had four, and last year, five, weeks when people could drop off waste free of charge, to encourage a cleaner city.

Every free week results in $10,000 of lost revenue to the city. These weeks are also subject to abuse, as residents from outside the city take advantage of the opportunity to drop their waste off without charge. And when you take advantage of these weeks, particularly on the Friday and Saturday, the line-ups are long.

Every year for the last three years I have asked if there is a different way of providing Prince Albert residents with the same benefit, while not providing the same benefit to non-taxpayers. I have suggested that each resident get a tag, or tags, if we're going to offer this benefit for multiple weeks. That way, you could use your free week when it met your needs, line-ups would be shorter, and we would remove the opportunity for abuse from non-residents. Tags could be included with water bills - if we can include free advertising for a Raiders fund-raising effort, as was done with the last water bill, surely we could include a tag, or perhaps a punch card, to allow free access to the dump.

And every year, the response from some members of council is predictable - we don't need to change, this would be too complicated. At least this year they have recognized the abuse of the current system from non-residents, so a solution has been suggested. This year, your driver's licence will be checked, to ensure that you are a Prince Albert resident. That will help with the line-ups, I'm sure.

I'm not sure why there is so much resistance to trying to improve the system, while still encouraging residents to clean up their yards. And if the real problem that we're trying to solve is the unrelenting garbage that is one of the least attractive characteristics of this city, more free landfill weeks isn't doing anything to change that. I'm at the point now of thinking that, because of the costs in these tight budget times, we should be reducing the free services that we offer to residents, not continuing to offer them just because they're popular. Sometimes our responsibility is to do the right thing, not the popular thing.

This week is budget week. I'm currently forging my way through two extremely thick budget binders that were delivered on Friday afternoon. The public meeting on the budget is Wednesday - apparently the budget is not yet available on the city web-site, which means that expecting the public to be able to comment in any kind of depth on the budget is unfair, to say the least. Then council will have its budget meetings on Friday and Saturday, although last year's budget meeting lasted only half a day - a ridiculously short time to devote to the most important action that council takes all year. As I say every year at this time, I'm not sure why the rush - it's not like prizes are given for finishing first.

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - John F. Kennedy

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

2010-03-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not. A proposal came to council from a local company, asking approval to set up an electronic sign at the Tourism Centre, with the possibility of putting up other signs along other corridors through the city. These signs could be used for advertising, both for companies, but also for community events. Being electronic, they could be updated rapidly. And they had the full support of the people at Tourism, who welcomed the opportunity for a new way of getting the news out about what Prince Albert has to offer.

Interestingly, the initial recommendation, without even discussing possible pros and cons, was to reject the proposal. As always, the reasons cited were interesting, with the phrase "We don't want to be opening up a Pandora's box here" coming from one councillor. You would think from that rather cliched phrase, that this is some kind of new, unproven, possibly dangerous idea, that other communities have rejected. Or that by agreeing to one sign we would be giving blanket approval for these signs to be everywhere. It ignores the fact that these signs are already here, even located at city-owned facilities. For example - there's one at the casino. There's one at SIAST. There's one at Carlton. These signs advertise functions at those facilities. And there's one at the Art Hauser Centre, on city-owned property, although the advertising revenues from that one go to the Raiders, not the city. And the concern raised about third parties being able to advertise on the proposed signs ignores the fact that third parties advertise on the Art Hauser Centre sign, so far without causing any sort of disaster that I'm aware of.

I supported this idea for a number of reasons. An agreement with the sign company would have set out the revenue-sharing options - perhaps some could have gone to the sign company, some to the city, some to Tourism, and some to various city-owned facilities that can't support themselves, like the Rawlinson Centre. This would not be money from the taxpayer, but money from an outside source. I thought that such signs would also be a good opportunity to advertise and perhaps increase usage of city facilities - for example, coming into town you could see what was on at the Rawlinson Centre, and perhaps even if there were seats available for whatever event was on that evening. And such signs I think would be a vast improvement over those ugly portable jobs with flourescent lettering that currently blight Second Avenue West, advertising everything from insurance brokers to fast food to Arts Centre activities to upcoming events at the Rawlinson.

But we didn't even get the chance to discuss the options. No discussion, just fear of getting in too deep. Before we make such decisions, I think that it would be better if we looked at each opportunity as just that, perhaps learning from other cities what measures they have taken to take advantage of new technologies to help their communities, rather than reacting with fear over how trying new things might affect our old ways of doing business.

It's similar to our accepting at face value the recommendation from the Police Commission that we replace police vehicles every two years (which we've done ahead of the actual budgeting process, which will once again limit our options once we get there), before finding out that other Saskatchewan cities have a replacement time of three to five years, perhaps because they have found vehicles that last longer. But we don't take the time to do the research, and it seems that we often end up paying more, or missing out on opportunities, without any good reason for doing so.

"If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting." - Stephen Covey

A Bit More Soccer Centre Information

2010-03-07T14:07:00.000-08:00

After last week's blog entry about some of my ongoing questions about the soccer centre, imagine my surprise when we were told after Executive Committee that there would be a special meeting of council to update us on the soccer centre project. This meeting happened on Thursday afternoon, out at the centre. For me, it was my first time out there (I wasn't able to attend the tour of facilities given to new councillors at the beginning of the term) - it's bigger than I expected, and still under construction (and over budget - they figure that they're still about $150,000 short for construction costs, which will be met by keeping the levy on taxpayers until 2015 - the original budget of $11.1 million would have had the levy go only until 2011 - the new budget is close to $16.9 million.)

Unfortunately, the questions still outnumber the answers. At this stage of the game, for a project of this size, which is taking a direct hit on everybody's tax bill for its construction, and for which taxpayers will likely continue to for pay the operating costs, this is not being handled in ways that can be considered either open or accountable.

There is still no logical answer on why this location was selected. The entire contingency fund for the project was taken up with dealing with the excessive water on the site - one has to wonder why basic soil testing wasn't required before making the decision. I haven't yet seen the meeting minutes from when the decision was made, but on Thursday, it was suggested that part of the logic was the the First Nations University of Canada might consider building in the area - I have no idea whether any conversations about that had taken place, or whether this is just searching for possible justification after the deed is done. If we were looking for a location close to a post-secondary institution, why wasn't land close to SIAST considered for a site? The city actually owns some land there - perhaps that would have kept costs down a little. There are even two soccer pitches close by - they're having to build new outdoor soccer pitches by the new centre.

At various times we've been told that the Health Region would be able to use the building, that this was part of a partnership for healthier living. Well, we now know that the building as constructed won't accommodate the Health Region - we also now know that part of the recipe for healthier living is to offer at the canteen such healthy alternatives as hot dogs and slushes - the kind of options that school boards are in the process of removing from their cafeterias in the name of healthier eating.

Although it has been suggested that this will be a multi-use facility, the artificial turf being installed is only suitable for soccer. And no showers are being installed in the dressing rooms - apparently soccer players don't need such amenities, although it certainly might make it more attractive for other users (and for friends and families of sweaty soccer players). Exactly who these other users might be isn't clear - there is space on the second floor for weight and cardio rooms, but no budget to pay for equipment for these rooms.

As I've said, I understand that facilities such as these make Prince Albert a better place to live, although this one appears to have a fairly limited focus and potential use. The capital levy for this project (the part that taxpayers will ultimately pay for) has doubled from $4 million to $8 million - that's a hefty price tag to expect the taxpayer to cough up for, if most are unlikely to ever directly benefit. And details about the project continue to be kept as closely guarded secrets - not the right way to handle a project if we truly intend to be open and accountable.

"There is at least one thing more brutal than the truth, and that is the consequence of saying less than the truth." - Ti-Grace Atkinson

The Soccer Centre - Still More Questions than Answers

2010-02-27T13:58:00.000-08:00

The first council meeting after a month-long break had some interesting topics. The one with the greatest potential impact on Prince Albert taxpayers was the tabling of the proposed operating budget for the soccer centre. We actually received it at Executive Committee the week before, and the topic has now been postponed until the next council meeting, March 8, because some questions are being raised about the recommendations for moving staff (and programs) from the Margo Fournier Centre to the soccer centre, to save soccer centre operating costs.

I raised a number of questions at council about the proposed operating costs. As most people are well aware, I've had questions about this project from the start, and I've never received timely or complete answers. With the previous council, my repeated requests for soccer committee meeting agendas, supposed to be readily available to the public prior to meetings, were not provided for two years. I also asked for meeting minutes to be provided; even after a year, only incomplete minutes were made available. As recently as this week, I was sent notice of a meeting which said that the agenda and minutes of the previous meeting were attached, but there were no attachments. I don't see how members of council can be expected to make decisions on matters when insufficient information is provided - whether this lack of information is inadvertent or deliberate, I don't know. I see that today's Herald, on the city page, has a number of tenders out for the soccer centre - everything from audio-visual equipment to a synthetic turf groomer - another step in the process that council was not made aware of.

A big question is why has the operating cost number quadrupled since the election campaign? You may recall that this question was asked, then answered, in letters to the editor in the local paper. And when it was answered, the answer was that the number had been made public in June (which wasn't the case - it was in a report delivered at an in camera council meeting), and that the operating costs would be $225,000 annually. Now, four months later, after the centre has been operating for a few months, we have a new number - $1 million annually. That's more than a bit of a change, to say the least.

Of course, we've never received an answer to the question of why that particular location was chosen - land that had to be purchased and serviced, rather than using land already owned by the city, and not so swampy that the initial cost of pilings went seriously over budget. The partial answer given at the time- that the health region would be able to have office space and programs in the building, and thus contribute to operating costs through rental of this space - appears to have been wishful thinking, since there turns out not to be sufficient space for them. When did this become apparent, and why were we not informed?

This is a new council, and we haven't yet been given an update on the project - is it on, over, or under budget? Are donations coming in on schedule, or are there some who won't be able to meet their commitments? I'm thinking that, at the very least, the $50,000 pledged by VL Futures won't be forthcoming.

The utilities costs are projected to be about $100,000 per year. No explanation was included as to where these numbers came from. Considering that the utilities costs for the Rawlinson Centre are $120,000 annually, and that building isn't open from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week, which is the plan for the soccer centre, it seems far too optimistic to project lower utilities costs, particularly when the building was not built to green standards, since this was deemed to be too expensive.

Additional staff will be needed to run this centre. Exactly how many, and what the costs will be, is another factor that isn't clear. It seems safe to assume that a building open for eighteen hours a day, seven days a week (longer than the Margo Fournier Centre) will require staffing for all that time - it shouldn't be that difficult to come up with a believable staffing projection, and the expected costs.

Is moving staff and programs from the Margo Fournier Centre realistic? Were the users of these programs consulted? Were staff? Did anyone consider the impact of removing programs and services from the downtown area on the people who live in the area? This is not an area with a lot of recreational options, and the proposal suggests taking what few there are away.

Projected revenues seem to be overly optimistic. For example, expecting large revenues from the canteen doesn't seem realistic. With the exception of tournaments, I doubt that there will be large crowds of spectators. It will be parents watching their kids practice and play, not people going out for a night of entertainment, such as at the Art Hauser Centre, where people buy season's tickets to watch the Raiders.

I understand that people like to live in a city with nice services - I do get that. But I also think that, before we embark on suggestions that come from a single interest group, we insist on the same due diligence that we would before committing to any city project, including construction, maintenance, and operating costs. I've heard several people say that we can add the soccer centre to other grand facilities that were built with volunteer donations and high hopes, but the result is that the city ends up running them, at a considerable loss, because all the focus was on raising the money for putting up the building, without enough thought given to the long term costs.

In the case of the soccer centre, the city right now is the biggest donor to the project, and we'll be the ones paying the bulk of the costs in the future, to keep the doors open. I think that it's only reasonable to be told, honestly and up front, what these costs are going to be, so that we can see if there are ways to economize. For instance, if the centre was open only half the hours, how much would that reduce the cost? If we chose to charge for parking, would that help? But please, let's restore some semblance of openness to the discussions, and answer any and all questions. At least when we know the answers, we'll be able to come up with a plan to deal with the problems. Without a plan, the unforeseen problems will be biting us in the budget for years to come.

"People will forget how fast you did a job - but they remember how well you did it." - Howard Newton

Some Thoughts from This Year's SUMA Convention

2010-02-07T15:33:00.000-08:00

Sunday through Wednesday last week was the annual SUMA convention, this year held in Regina. I look on these conventions as opportunities for learning, both formal and informal. The sessions labeled education sessions are meant to be exactly that - presentations from experts on various aspects of municipal governance and management. This year's topics included climate change, waste management, budgeting, and bylaws. There's also a keynote speaker, a speech from the Premier, and the opportunity to meet with individual cabinet ministers, and with cabinet as a whole. There's a trade show, so that you can find out about new products that might benefit your community, and social events, both formal (a banquet) and informal (a reception on the first evening, a hospitality night on the second). The banquet and the opening night reception weren't included in the convention cost, so Andrea and I opted out of those, instead sampling a couple of restaurants that were within walking distance of our hotel.

Probably the most informative session that I attended was the one on bylaw development. I had a particular interest in how bylaws could help us deal with boarded up houses, a long-standing problem for which we seem to be having difficulty finding a solution, in fact, I have been told a couple of times that there is no solution. When I asked the question of the experts, I was relieved to find out that other communities have dealt with the problem through development of a nuisance bylaw - the trick, of course, is to enforce the bylaw once it's developed.

The news from the premier that the share of the sales tax will not be increased this year was not a surprise to most of us - it will make budgeting this year even more difficult, and I think that council needs to look at cutting costs, big and small, wherever we can. The news about civic terms being increased to four years after the next election was a bit more of a surprise, since the discussions about that were more than a year ago. Personally, I don't think that the longer commitment will dissuade people from running for council, since most members of council run for multiple terms anyway. My approach to the job is the same in the first year of the term as the last, so I don't buy the argument that the last third of the term is spent campaigning, although I suppose some might approach it that way. But I do agree that the cost savings to the community will be considerable, although our costs also include school board elections, which right now still have the three year term.

Like most things in life, SUMA is something that you can always learn from, if you avail yourself of the opportunity. I do think that it would be more useful if it were more focused on cities - my preference would be to have a separate conference for cities, and another one for towns and villages, since our problems tend to be quite different. But I did enjoy the opportunity to learn some things, to meet up with colleagues from other communities, and to have a couple of evenings out with some of my fellow councillors and their spouses, sharing perspectives, ideas and a great deal of laughter.

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein

The Rules of Engagement

2010-01-31T14:23:00.000-08:00

Like many workplaces today, City Hall has a sign posted where you pay your bills. It says, in effect, that rude and abusive behaviour will not be tolerated. The main purpose is to provide staff with a first level of defence against that sort of behaviour, but underlying it is recognition that this sort of behaviour just isn't civilized, or productive.

Unfortunately, there are some people who don't think that the same rule should apply to their elected representatives. They seem to have the attitude that, because we've been elected, we should cheerfully put up with being insulted, called names, and having our ethics questioned, both publicly and privately. I was even booed once when I entered council chambers. And then, if you don't respond, they become even more abusive, because apparently being elected means that you owe them a response.

I'm more than willing to engage in respectful discussion. But I'm not willing to enter into discussion with anyone who calls me names, who suggests that I'm not being truthful, or who accuses me of voting for any reason other than my sincere belief that I'm making the best decision possible. To my mind, these individuals don't want discussion, they want to vent their anger in a not very productive way, and I don't see why I should subject myself to their unpleasantness.

Now, I will admit to getting angry and venting, but I do my best to keep it private, with my wife, family, or other close friends. I try to keep my cool in public, and to not respond in kind, because that sort of behaviour doesn't lead to solutions, it leads to problems. When people start calling names, the focus then becomes on the name-calling, not on the actual problem. And Prince Albert is a small town - you never know when you're going to run into a friend or relative of the person that you've insulted - they may not take too kindly to your insults either.

For those who choose to do the insulting publicly, they should remember that behaviour whenever they bemoan the lack of good candidates for any elected office - more than a few people have spoken to me about how they would never run for office, because they wouldn't want to take that sort of abuse.

I often hear talk about how the behaviour of politicians at the provincial or federal level needs to be more respectful and cooperative. I would enlarge the arena for that sort of improvement to include civic politics, and to include all those who take advantage of the opportunity they have to speak at council meetings to share their ideas and opinions - let's all try to remember the old adage about treating others as we like to be treated.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Plato

Strategic Planning - the Pros and Cons

2010-01-24T15:37:00.001-08:00

Council spent all day Friday and most of Saturday in a strategic planning session. This meant two days of meeting with managers of the various departments, getting updates on their activities and plans, discussing various issues and ideas, and getting information about some ongoing problems.

It was a good opportunity to hear from everyone, without the restrictions that we have in a council meeting of having to follow procedures, make motions, call for votes, etc. Just listen, ask questions, and talk about possible solutions. And we weren't expected to show up in suits and ties, which also makes for a more relaxed session.

It probably would have been better if such a session had happened earlier, because right now the major focus is on the upcoming budget, which looks as though it's going to be a tough process, and it really wouldn't be fair to staff to expect them to cost out new initiatives when we're going to have to figure out how to deliver on current commitments without costing residents more than we have to. That didn't stop new initiatives being floated out for comment, but I think that we realize that spending for things that aren't necessities isn't going to be acceptable.

I would have found a council retreat to be even more beneficial. What's the difference? A retreat is more of an opportunity for members of council to share ideas, without being restricted to a preset agenda that deals with each department in turn. My preference would have been to have a council retreat shortly after the election, followed by a strategic planning session. I like to do the big picture thinking first, then get into the more specific details later.

On the whole, it was a good couple of days. There were still questions cut short, because they were in areas where solutions are difficult. To my mind, that doesn't mean that we don't ask the questions - we ask them, and try to figure out the solutions. And if there isn't a readily available solution out there, that shouldn't stop us from developing our own by-laws - we have that ability, but seem to be reluctant to use it. One area that I will continue to press for finding a solution is that of boarded up houses - they are a blight in any neighbourhood where they occur, reduce property values, and are a fire hazard, which costs the whole city. Fortunately, I'm not alone in my concerns in this area, so the topic is sure to be raised until we figure out some options.

On another topic, I thought that I would provide a couple of comments on Mr. Simonite's comment on my last blog. While we obviously have different opinions and interpretations, which I'm not going to get into, and I feel that it's unlikely that he might agree with any explanations that I provide, he did wonder where I got the idea that he or his family wanted to drive the bar in question out of business. I wasn't quoting him or any member of his family; I was quoting another resident from an article in the local paper, who said "We're hoping that someday, Belly Up will go belly up." To me, that sounds like they wish that it would go out of business.

The other point that I will respond to is his allegation that I always vote against the mayor and Councillor Dionne for personal reasons. This is not true. While I agree that I often disagree with other members of council, and we have diametrically opposed viewpoints at times, I have never been one to check the front of the room to see how I should vote, whether for or against. I vote based on my interpretation of the facts, and what I think is the best option for the city. I respect that other members of council may have differing ideas on the same topic, but I wasn't elected just to go along. And interestingly, in the last contentious issue that came to council, the approval of a duplex in the West Hill, the mayor and I voted the same way.

I also don't vote based on how other people think I should vote, whether they are council members or members of the public. To do so would be to cave to peer pressure, in effect, which isn't why I was elected. I can appreciate that there are usually two (or more) sides to any argument; my job is to make the best decision that I can, which is all that any of us can do.

And finally, the Animal Rescue Site has another opportunity to vote for the Prince Albert SPCA, to see if it can get some funding through Petfinder. Just go to http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/, and follow the prompts. When last I checked, we were in 67th place in Canada; I'm confident that we can do better, and wouldn't it be great if we made it to the top!

"You can't base your life on other people's expectations." - Stevie Wonder

Making Decisions Based on Fact, not Emotion

2010-01-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

The decision to approve a parking lot for the Belly-Up Bar, with conditions attached, was approved at last week's council meeting. As expected, the decision has not been a popular one with the local residents. I understand that they want a peaceful neighbourhood, and they are concerned that they may be losing this. But I would hope that they would have an appreciation for my perspective, which is that I have to vote according to the legal facts of the situation, as well as the actual evidence that we have.

My vote was based on the following facts:

First, the land in question is zoned commercial, C-2, and has been for many years. The previous council was mis-informed by a member of the city administrative staff, when we were told that it was zoned residential, R-5. Because it is zoned for commercial use, council has no discretion over this decision, and it should never have come to council for a vote. People may be confused, because there was a house on the land, but residential housing has been built on land zoned commercial. Before we lived in our current house, Andrea and I lived in a little house on 13th Street East that was (and is) in a similar situation - the whole block is zoned commercial, but there are residences along the north side of the street, businesses along the south side, although when we first lived there a couple of homes were built in between the businesses on the south side of the street - closer to 6th Avenue East, that is still the case. If you live adjacent to commercial development, this may well be your situation.

Second, the lot in question has not been used as a parking lot, so I'm not sure why residents are so positive that allowing it to be used for parking, especially with the sound and security accommodations that have been proposed by Mr. Tesar, will lead to the dire consequences that they are predicting. A restaurant and lounge are located directly across the street, with a parking lot in the rear, and this doesn't seem to be a problem for residents. To not allow it in this case would be discriminatory.

Third, our requirement of commercial licensees is that their establishment has adequate parking for patrons - Mr. Tesar is trying to comply with this requirement, and is willing to meet additional conditions that other businesses owners have not had to, in an effort to allay the residents' concerns. There doesn't seem to be much appetite from the residents to meet him half-way, which is unfortunate. Quotes from residents indicating that they hope to drive the business to failure indicates that they aren't even interested in looking for a win-win situation.

The arguments that have been made since this decision are based on emotion, not on providing additional factual information. I can't speak for any other member of council, but I have made it my practice of voting according to the facts, not based on emotion, threats, insults, or personal aspersions on my character, none of which help to find solutions.

The last time this came to council, one of my fellow councillors accurately pointed out that we hadn't solved the problem, and it would continue to drag on, which it has. My suggestion at that time was that the city should try to work with Mr. Tesar to find an alternate solution. Wouldn't it be great if we could get someone with his obvious business talents to set up downtown, which desperately needs more development to get people there in the evenings, after the offices have closed and the daytime occupants have left. This would be moving toward a solution that would benefit all parties, plus the city as a whole.

We also need to develop plans for dealing with future potential conflicts, since, as I've indicated, similar residential areas are zoned for commercial use. In the meantime, we need to focus more on finding creative solutions and compromises, not on delaying decisions or making them based on emotions and personalities - that only causes long-term pain, as we are seeing now.

And finally, as a council, let's learn to listen to each other respectfully, and not act as though disagreement is to be taken as an opportunity for questioning each others' commitment, capability, or understanding of the job. Those of us at the table should understand better than anyone how difficult it is to make decisions on these matters, and should appreciate that we're each, in our own individual way, trying to do our best for the city.

"Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat." - Harry Emerson Fosdick

The Opportunity to Recycle Plastic

2010-01-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

Since this past fall, Prince Albert residents have had the opportunity to recycle household plastic. Crown Shred & Recycling has a pilot project for residential recycling, similar to programs that they currently have in Regina and Moose Jaw. As vice-chair of the North Central Waste Management Authority, I figured that I should be setting a good example, so we signed up right away.

There is a nominal cost - $10 per month, which translates to $120 per year, paid in advance. I was quite impressed - the day after signing up on-line, two blue boxes, about 24 by 18 by 18 inches, were delivered to our door. Since we waited for seven years (paying every year via our water bill) for our back alley recycling bin, it was nice to have the service provided as soon as it was paid for. Now, every second Wednesday morning, we carry the bin out to the edge of the yard, and by the end of the day, it has been emptied.

What sorts of things go into the box? Well, at this moment, our bin holds a shower gel bottle, a dish detergent bottle, a courier bag, a milk jug, a parmesan cheese container, several yogurt containers, a cottage cheese container, take-out coffee lids, and a couple of cake and sandwich trays. They weren't all ours - Andrea has taken to bringing plastic home from work or church, to help the cause. The program accepts kitchen, bathroom and laundry room plastics, but not oil or antifreeze containers. If you check the number inside the little recycling symbol, they take anything with a number from 1 to 7.

While ours isn't a huge amount, it has reduced the amount of garbage that goes into the back alley dumpster. And while I realize that the milk jug could go in the communal blue bin in the back, I'm familiar enough with the difficulties that these bins have posed for recycling to know that the contents may end up in the landfill, rather than being recycled.

And that's my main reason for subscribing to this service. I know that using this will help, in a small way, to reduce the amount of material going to the landfill, and thus prolong our ability to use that site. In the long run, if enough people took advantage of this opportunity, we could extend the life of the landfill and reduce the costs that will come when we have to develop a new site.

I know of one conscientious family who live outside the city, where the service is not available. However, they have partnered with someone in the city who lives alone, and share the costs - an ingenious solution that works for them, and illustrates for their children the importance of taking small actions that collectively, will make a difference.

I'm surprised that the city hasn't done more to publicize this opportunity, since it's the city that stands to gain the most benefit. Relatively few homes have signed up for the program - I'm hoping that by the end of this year, enough residents will have decided to take this small step so that the pilot project can become permanent. If you haven't, I encourage you to go to their web-site, http://www.crownshredandrecycling.com/, and see how you can become part of the solution.

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." - Mahatma Gandhi

Looking Back, and Looking Ahead

2009-12-31T14:10:00.000-08:00

Like many people, I find that as the year comes to an end, I look back at the previous year, noting various landmarks and events, and look ahead, hoping that, since change is inevitable, the changes in my life will be mostly positive.

While the year in review articles in the media tend to focus on events that affect a broad range of society, my year in review tends to be more personal. I think that most people's lives are like that - while we are aware of larger events, it's our own personal landmarks that are the most memorable for us.

Last year marked thirty years in Saskatchewan for Andrea and me. We arrived here in late September 1979, knowing only a couple of people in town (guys that Andrea had been in university with who worked for PAPCo), and certainly not planning to make any kind of permanent attachment to the community. Now, thirty years later, although we'll always be considered people from away by some residents of the city, I think that it's safe to say that we've each made positive contributions, both professionally and personally, to our adopted city and province. I'm amazed when I look at the changes to Prince Albert over the years. It hasn't grown much in size - while it is a few thousand larger than the 30,000 or so that it was then, it hasn't grown as dramatically as some communities in the same time - we came from Toronto, which has grown from 2 million to more than 3 million in the same time frame, and Saskatoon has added more than 100,000 people over this time as well. We need to recognize that Prince Albert will never be one of the mega-population centres of the province -that's okay, we just need to focus on services and infrastructure that are appropriate and affordable for a community this size.

The year also marked some departures of people from my life. On the personal side, the deaths of friends are always difficult, and leave a gap that will never be filled in quite the same way again. I will particularly miss my friends Alice and Bert, whose humour and common sense never failed to cheer me up. On the professional side, I will miss my former colleague Sharon Karr, who was acting director of the library for more than a year, until a job opportunity in Edmonton, closer to family, was too tempting for her to pass up. I regret that the library board was unable to act quickly enough to give her enough reasons to stay. I also miss Lyn Brown, in her capacity as CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce. She had common sense and the courage to speak up, pointing out where the city could do a better job for its business community - sadly, such courage was not always appreciated by those who see any criticism as being treason.

The civic election this year was my fourth (fifth, if I count the by-election in early 2000 that I lost by 50 votes). Being acclaimed was quite unexpected, and much appreciated. Highlights of council work last year, for me, would be the new provisions put in place by council for secondary suites, and the approval of middle income housing developments in the West Hill - these were both initiatives that helped council meet its objectives for improving housing opportunities in the city. I'm pleased that the new members of the housing committee are continuing to ask the same questions that I asked in my time as chair of that committee - hopefully, their persistence will result in continued improvement in this crucial area.

Looking ahead to the next year, I hope, most of all, for continued good health for my family and friends. As always, these are the anchors for everything that I do - in the end, these are the people who I can trust to give me good advice, support me in whatever decisions I make, and help to put things into perspective whenever I start to feel particularly sorry for myself. Public personas are one thing, but it's the way people treat you day in and day out that really counts.

Professionally, this new council will be facing its first major challenge with the development of the budget. I'm hoping that more common sense prevails, and that we take adequate time to discuss and debate the various options open to us, rather than trying to rush things through as though there were some sort of prize for finishing in the shortest amount of time. I hope that when members of council speak, we hear fewer sound bites and odd metaphors, and more easily understandable statements about what we intend to do. I will continue to hope for more respectful treatment of all members of council, and that some members will realize that treating a councillor with disrespect is, in effect, disrespecting the citizens of Prince Albert who have elected that councillor. And I hope that we start to demonstrate that we are what we claim to be - open and accountable, answering questions that are asked, when we say that we will. Let's keep items that should be open to the public on the public agenda, instead of trying to keep issues that might be contentious within our in camera sessions.

On a personal level, next year Andrea and I will celebrate our thirty-fifth anniversary, and our house will reach the century mark. We'll have to find a good way of celebrating both of these milestones.

For us, far from the rest of our extended family, Christmas and New Year's are always quiet celebrations, which suits us just fine. This year was quieter than usual, since Andrea decided to celebrate with a cold, which she then shared with Ingrid and me. But despite the sniffles and sneezes, it was a good family time, with a few gatherings with friends as well. I hope that your holiday featured similar times of quiet enjoyment and appreciation, and that the new year brings good times for all of us.

" There's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends." - Hilaire Belloc

Committee Appointments - Once Again, Openness and Accountability Come Up Short

2009-12-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

At council meeting this past Monday evening, committee appointments were ratified. These are committees appointed by council, at least, according to The Cities Act, they're supposed to be. One would think that, as such, council as a whole would discuss who is to be appointed to which committee, both council members and members of the public. After all, decisions of council should be made by council, not by a single member.

Under different councils, decisions about which council member sits on which committee have been made in different ways. Probably the most open was the year that the different committees were written on ping pong balls, then drawn out of a box. That ensured turnover on committees, gave everyone exposure to different experiences, evened up the workload somewhat, and removed any suggestion that council appointments are some sort of favour to be bestowed on those who have found favour with the decision makers. In other years, at the very least, council had the opportunity to have a full discussion, as a group, before decisions were ratified. In this way, we had the rationale for which committees we were on, as well as the rationale for decisions about public members.

This is no longer the case. The list of who is on which committee, both council and public members, came out of the mayor's office, and council ratified it without discussion. I have no reason why I was removed from two committees of which I was chair (Library and Housing), why I remain on other committees (Saskatoon Airport Authority, North Central Saskatchewan Transportation Planning Committee, the North Central Waste Management Committee, the Joint School Board Committee), or why I was placed on other committees (District Planning Commission, the Heritage Building Committee). I was placed on the Enterprise Zone Committee and the Peter Ballantyne/City Joint Committee, but declined to be on those committees, because they have never met, nor has council referred anything to them. I don't see the need for agreeing to put my name on a membership list for non-functional committees - it's not like I'm interested in padding my resume.

So that's only six committees - not much, compared to the workload some other councillors have been given. In some cases, I'm surprised, since some councillors' attendance at certain committees has been abysmal, and yet they've been appointed to still more committees. However, if you're one of those who see council appointments as plums handed out in return for favours, and some committees as having higher profile than others, and you're interested in furthering your political career, it might make sense from that perspective. However, we shouldn't be approaching our jobs that way - we should be working on the job at hand, not trying to put ourselves in a favourable light for future jobs or future elections.

And, as is so often the case, the process was flawed. Even though it was apparently all right to everyone else on council, that doesn't make it right. Handing over responsibility to one individual to make all the decisions makes a mockery of why we bother electing, and paying, more than one council member. Perhaps some might feel that the result will be inevitable, so why not just go along. The last time I checked, our oath of office didn't include anything about just going along. Perhaps fear of the repercussions of standing up and objecting is top of people's minds. I can sympathize with that - it isn't pleasant to be treated as a second-class member of a council that one is elected to. But acquiescing out of fear isn't the answer either - it's like dealing with the bully who threatens you in the school yard, but then turns on another kid. If you don't stand up with that other kid, because you hope that the bully will now leave you alone, you're sending a message to the bully that he can have his own way, all the time. We've all been elected to do a job, and not doing parts of it because it's easier this way, shouldn't be an option.

As I've mentioned before, the city has sixty-some committees and subcommittees, many of which have vague reasons for existence, some of which never meet. It might have been a better use of council's time if we had decided which committees are needed, which ones various council members had interest in, and moved on from there. We could have discussed rotating some responsibilities (after nine years on the library board, I can see that some might think that I need a change, although I enjoyed working with the library staff, and will miss working with the new director, who I had encouraged to apply for the job), we could have discussed council members' interests, and shared some of the less glamourous (in some people's minds), appointments. We could have discussed not reappointing some members of the public to committees when they have never attended a committee meeting.

But it didn't happen that way. And everyone but me seemed to be okay with that, for whatever their reasons were.

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." - Mark Twain

The Quest for Coherent Logic

2009-11-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I come out of a council meeting wondering if I've mysteriously lost my ability to speak English - perhaps there's some kind of encoding that happens between my utterance and when it makes its way across council chambers. Perhaps that open space in the centre is a Bermuda Triangle for ideas. I certainly felt that way at last Monday's council meeting, after my motion to have a report prepared, as well as a draft bylaw, on the feasibility of a cat licensing system in the city was defeated.

I don't expect that everyone on council agrees with the need for such a bylaw, but I did think that the logical next step would be to have a report outlining the options, to provide the necessary information that council would need before moving forward with a bylaw. However, the reasons given by some council members defied logic - the statement was made that we don't want to commit ourselves to a bylaw. Perhaps a review of the difference between having a report prepared (provision of information), versus voting on a bylaw (making the final decision) is required for some councillors. Until a bylaw is actually given three readings, it has not been passed, and council has not committed itself to anything.

Another councillor said that he felt that the current bylaw needs to be reviewed and updated, but he felt that we should have a report first. This is when I started worrying about whether I had lost the power of understandable speech - that was the first part of my recommendation, and if that was the only part of the recommendation that could be supported, then the councillor could have asked for an amendment that he could support.

So my recommendation was defeated, although not totally without support. If there were logical reasons for not supporting this (if, for example, one felt that the current situation was fine, that there is no need to find additional ways of funding the SPCA, that sort of reason), I could understand that. But with the reasons that were given, one might wonder if the actual motive was to not support a suggestion of a particular member of council, possibly for personal reasons.

Now, one wouldn't want to believe that - not from a council less than a month old, which had members at the first meeting talk about the need for greater cooperation and working together. Surely those weren't just words said for show, without any intention of following those words up with actions that would demonstrate commitment to those ideas. A member of council has to put aside personal feelings in doing what is best for the city, otherwise we wouldn't be doing our jobs and upholding our oath of office. We owe each other the respect of listening to everyone's ideas, and figuring out how we can make change work, otherwise we're not respecting the people who elected us to do those very things.

Since we won't have licensing fees to help the SPCA anytime soon, remember to go to http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/, and vote for the Prince Albert SPCA. We've gone from eighty-something place in Canada when I first posted about this opportunity, reached as high as twenty-third place, but have now slipped to twenty-fifth. You can vote once a day until December 20th.

No council or executive meeting this week - I'm not sure why. We have many things to talk about, from the finally released second bridge report, to the new committee recommendations, to the ever-changing numbers for soccer centre operational costs. But we won't be starting any of those discussions until December 7, our next Executive Meeting. Unless, of course, it's decided that we need a special meeting before then.

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Cat Question

2009-11-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

At the first council meeting of this new council, I announced my intention to look into the feasibility of a cat licensing bylaw. This has provoked a bit of reaction - the local paper ran an electronic poll, asking if people would be in favour of this (a small majority appear to be), and a number of people, ranging from Andrea's co-workers to our vet, have commented on it.

I do not hate cats, as some have suggested. I'm not particularly fond of them, either. I'm actually allergic to them. However, I am part of a family that is made up of cat people, which is why we have them as pets.

I recognize the value that cats (and dogs) bring to a family - they provide companionship, affection, and a non-judgemental ear. And while there are those who claim that cats are less attached to individuals than dogs, there is no denying that Hendrix recognizes Guthrie's step when he comes home from work, and runs to greet him.

I'm sure that most pet owners do their best to be responsible, recognizing that having a pet is a responsibility, not a right. And, like many things, it's the irresponsible few that cause problems for the rest of us. Too many people look on pets as being somewhat disposable, and can't be bothered with the basics of pet ownership, like spaying and neutering, which is why the SPCA is forced to take drastic measures, like the current offering of free adoption of cats, to try to reduce the current volume.

All of the cats in our home are the result of irresponsible pet owners. Hendrix, adopted from the SPCA four years ago, was one of a litter of kittens that was trapped by the animal control officer. He was extremely withdrawn in the first few weeks with us, staying completely within Guthrie's room. It was only after a couple of months that he ventured into the rest of the house - surprisingly, now he's probably the cuddliest of the cats.

Hunter was a stray who showed up on our doorstep three years ago, a half-grown kitten with a tremendous purr. He hung about the yard for a day or so before Andrea brought him in after he almost was hit by a car. We assume that he was abandoned by someone who moved out of the neighbourhood.

Two years ago Guthrie brought Gracie home - she was from a home where they don't believe in spaying or neutering, so usually have litters of kittens about. And most recently, we've been found by Maggie, a stray who hung about the yard all summer, usually running off whenever one of us got too close. She got very friendly when the cold weather came, and now is living in our basement - a long-haired tortoiseshell whose owners cared enough to have her spayed (the vet estimates that she's three or four years old), but who seem to have left her behind when they moved. We were going to take her to the SPCA, but realize their capacity issues right now, and Guthrie was worried that, because of her age, she was unlikely to be adopted. If you know anyone in the midtown area who's missing such a cat, give us a call.

So, how would a licensing bylaw help in controlling the cat situation? My initial thought that it would be a way of increasing revenues to the SPCA, an organization that survives because of the dedication of its staff and volunteers. Requiring that cats be licensed also might help to return cats that have wandered away from home, particularly if, as part of the licensing process, the cat could be microchipped. That might even be a way of providing owners with a tangible benefit of getting a licence.

Saskatoon has had a cat licensing bylaw for a few years - we could review their bylaw, and get a sense of how it's working. I've spoken with the guys at bylaw enforcement - they agree that our pet bylaws need review, and that now is as good a time as any. For instance, we do have a bylaw that limits cat ownership to six, and requires that all cats over six months of age be spayed or neutered unless the owner has a breeding licence. However, our lack of a licensing requirement means that we have no way of knowing where the cats are, or enforcing whether they are able to breed.

People need to become more aware that cats (or any pets) aren't disposable - that there are basic needs that need to be met. If the small cost of getting a licence discourages people from getting a cat - good. That is the smallest cost of pet ownership. And if it provides more funds for the SPCA, and reduces the number of cats who have to be put to sleep because their owner can't be found, all the better.

Next to recycling bins and parking woes, I probably get the most phone calls and complaints about cats, and how to control them. I'm not saying that licensing cats will solve all of these problems, but I think that it's a possible solution that is worth investigating.

"The problem with a kitten is that, eventually it becomes a cat." - Ogden Nash

And We Begin Again

2009-11-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

Monday evening was the first meeting of this new council. As is usual for the first meeting, the bulk of it is taken up with the swearing in ceremony, and the actual meeting agenda is quite light. And between the ceremony and the actual meeting, we break for fifteen minutes or so for the family and friends in attendance to take pictures and offer congratulations. Then most of the crowd leaves, and we take care of mostly administrative details, like who's going to be deputy mayor when.

Every councillor gets about six weeks of deputy mayor duty, which mostly means chairing the Committee of the Whole section of the council meeting. In the past, we've usually gone in alphabetical order, but sometimes trades happen, because someone is going to be away on extended holiday during their proposed term. Usually the schedule is discussed ahead of the meeting; this didn't happen this time, which led to amendments on the spot, as Councillor Dionne and I traded spots to deal with his planned holidays (we had discussed this before the meeting), then Councillor Martin Ring asked to trade with Councillor Zurakowski for the same reason. If nothing else, this highlighted the importance of council matters being discussed by council as a whole, rather than decisions being made without participants' input.

So far I feel good about this new council. The new council members all seem prepared to work hard for the betterment of the city as a whole, and to understand that, until the whole city is considered a good place to live, we haven't finished the job.

We had an orientation meeting the Monday before the first meeting. At this meeting we were also informed that there would be more meetings during the week, and a bus tour of city facilities on Saturday morning. The lack of notice and my previous commitments to other organizations and family meant that I wasn't able to take advantage of those opportunities. While I'm quite familiar with city staff and most facilities, I would have appreciated being able to spend some time with my new colleagues. However, we do have the next three years of working together, and hopefully there will be more advance notice of meetings - most councillors have busy lives that have just gotten busier, and that needs to be recognized.

I will miss having Councillor Williams to bounce ideas off, and to have open and honest discussions with about city problems. For the past couple of years he's had to commute from out-of-town work opportunities to get to council meetings, and I don't think that other members of council fully appreciated the extra effort and costs that this entailed, nor was there ever any effort made to accommodate his rather special circumstances. Shawn represented the people of his ward well, he wasn't afraid to speak up for what he believed was right, and he refused to be bullied - not always an easy thing to do.

But I'm hopeful that the members of this new council will also remember their constituents and speak up for what they believe is right - if enough of us do that, we should be able to make positive changes to the city over the next three years.

"No man is wise enough by himself." - Plautus

Some Post-Election Thoughts

2009-11-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

The election is over, and we have a new council. Changes to four of the nine seats, which might change the dynamics. And three of the new councillors are women, which will provide some long-needed gender diversity to what is often termed as an old boys' club. I think that an election that results in significant new blood, while maintaining some veterans is a good thing - you end up with a good mix of experience and new perspectives, which is healthy for any organization.

If all members of council are wise, they will pay attention to the issues that were raised during the election. I heard a lot of questions about our increasing debt load, deteriorating infrastructure, the new bridge, and the lack of openness of council. We need to do what we can to answer those questions and change our behaviours, quickly.

Those of us fortunate to be returning shouldn't take our re-election as blanket endorsement of our actions over the last term - the significant number of votes that were directed towards an individual with no council experience, and with relatively little life experience, told me that there were people out there who wanted to plant a vote somewhere, but who weren't willing to select either of the experienced options, no doubt remembering Jerry Garcia's line that choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. And those of us who were fortunate enough to be acclaimed need to be aware that it might not have been the right time or place for potential challengers - it doesn't mean that everyone in our wards agrees with everything we have done over the past three years.

And we can't ignore the fact that most eligible voters in Prince Albert chose not to vote. I don't know what the answer to voter apathy is - I suspect that it isn't one single answer, but several. Four acclamations may be seen as having reduced the reason for voting in half the city, but I don't think that that's the only reason for the low turnout.

I don't think that it's that getting to the polls is particularly difficult. Electronic voting may be worth investigating, or setting up more polls, but honestly, people had several days to find a few minutes to exercise their right, and many didn't. In Saskatoon, advance polls were set up in malls, and their turnout was also pretty pathetic.

Perhaps part of it is that people didn't like their choices, that there wasn't someone particularly inspiring to vote for. Not every election can feature a Barack Obama, who can ignite crowds with energy and a sense of being part of positive change. That doesn't change the responsibility of the individual to study the issues, make a choice, and vote. Actually, you don't even have to study the issues - the only questions that you're asked as you register have to do with where you live, and for how long. In fact, we had a brief moment of levity when we went to vote, when Guthrie turned to Andrea (who had finished casting her ballot) to ask which school board he was voting for - knowing nothing about it didn't stop him from voting (although he did recognize some of the names on the ballot, apparently).

I think that a large part of voter apathy comes from the feeling from many people that, no matter who they vote for, once the election is over, their concerns will be forgotten, so why bother. That's important for each member of council to remember - getting elected is one thing. Being an effective member of council, truly representing and standing up for your constituents, even the ones who may not have voted for you, is a whole new game. But that's the game we're into now.

Perhaps if we all do our jobs well over the next three years, the next election will generate interest, excitement, and the sense that getting involved in leading the city is a worthwhile endeavour. More candidates, more interest, more clearly discussed issues and options, should result in more likely engagement of voters.

To the new faces around the table - welcome. Don't forget the people who elected you, who are now trusting you to represent them. They are now your bosses, and will have the opportunity to fire you in three years if they feel ignored. Treat your vote at council as a trust that shouldn't be violated, and don't let others around the table try to influence you in doing anything but following your own conscience when you vote. Learn the actual rules of the game, and don't hesitate to follow them, even if others at the table get a tad cranky. The democratic process has evolved over time in the way that it has for good reasons; it can serve us well if we remember that.

November 8 will be the first meeting of this new council - I'm looking forward to my fourth term. And don't worry - I won't be agreeing to the third reading in the same meeting if I think that further discussion and public input is required.

"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

Don't Believe Everything You Hear on the Campaign Trail

2009-10-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

A couple of elections ago, I got a phone call from a Ward Three resident. Apparently, one of the councillor candidates, who didn't live in the ward, was doing some door-knocking, and when one resident asked why he was running in the ward if he didn't live there, responded that Lee Atkinson didn't live in the ward either. That resident then gave me a call to find out if I'd moved. I assured him that I hadn't; he assured me that I still had his support, then scoffed at the other guy, who was now guaranteed not to get this guy's vote ever, for anything, because not only did he not live in the ward, but he was also a liar.

I've never believed in campaigning by trying to convince people of the other candidates' weaknesses - I believe that it's best to focus on why I think I have the skills and experiences that will make me a good councillor, and not worry too much about the competition. But to resort to mis-statements about other people to try to build yourself up - well, if you lie about the little things, how can you be trusted on the bigger things?

So I was somewhat concerned at the mayoral debate, to hear several statements made as if they were true, when they are not. When the statement was made that the previous council had fired every senior manager or given them early retirement, I turned to the former councillor sitting next to me, and asked him who we had fired. Nobody, he said. Some senior staff had left for other jobs - that has happened with this council as well. We had also done some organizational restructuring, and some staff had taken early retirement in that process. And some senior staff who were there then are still around.

Statements were also made that the consultant's report on the new bridge was flawed. Apparently the flaw was that the completion of the report took so long because so many changes were requested, that there wasn't enough money left in the budget for the consultants to present the report to council. So the flaws aren't in the report, but in the lack of a presentation, caused because members of this council weren't happy with the first answer that was provided.

Further strange statements have been made since - for example, the soccer centre project isn't over budget. Well, maybe not over the budget after it was adjusted this year, when an additional two years of taxpayers' contributions have been added, just for the construction costs. Originally, your involuntary contributions were to end in 2013 - you'll now be paying until 2015. To me, that means that it's over the original budget.

An even stranger statement was made concerning the operating costs for the centre: apparently, the city manager announced publicly that operating costs for the centre will be $225,000 per year. You may be wondering how you missed that announcement. That's because it was part of an in camera report to council, not a public announcement. In camera means not public, which is allowed for a range of reasons under The Cities Act. In the past, when information provided in camera has been made public, some members of council have been outraged, and suggested that investigations be made to find out who breached council confidentiality. I guess that the investigation won't have to go too far to find the leak this time.

Confidential or not, it's public now, and we don't know what is included in those costs - do they include staffing costs, maintenance, power and electricity? If you remember that the city contributes $300,000 each year to the operation of the Rawlinson Centre (which underestimated its original utility costs by $120,000, which the city has had to make up), and that the Art Hauser Centre had an operating deficit last year of $600,000, then $250,000 probably seems suspiciously low.

Another question was asked about increases to city staffing, with the answer given that staffing levels haven't increased. I'm amazed, because when I've asked for staffing levels, I've been told that they can't provide me with a number, because it's too difficult, since some jobs are part time, some are casual, some are seasonal, and so forth. I find that hard to believe. I also know that there are now two administrative support staff in the mayor's office, where before there was only one, and that there has been a new social development manager position created and filled with a new staff person, with associated new support staff. Unless this council has fired a number of people, I have to believe that those are more positions that taxpayers are supporting. And there were also several seasonal positions associated with Neat and Clean in the first year - those were new too.

There has also been much emphasis made about this year's 0% tax increase. Let's remember that that was this year - the previous two years each featured 6% tax increases. So over the term of this council, your taxes went up 12%, or an average 4% a year. And that doesn't include the ongoing increases to your water rates - 8% compounding every year until 2013. That, of course, is for residential users. Commercial user rates remain the same. Technically, it's not a tax increase. Neither is the increase in sanitation charges that you're now paying. But these are increased costs for living in this city, brought to you by this council.

In my dealings with people, I've found that they can be quite understanding of mistakes that you may make, but they really hate it if you try to deny your mistakes, if you try to cover things up, if you try to blame other people when you should have known better. Nobody's perfect, and we shouldn't be afraid to admit that.

It basically comes down to trying to maintain an image, or being able to demonstrate the substance behind the image. I hope that in this election, people look behind the image, and make their decision based on substance.

If you've already voted at an advance poll, great. If you haven't, please remember to vote on Wednesday. People often feel that a single vote doesn't count - tell that to the village in Newfoundland, where their recent election was determined by drawing a name out of a hat, after the polls ended in a tie. Here in PA, my first win was by 34 votes; other wards have been witness to margins of 10 votes or less. And of course, if you don't vote, you've given up your right to complain about civic government for the next three years.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." - Abraham Lincoln

Questions That Candidates Should Be Ready To Answer

2009-10-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

We're more than half-way through the campaigning process, and you've probably noticed much less of the usual associated bumph, particularly compared to last time. Fewer ads, way fewer signs - one might almost assume that nobody's running. Although, to be fair, in the wards that have councillor contests, there are lawn signs. Perhaps the more sign-happy candidates from last time have become born-again environmentalists. Or perhaps there are fewer people willing to post publicly that they support a candidate who proved to be not quite what they had hoped he would be.

Having four councillors (including me) already acclaimed does take some of the suspense out of the situation, but I would remind everyone that even if you cannot vote for a councillor, you still should make the effort to vote for the mayor, and for the school board.

And I've even thought of some questions that you should ask candidates for council, or those who are wanting to use that big office on the second floor of city hall. Should you happen to run into a candidate, either at your door, or in the grocery store, feel free to ask them questions as if they were candidates in a job interview, because that's exactly what they are. They're applying for the job, and you are one of the bosses. Never run into a candidate? Go to the city web-site (www.citypa.ca) and check out the elections section for contact information for most candidates. If the information is sketchy for a candidate who is also an incumbent, go to the section on City Council, and click on the contact information there for phone numbers and email addresses.

You may have favourite issues that you have no trouble coming up with questions about. I have a few that should be required for every candidate.

For example, ask your candidate if he or she is comfortable with the current level of debt that the city carries. (The current council has used up all of the reserves that previous councils had created, and gone into much more debt to finance various initiatives. In fact, we had to get permission from the province to go into debt at levels higher than our projected annual tax revenues of approximately $35 million. We've done that, and then some, even though the past two years have featured unprecedented hand-outs from both the federal and provincial governments - hand-outs that probably won't be in the picture for this next council.) What sort of ideas do they have for cost-cutting, or are they of the mind-set that, when you max out your credit cards, you just apply for another.

Ask your candidate where they think a second bridge should be located, and why. The province, the city, and the RMs of Buckland and Prince Albert commissioned a highway study related to the twinning of Highway 11 and the potential location of a second bridge. This report was completed last November, but hasn't been presented to council yet, for no explained reason. A second bridge is key to the continued development of the city and the region, but unless we can work in partnership with other levels of government, it won't happen.

Open and accountable is a catchphrase that this council has talked about a great deal, but hasn't really put into practice. Ask your candidate what he or she would do to make this a reality. For instance, would they support a bylaw requiring candidates to disclose their financial supporters in an election campaign, such as Saskatoon has. If they're an incumbent, and they say that they would, ask them why they didn't when I made such a motion last year. Not a single incumbent in the race did. How do they feel about financial reports for institutions such as the Rawlinson Centre not being given to council before the budget is passed, even though the budgeting procedure requires it. How do they feel about limiting the questions that a councillor can ask administration, by requiring that a majority of council approve each inquiry?

How do they feel about the number of committees that are currently on the books - 67, according to some research that the Chamber of Commerce did last year, although interestingly only 16 were advertised in the paper as looking for members. Are all of these committees needed? Exactly what is the purpose of those committees that never meet? Should a person have to be a resident of the city in order to serve on a committee which is going to make recommendations to council that could affect tax decisions? What about committees which never publish an agenda for their meetings, or minutes afterward? There is apparently a meeting early tomorrow morning for the soccer centre committee, but there is no agenda, and I've yet to receive a complete set of committee minutes for all meetings of this committee, even though both are supposed to be available to the public.

There are some long-standing hot issues - does the candidate have any ideas about improving the downtown? About the high crime rate? (The summer Stats Can report that noted that our violent crime rate had dropped was mentioned in the local paper; what wasn't mentioned was that Prince Albert ranks seventh for crimes in cities over 10,000, across Canada. Saskatoon ranks 26th; Regina ranks 19th. I haven't heard anyone from the Police Commission talk about how they plan to improve this dismal rating.) What are their thoughts on beautification? Was the money spent on Neat and Clean, at the expense of other infrastructure projects, worth it, or could we have accomplished more by looking at more innovative ways of doing things by partnering with organizations such as the Horticultural Society for flower beds, or the penitentiary work program for painting light standards?

If you're in a ward that faces a councillor contest, does the candidate live in the ward? If not, ask why they don't run where they live. I'm a firm believer in the ward system for a lot of reasons, but an area loses a lot by not having a council representative that truly understands the issues of the area because he lives there.

You wouldn't hire someone without asking a few questions - you should feel free to phone or email your candidates with as many questions as you wish.

And when you have enough information to make a decision, don't forget to vote!

"Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame." - Laurence J. Peter

Surprise! It's Our Last Meeting!

2009-10-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

Yes, despite there being one more regular council meeting scheduled (for October 19), as well as an executive meeting for October 13, almost at the end of Monday's meeting, council decided that these scheduled meetings should be cancelled. The reason put forward was that there wouldn't be much to put on the agenda. And the reason given as to why there isn't much to put forward is the idea that we shouldn't do anything that will bind the next council.

This is a first for me. Never before has the excuse of "we don't want to bind the next council" been used so often to prevent information being made available to the public; I've heard it over and over since mid-September. Since this council has made it a common practice to ignore previous council's practices and policies, including recommendations for action (here I'm thinking specifically of the previous council's recommendation that we develop a registry to licence landlords, to ensure that all rental accommodations meet basic standards - current council has not moved on this policy recommendation at all), I'm not sure why they are now professing that anything that this current council does can't be ignored or revised once the new council is sworn in.

And if we were being open and accountable, we would acknowledge that many of the things that this council has done do bind the next council, and councils beyond that, since we set tax payment schedules for the soccer centre that extend beyond our term, and the term of the next council.

There's lots of information that I'm sure the public would love to see - how about the costs for running the soccer centre? I've been asking repeatedly for that for the last several months, at least, because that's probably the question that I get most frequently from the public. After being continually promised, they're now being withheld until after the election. Or how about sharing that study on possible locations for the new bridge - some members of council have been privy to that since last November, but haven't shared it with the rest of us.

It's almost as though some members of council don't want this information public before the election because it might influence voters. I find that odd - the least they could do is put as much information on the table as possible, so that voters can make decisions based on everything that we know, not just on the pieces that are deemed least troubling.

I voted against this motion, as did Councillor Ring. When I asked what about business that might arise between now and early November, when the new council will take office, I was told that we could always have a special meeting. I've mentioned my concerns with special meetings before - they're not well-advertised, so the public doesn't have much opportunity to attend, and they're not televised, so people can't even watch the decisions being made.

And it is somewhat ironic that, less than twenty-four hours after cancelling the regular meeting, a special meeting was set for this Thursday, October 15, to deal with some zoning appeal. I won't be there; I'll be on my way to Winnipeg for a Citizens' Advisory Committee Regional Meeting for Corrections Services Canada (I'm chair of that committee). Had we kept to our original meeting schedule, this matter would have been handled next Monday, when I'll be back.

But that would have required more trust of the system, and less manipulation.

"Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens." - William Beveridge

Once More With Feeling

2009-10-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, as you’ve probably heard, I decided to run again for the honour and responsibility of representing Ward Three on city council. Then, a couple of days after I announced my intentions and filed my papers, I found out that I was acclaimed, for the first time in my political history. I was quite surprised at the acclamation - usually there have been multiple people interested in the job. While the acclamation removes the uncertainty, and will make the next month less nerve-wracking for me, it does lessen the opportunity to fully discuss issues leading into the election. I will continue to raise these issues at council, and on this blog. I hope that the people of Ward Three remember that there are still two other areas that will require their vote - the contest for mayor, and the public school board elections.

So far, this is an odd election. In past years, candidates, including me, have usually declared in early September. This year there was a mere trickle of announcements, and even in the last week it wasn't a deluge. Perhaps other potential candidates were going through some of the same internal discussions that I went through over the last few months.

Although the personal support from ward residents has been overwhelming, especially over the past year or so, this wasn’t an easy decision for me to make. This term on council was certainly my most challenging so far, and probably the least satisfying. Still, small steps of progress were made in areas that are important to me – approval of secondary suites in all areas of the city should help to make affordable housing easier to find, and we approved the rezoning that will allow the building of duplexes geared for middle-income families in the West Hill area. And blue bins are, after seven years of paying for them, finally across the city.

But there were far more incidents of questions going unanswered, of decisions being rushed through, of discussions being cut off, which adds up to frustration over missed opportunities. And more than one individual has asked me why I continue to pound my head against the proverbial wall.

But after thinking it through and talking it over with Andrea and several close friends, I decided to try once more. For a few reasons, really. One is the number of people who told me that council needs more people like me – people who realize that just showing up isn’t enough, that you have to be prepared to ask tough questions, offer options, and seriously consider the impacts of decisions. If I don’t run for council, that’s one less person like me, and I felt that I would be letting the residents of Ward Three down.

The second reason is that this council has made financial decisions that will be very difficult to deal with over the next term or two of council. While I may not have supported these decisions, and I may have warned the best I could of the hole that we were digging ourselves and future councils into, I was still part of the council that made those decisions, and I feel that I owe it to the city to try to clean up the mess.

And finally, I would miss the opportunity to help out residents of Ward Three in matters big and small – whether it’s been working with Bylaw Enforcement to get a drug house closed, or helping a neighbourhood get their street paved, or just listening to people’s concerns and ideas about what might help the city work better – this is why I got into this several years ago. I’ve never forgotten that I work for the people of Ward Three, and that’s the most satisfying part of the job.

I have nine years of experience that shouldn’t be minimized or overlooked – here’s hoping that the next council, whoever ends up on it, recognizes the need to work together and utilize every resource available to solve our problems for the long-term good of the city – a council that puts that goal ahead of everything else.

“A community is only a community when the majority of its members are making the transition from “the community for myself” to “myself for the community””. – Jean Vanier

Why We Should Do More for the SPCA

2009-09-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

The SPCA has started a drive to move to a better place. They have purchased some land north of the river where they propose to build new facilities, and have started a new fund-raising campaign - A New Leash on Life.

Council members were invited to visit the current facility. I took up the offer a couple of weeks ago, and was toured about by one of the dedicated staff. I was appalled, to put it mildly. The animal rooms are small and overcrowded, and the staff make do in conditions that most work places wouldn't tolerate. That staff have to use as their lunchroom the room where animals are euthanized is unbelievable. While donations of such things as a new furnace have certainly helped, there is no doubt that a new facility is desperately needed.

And this is where council is between a rock and a hard place, largely of our own making. Our support for other facilities (which are not in the need category, but in the nice to have area), our unnecessary spending on such things as spiffing up our own meeting area, our putting off street and sidewalk repair and maintenance so that we could brag about having a zero per cent tax increase this year (after two consecutive years of 6 per cent increases), our decimation of the reserve fund, our decision to dedicate taxes directed for the debt elimination fund to pay for the new soccer centre for the next several years - all of these decisions have left us with very little room to support a new, desperately needed facility. And with the election looming, apparently we don't want to talk about it, either.

The services provided by the SPCA are crucial to the well-being of the city. While most people think of the SPCA as a place where you can go to pick up a kitten or a puppy, every day staff and volunteers are there, taking care of all animals that are brought in to them, some in pretty rough shape. If a dog is running loose, they take care of it. If stray cats are trapped, the SPCA is where they end up. Abandoned animals end up there. Staff don't just give animals away to anyone who walks in; they ensure that people understand the responsibilities of pet ownership before adoption, because they see the results when people don't understand, for example, how important spaying and neutering are.

These services are crucial, but services and buildings cost money, and unfortunately, they don't have a lot of fund-raising options. Unlike facilities like the Art Hauser Centre, the Rawlinson Centre, and the soccer centre, we don't have many ways of charging user fees. The animals can't pay, and some people feel that the adoption fees are too high. The SPCA does get the bulk of the dog licence fee (more than four dollars of the five dollar licence fee), but other than that, the only support provided by the city is a small grant each year. This year the grant was larger than in the past - $80,000. To put that in perspective, we gave the Golf Club $48,000 this year to help them pay for their hundredth anniversary party - a party to which most if not all of the guests could have, I'm sure, paid their own way.

I give the staff and volunteers at the SPCA full credit for doing an amazing job. Their dedication and love for the animals is obvious, and they don't waste much time in whining. They do some creative fund raising - they have a big garage sale once a year, and their walk-a-pet-a-thon was last weekend. I'm sure that they'll come up with other good ideas, and I encourage everyone to help out in whatever way that they can.

But I do think that the city needs to figure out a way of providing better ongoing support. Saskatoon licenses cats as well as dogs, and Andrea was sure that Grethyll Adams had been behind a drive to implement cat licences. But when I went to City Hall to buy licences for Hendrix, Hunter and Gracie last week, I was told that there was no such thing. But that could be an area to explore. And if, along with the licence, you were able to have your cat microchipped, then when strays are brought in, the owners could be found, reducing the numbers that have to stay there, hoping for adoption.

Perhaps if members of council sacrificed their meals paid for by the taxpayer, that would provide a bit more money that could be channeled to the SPCA. The animals certainly need feeding more than councillors do. Despite the tightness of the budget that some members of council have apparently just become aware of, we need to find ways of better supporting this facility.

And here's something that anyone who owns a computer can do - go to http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/, click to automatically donate food, then click on the part that says to vote for your favourite animal shelter. Type in Prince Albert SPCA, and you will have voted for the Prince Albert SPCA to receive a share of $100,000. The top prize is $20,000, and it could be tough to outvote American shelters, but there are two $1,000 prizes for Canadian shelters which get the most votes. If enough people find out about this, who knows? You can vote once a day until mid-December. I figure that it's worth a shot. And it won't cost the city anything.

Quick, go click.

"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words." - Anna Sewell