Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Taxpayers dollars at work in the Crowsnest Pass


If you have not had the chance check out the Crowsnest Pass Ratepayers Associations Facebook page at the following address. Some very interesting information regarding the use of consultants/contractors from April 1 to early December 2012.


Picking out a few of the highlights:

Sure Call----After hours on call service----$3,400 (despite the fact that we pay municipal employees to be on call after hours.)

Friesen Tokar----Administration building renovations architecultural services---$22,904.91----(carpets and a security wall so the public can not see in)

Studio Group-----Branding Project----$23,325----(was Mountain Freedom that bad?)

Dave Mitchell & Associates------Fire Hall location study-----$9,500 (with a Director of Protective Services with ??? of knowledge and a Full time fire chief)

Inferno Safety-----Contract Firemen to Nov 30th-----$66,800-----(The mess that just keeps getting worse)  

Transitional Services-----Interim Manager of Enforcement----$69,957 (How did the municipality get by without this position for it’s first 30 years of existence)

Animal Damage Control-----Rodent Control----$7,992.25----(Remember the councilor at the public forum talking about the silly rumors gopher hunters)

Zorro Fencing------Fencing-----$15,379.48---(Part of this was the fence at the swimming pool is there any of my readers that sat at the pool this summer and thought that fence really needed replacing)

Ed D’Antoni------Contract Operations Manger-----$43,170----(Another part of the revolving door process of administrators, the second of three Operations managers in 2012)

Crow Lock and Key----Mtce repairs doors and locks-----$6,069.56----(Must have replaced a lot of locks in 2012

Park Enterprises-----Safety codes inspection fees-----$86,382.96-----(Didn’t the municipality hire a Building Inspector at the start of 2012?)

Sonny’s Lock and Key----Lock and door repairs----$1,165.28-----(Wow over $7200 of locks changed last year)
Before anybody tells me I realize that some of these costs were cover by grants from Edmonton, let us not lose site that it is all taxpayers money.

Last week Albert Headrick informed council that the Peace Officers were well on their way to being self sufficient, when CAO Myron Thompson met with the Ratepayers prior to Christmas he informed them that the cost of the program to date was $343,555, and that the municipality had received $70,000 of revenue in that same timeframe (80% of which it keeps)  

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Zorro Fencing------Fencing-----$15,379.48---(Part of this was the fence at the swimming pool is there any of my readers that sat at the pool this summer and thought that fence really needed replacing)"

Would it not be good policy to post the reasons for needing such expenditures? And would it not be propper to put such contracts up for open tender?
Without trsnsparency the only thing, that I can deduce, is thst council has severly limited their options and will no longer be able to take as many free midnight swims in the dark.

James said...

Dean just wondering if you know who owns Inferno Safety??????

Anonymous said...

Dean: I added up the costs of the money spent from April 1 to Nov.21 and it is the staggering sum of $959,406.32. I did not add up the grants and if that is done then this municipality is totally out of control and unless they are printing the stuff in the basement we are getting deeper and deeper in the hole. They can still do a whole lot more damage before October arrives.

Anonymous said...

Inferno Safety out of Red Deer interesting to read that the firemen were employees of Inferno until Nov 30 then signed individual contracts after that.

http://www.infernosafety.ca/index.html

J.C

Chloe said...

The Aministartion building is a public building! Taxpayers paid for a wall to be erected to limit their view? The depths of arrogance knows no limit with the present council hellbent on destroying the CNP. Take care.

Anonymous said...

So let me get it straight we hired a Full time building Inspector plus spent almost $90K on Park Enterprises. Then I read in the Promoter that we built 12 houses last year.

Does this make sense to anybody else out there?

Anonymous said...

Regarding Chloe's comment:
Yes, it is a public building. I can see why they wanted to separate the staff from the reception area. I think it was probably very distracting. Every time someone came in it would be natural for everybody to look. I actually think it is much more efficient. Have you seen the set up?

Anonymous said...

You're not posting the full information. A lot of that was brought on by the last council and is a regular contract, plus the document posted on the Ratepayers page shows clearly that a lot of that is covered by grants, like the Inferno Safety costs. Your council hired Park Enterprises, not this one. The CAO has said that they are trying to get out of using that company.

If you're going to present information, be honest about it. Only presenting the parts you want is a lie by omission.

The staff in the office don't deserve any privacy? Give your head a shake.

Crowsnest Pass Home said...

2:26

First of all I said in the post that some of this stuff was covered by grants.
Grants are driven by our tax dollars they just come from a different tax collector.
The Inferno Safety grant let's be clear a crisis is created by the actions of council and administration then they go to the province crying that they have a crisis and the province picks up the tab? is that not taxpayers dollars?
Our Council hired Park Enterprises? your right but we did not have a building inspector then neither.
So to have a cost of $86,000 for Parks Enterprises and a building Inspector makes how much sense? In a town where 12 houses will built last year.
What information did I not present that has any relevance to the post?

The staff in the office don't deserve privacy? in six years on council I never had one person in the office complain about a lack of privacy in that office.
It was nothing to do with privacy, speak to some of the staff that work in there not Councilors or administrators that are trying to justify what they have done.

Could you point out to me what else last council had brought on out of the items listed in the post?

Anonymous said...

"Consultants/Contractors ... employed" includes Plant Purchase and Road Salt Purchase but not those "From Your Council" newspaper ads.

Most any purchase or expenditure is legally a "contract". This is just a list of contracts they want us to know about.