Getting down to the final strokes, Council Oct 1

My reflection of Tuesday night’s meeting and what jumped out:

Minutes of the previous council meeting Councilor Saje pointe out that the minutes failed to reflect some of the costs on the failed Medican deal. The $130 for advertising the open house in the papers, and the $500 spent on the PR consultant were not included.

CAO Report of Activities:

CAO will be bringing back to council soon Action/Timelines to respond to the Municipal Inspection.

There will be a meeting on Oct 23 to address the Workplace Assessment study.

The CLC demolition should be complete prior to the end of the month (I suspect by Oct 20^th)

Residents should be receiving the Recreation Surveys in the mail shortly.

Departments are preparing for the 2014 budget review.

Administration will be in contact with their municipal Insurance shortly to see how much rates will jump for next year.

12 members of the Fire Department passed their NFPA 1001 training.

CAO briefing meeting Councilor Saje questioned how you could have actions and timelines for meeting where no motions or directives can be given, the CAO responded that those were his own actions/timelines.

There were three calls made to various government agencies regarding the CLC site all were checked out, and found to have no validity to them.

Councilor Gail congratulated Fire Chief Munshaw on what a great job he has done.

Tender for winter sand was not filled by the successful bidder, sand will be delivered by another company falling within budget.

Investment Task Force Initiative;

The Economic Development and Tourism Board is putting in place a short term Task Force to investigate the possibility of finding Investments/Investors for the Best Western and Crowsnest Crossing site.

Human Resources Administrator Position:

On the Municipal Web site this position as been advertised and still is for at least a month  http://www.crowsnestpass.com/finance-a-administration/employment this was questioned at the previous council meeting as it was never approved by council. Administration felt that in light of all the labor relations problems they were having despite the position being vacant for 15 months it was now of a emergent nature to fill the position. They proposed to pay for it by using the wages saved from the Director of Protective services position not being filled until the end of the year. Then find the money for next year in the 2014 budget. We were also informed surprisingly that the position will become full time as of Jan 1. The question was asked by Councilor Saje why the job was advertised prior to being approved by council, the only answer he got was that was an error.

As this point Councilors Saje, Saindon, Gallant and Gail felt that it would be out of line for this council to fill this position this close to the election, felt that it should be left for next council. Councilor Saindon made very good arguments in regards to this issue that I felt were bang on. Council voted down administrations recommendation and suggested that they bring it back to the next council.

Comment: Council did not take a similar position (with the exception of Saindon and Saje) to spending an unbudgeted $600,000 just a few months prior to the election to demolish the centre.

Before any one jumps down my throat (I support the demolition) It should have been done either last year when it was budgeted, or early next year when it could have been built into the 2014 budget.

A community divided, the real fix is eleven months away.

My fellow blogger Mr Prince is calling for a town hall meeting, the people that signed the petition are waiting for municipal affairs.

I think this municipality at this point in its short history is deeply divided, unfortunately it is not going to be repaired in the next eleven months. Any one of us can wish for a different out come but realistically it is not coming in the short term. The petition and municipal affairs will run its cause and hopefully something will come of that, if not then people need to be preparing for October 21^st 2013 that will be the communities next real opportunity for “change”.

Why do I feel it’s too late for real change with this council, the issues that have been put in front of the taxpayers over the last two years have been too numerous and two divisive.

Can a town hall meeting fix these issues? I don’t think so, most of the people I speak to could care less about a town hall meeting they have seen them become a platform for our leader to pump his chest, berate anybody that disagrees with him. I was so shocked when I watched a highly educated seventy year old man walk across a room to the sound of a few boos, waving his arms and telling the people to bring it on. (Leadership?)

I sat down last Friday and listened to a veteran administrator tell a reporter the way it is. (Yes it was as bad has it sounds). Communications has not been this council’s downfall in all honesty they have probably done a better job of communicating than any previous council, the problem is not so much communications it is what they have said and done. 

This Council believes in building a Bureaucracy by the time they have restructured they will have gone through more administrators in eighteen months than any other council in our history and have more upper management in place then we have ever seen before. Mean while we have a demoralized workforce that is scared and bullied to the point where a large percentage of them are in fear of their jobs.

This community has no commercial tax base, if we only did what we could pay for three quarters of what happens in this community would not happen. The key for this community is volunteers I came to learn this lesson over the last ten years, are there any volunteers left? Sure there are but not many, with what happened with Thunder in the Valley/Rum Runner Days and the Firemen situation who’s going to step forward. Want more proof of that look at municipal boards despite three months of advertising nine boards are short of members. Why do you think council backpedaled on getting rid of the Swimming Pool Authority two weeks ago? They desperately need to reverse the perception in the public forum as to how volunteers are being treated. What we did not  need is a member of council slamming the public because they didn’t support their way of doing things on the Rum Runner days weekend maybe just maybe the silent majority did not want it to change.  

The public has spoken about how they feel, despite the fact that 2500 people signed a petition in less than three weeks (more than double what is legally required). This council and its members can only focus on the “silent majority still supports us”, “or people were bullied and intimidated into signing”. Tell those people to contact municipal affairs I am sure the powers to be would love an excuse not to deal with this petition. Does it not say that the public has a problem with where you are going?

Look at our tax situation we hear great fanfare about a three year budget that only had annual increases of 2.5%, I didn’t hear anybody from council or administration tell us that Franchise Fees were going to increase more than 300% in three years.

Will the books balance at the end of the year? Of course they will I could spend hours writing about how numbers are shuffled. For example  take a look at Manager of Corporate Services, that position was only filled for three months this year. The other nine months of monies set aside for that position will be used to make the numbers work. My concern is the million dollars a year of administration moving forward how do we pay for that in future years when all the positions are filled year round?

Financial credibility is there any out there, after waiting for three and a half months look at the numbers that were presented for Rum Runner Days, remember the talk about $150-$200,000 not even close.   

Community Peace Officers all those that think these positions are going to pay for themselves raise your hand now. That’s a fallacy that will be proven over time, I can remember the consultant telling council at a G+P meeting that there were 290+ locations in violation of the unsightly premises bylaw how many of them have been cleaned up? Is there a date that they will be cleaned up by? So what happens with the bylaw officers once they are cleaned up?

Promises even though they were followed with a “you can take this with a grain of salt”

CLC gone before first snowfall, sharing Ranchlands tax base, Quebec manufacturer, deal with the hotel developer done in two weeks, two more, thirty days, heavy industry with up to 700 jobs. Politically you can sell hope all you want but sooner than later it has to be realized or you lose creditability.    

I think we have reached the point where the majority (be they loud or silent) do not pay a whole lot of attention anymore to what this council has to say or do. Most people are counting down the time until Oct 21,2013. Will a town hall meeting change that?   

Throw the bums out!

On Mr Prince's Blog this morning is a post regarding the rising discontent over incumbent politicians and how local incumbent politicians should be very afraid.
I would like to speak to some of the comments he refers to.

http://blog.johnprince.ca/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-07%3A00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=25

I know this is a case on the International and provincial side of things but the article he refers to does not talk at any point about municipal politics, but lets assume it will flow to that level.

Anyway let's talk about the rest of the post I will take some quotes and address them with my comments :

"According to the above story people in general are angry. Very Angry! They feel their politicians are elitist, arrogant and oblivious to their pain and suffering, and as such doing little to nothing to address their issues and concerns. As a result, it's a very, very bad time to be an incumbent."

Most of us on the present council are simple folks six of us have lived here for ten years or more.
Do we have some members of our council that are elitist, arrogant and oblivious to the residents pain and suffering, yes I think we have some of that do you really think taht applies to the whole of council? should they all be painted with that same brush?

Then we go to:

"With this in mind, I wonder how our own incumbents are feeling about their chances of getting back in, considering the mood of our residents towards the on-going, never ending, three year long battle between the two waring camps on our council?"

John you really do not buy into the 4-3 Irwin propaganda do you? we all know that council spilt over the Crowsnest Centre issue and a some budgetary related issues. We also all recognize that 95% of Council Motions pass by something other than 4-3.
Would this be the first council accused of being 4-3?
But as you have said many times yourself this council did a lot of things well and did not receive enough credit for the good things they did.

"The never ending battle between the waring camps" isn't that exactly how the media, Irwin and his cronies portrayed the council from 1998-2001? Was that all accurate?.

"All the while, apparently, oblivious to the fact there is a good chance none of them will be getting back in because of their past actions".

If none of us are to get back in due to our "past" actions then I suspect the voters will go back further than just this last council, because very few of us that have sat on council previously have not had our names tarnished by one part of the media or the other and Irwin's cronies.

"and understand from this that what is needed and wanted is democracy in action where councillors actually work together as a team for the greater common good and get things done, by applying some good old-fashioned basic common-sense while leaving the grandstanding and 'gotcha' politics behind"

Democracy isn't that about taking a position, debating it and voting? 4-3, 5-2, 6-1, 7-0 which one of them is not democracy.

"Can one blame them? After all, this council treated us like we were mushrooms i.e. kept us in the dark and fed us BS. We never had public forums to discuss any of the important issues, such as Bridgecreek/River Run and the lack of security deposits and long-term taxpayer liabilities, CLC (legal costs), the 4-3 voter split, etc., etc. and still know little to nothing on who, what, when and why with respect to these matters? They acted like they were above us and need not bother or trouble themselves with such matters as accountability and due diligence. Transparency went out the door as did fiscal responsibility. Thoughtful people believe one side was as bad as the other with respect to these matters, and therefore neither side is deserving of getting back in."

Couple of comments:
The Bridgecreek/River Run this is a private deal no different than any other development, we as a council can approve development agreements, zoning etc. No different than if I owned a piece of private land the municipality can not force me a built on it. There are people here that have owned land for 50 years and never done anything with it. That is a right allowed to us in a democratic country.
The mistakes the council made here was when the first council sold this property back in the mid 90's with no conditions attached to it.
Then this council made a large error, when we did not force them to put up security, I also feel that the Mayor made a big mistake when he appeared in their promotional video.

CLC legal costs those were not caused by council if you go back to the report in the spring that we were given by our financial officer after a request by Councillor Mitchell if memory serves me right those costs were about $80,000. Approximately $30,000 of that was due to the plebiscite that was forced on the municipality, which the public eventually sent a clear message on. The rest was as a result of the legal action taken due to the leases signed by the CLC Society.

The 4-3 I give Irwin credit here, he created an issue to blind as many people as possible to the real issues.
What amazes me is that some really smart people have brought into this issue, unless of course they are just using it for political advantage!
Another point if we are going to label this council as the 4-3 council what would we label previous councils, I hope I get this right:

1998-2001 4-3
2001-2004 5-2
2004-2007 4-3
2007-2010 4-3

Help me out folks let me know if I'm wrong.


"Fiscal Responsibility out the door".

Really over the last ten years can anybody point to a council that as done more to become more efficient, to reduce costs, than this one? sometime in the next two weeks I will list them all.

Anyway back to the question on the post, should incumbents be afraid? I guess depending on which side of the issues the voters side with, obviously some incumbents should be afraid.
But I believe that some of the councillors on this last council stood for what they truly believed in despite the fact that they were lambasted in parts of the media week after week.
They could have had it easy, they could have sat back and agreed with Irwin and his cronies, caused no controversy, had wonderful things said about them by those same hacks.

And today those same people would be blasting them for being a 7-0 council, a bunch of mindless sheep, Irwinites, that stood for nothing.

Anyway I believe that the people of the Crowsnest Pass are smart enough to cut through the crap that parts of the local media and Irwin and his cronies, have put out about members of this council and previous ones.

Finally yes I agree some what in that a few of the incumbents do not deserve to come back.
Change will happen in the Crowsnest Pass.