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.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crowsnest-Pass-RatePayers-Association/441790612539166?fref=ts

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 30^th-----$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)  

Hoe, Hoe, Hoe this is not a funny story.

For the last five budgets I participated in, Administration, specifically Public Works approached council regarding the purchase of a track hoe.

The argument was made that we needed to have our own, due to us having to dependent on the availability of contractor’s hoes the costs involved etc etc.

Every year I asked the same questions give me specifics of when we ran into a problem getting a hoe, and how much were we spending on renting machines. The answer I always got was no specific dates and $10-15,000 a year.

With that information myself and enough of my fellow members of council had the wisdom to not make that $250,000 purchase. Even at a cost of $15,000 a year it would take 17 years to pay for then you would be left with a machine that was worthless, plus costing the town how many dollars to maintain each year.

So budget 2011 rolls around administration brings forth the request for a track hoe again, surprisingly council not only approves it but decides to put the taxpayers in debt to finance it. (at that point 17 years becomes 18-19)

But the story doesn’t end there just a few short months later administration comes back to council and says we need $25,000 to buy a trailer to move the hoe, well I guess now you have made the first mistake you really can’t go out and not have a trailer to move it around so council approves that.

Lets fast forward a year, the story of the track hoe I felt was behind me and could not get any more ridiculous than it already was. So here I am just a few evenings ago having a chat with a couple of fellows that have lived here all there life and spent most of their working life around heavy equipment, when the topic of the track hoe comes up.

I am told that the Hoe the municipality purchased is an odd ball size, attachments and parts can be difficult to acquire, Wow. Then the icing on the proverbial cake comes along (remember the initial argument about availability of contractors hoes) I am told that the municipality does not have a piece of equipment adequate to move the hoe around, we are dependent on contractors to do that for us.