Efficiency: Doing Less for More in the Crowsnest Pass.

On January 22 at the last G+ P, meeting Administration had intended to present the Fire/Rescue Master Plan to council, at the beginning of the meeting the CAO requested that the issue be placed “In Camera” due to there being some sensitive Personal issues. They also stated that this plan is tentatively scheduled to be brought back to council and the general public on May 19 at the next G+P meeting. 

Most of our present members of council ran on a platform of “Change”, change that would make the municipality more “efficient”. My understanding of efficient was doing the same for less, or in a perfect world doing even more with less.

So let us get to the issue at hand the Fire/Rescue plan, this great opportunity to provide us the good taxpayers of the Crowsnest Pass with a better service at either close to what we were paying before or optimistically even cheaper.  

Therefore, what confuses the hell out of me is I and many other folks are expecting this Grand Fire/Rescue Plan to bring us Less Fire Stations, Less Equipment and Less Firemen. Some taxpayers would be open to debate this issue if it was going to make us more “efficient” but the sad reality is it is not.

In 2010, our operational cost of running the Fire Departments was less than $300,000; today we are paying close to that just to administrate the Department. Don’t believe me? Let us look at the numbers Director of Community and Protective Services $110,000, Fire Chief $95,000, Assistant Fire Chief $85,000. Assume that half the Director’s wages are being applied to Fire/Rescue that is $235,000 just in salary, add on top of that the 35% that the Municipality allows to cover benefits, the $235,000 becomes $316,000.   

The next issue is the contract Firemen nobody knows how long they are going to be here but at $6,000, a month each multiplied by the three that are here that becomes $216,000 for the year.  

Now keep in mind that we have not included a dollar for Firemen’s wages for call out, being on call, or training. For a uniform, for a tank of gas, a bad tire on a truck nothing has you can see for yourself the numbers just do not make sense.

Would anybody like to disagree? Please show me that we will have even the same number of Fire Departments, the same amount of equipment to protect us and the same number of Firemen to serve us. After the full implementation of the Fire/Rescue Master Plan.   

Only in the Pass under this regime can we argue that being more “efficient” is providing less at more cost.

G+P meeting update on Fire Master plan, Riversdale and Annexation

For those that have the time and the interest tomorrow afternoon at 2pm the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass Fire and Rescue Service Master Plan, will be presented by Albert Headrick, Director of Protective and Community Services to council. It will be very interesting to see what the results are of the mess that was created in this community in 2012, and all the taxpayers dollars (whether they be Municipal or Provincial they are all tax payers money) that was spent.

Back in the Fall, Bill Kovach President of the Ratepayers Association requested information regarding the Fire Departments he was told at that time by the Mayor that the questions would be answered by the Fire and Rescue Master Plan that administration would be bringing forth prior to Christmas. Well it was on the agenda for today in a surprising turn of events the CAO asked that it be moved to "In Camera" due to some sensitive issues that had to be talked about, he also informed council that it would be coming back to the G+P on Feb 19.

The Mayor also informed Council that Riversdale Resources will be coming to the Pass on Feb 6, to meet with council, media, business leaders and finally the public. I was a little surprised when he asked the rest of council if they have met Riversdale all responded "No".

In other news council was informed that Municipal Affairs will be coming down to meet with them on Feb 13 regarding the road map for annexation, Mayor Decoux suggested that the MD of Ranchlands be invited, then in a very neighborly type fashion he suggested that all the other MD's bordering the MD of Ranchlands be invited. After all he stated we don't want to gobble up all of Ranchlands, I wonder how the MD of Ranchlands will feel about being invited to an all you can eat buffet where they are the main course.