Ron Bolin: May 14, 2013

At 3:44 yesterday afternoon the Provincial Dam Safety Board sent a letter to the City which demanded some action this year to mitigate the possibility of any imminent catastrophic failure of the middle and lower Colliery Dams.  Why this letter should be sent less than four hours before a Council meeting at which the issue of the dams was to be discussed remains an intriguing mystery.  The letter itself neither recommended methods of mitigation which might be implemented this year, nor did it indicate that removal of the dams in 2013 was the only acceptable mitigation.  The immense gap left between these two positions apparently went unnoticed by our Council, with the possible exception of Councillor Johnston who put forward the notion of reducing the water level behind the dams which would significantly mitigate the current risk.  For whatever reason, this suggestion was allowed to get lost in the rush to see the dams destroyed as quickly as possible without a clear path to reconstruction.

The failure to communicate between the three major interested parties, i.e. the public, the City and the Dam Safety Branch,  in any full and open manner since this issue was made public has not failed to draw attention to the increasing suspicion that all is not as it has been presented.  Staff appears to have attempted to keep the other two parties divided by not providing a public forum where all could play on the same field at the same time.  Instead they have positioned themselves as a mouthpiece for the Dam Safety Branch, interpreting DSBs position while overlooking the apparent lacunae in the logic of that position as they represented it.  This has been further highlighted by repeatedly stated City projections for reconstruction costs which now turn out to be two to three times higher than those provided not only by citizen experts, but finally by the very  experts hired by the City to study the alternatives for the dams.  It has been difficult to sustain the pretense that there is nothing more at issue here than safety.  Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Bolin: March 4, 2013

There is a lot to like about Nanaimo: it’s a beautiful site on the coast of Vancouver Island which is world renowned for its beauty and known all over Canada for its mild climate; it is strategically located at the hub of the island on the Salish Sea facing the mainland and the City of Vancouver;  it is a mid-size City, neither too big nor too small to offer full amenities without presumption;  it is home to a downtown port, a railway line, an airport, and a cruise ship terminal;  a conference centre;  a well-developed parks and rec system;  clean water flows to homes and sewers lead the waste away;  the roads are in passable shape and in general the population is friendly and accepting; and politics are, in general, ignored.

It is this latter circumstance which threatens the tranquility of the community.  For some years now –I would put it since the passage of the Local Government Act in 2004 when BC’s municipalities were turned into corporations, i.e. legal persons with powers far exceeding those of any of their constituents.  Since that time and as Council and Staff have come to more fully recognize the power of their new status, the corporation of the City of Nanaimo has gradually turned itself away from functioning as a government and increasingly into functioning as a corporation Read the rest of this entry »

What Milk is the COW giving on Monday, Feb. 4, 2013

Ron Bolin: Feb. 2, 2013

The purpose of these notes to the agenda of a Council or COW meeting is to provide a shortcut to the matters of general interest which I believe to impact on the community as a whole, without going to the level of asking for whom the bell tolls.  Those who wish to read the entire agenda and attached reports can go to:

http://www.nanaimo.ca/UploadedFilesPath/Site_Structure/Corporate_Services/Corporate_Administration/2013_Committee_Agendas/COW130204A.pdf

And I hope many will find the time to do so.  In the meantime:

Major items which can splash upon us all include:

Item # 8(a): Delegations Pertaining to the 2013-2017 Financial Plan.  Council now has an extra $18 million more to talk about than they had last week before they  passed three readings of the 2013-2017 Plan.  These approvals silently updated the 2013 Plan that was included in the 2012-2016 Plan which limited the 2013 budget to $157.5 million.  After last Monday’s approvals it has become $175.5 million, the figure shown in the 2013-2017 budget.   Want to know the sources of the balloon?  Ask your favourite City Councillor? I certainly have not been made aware of any discussion of the basis for this increase which, as I understand it, even after a 1% per year property tax increase for “Asset Management” , i.e. paying to keep what we already have in repair, runs an average of some $8.3 million dollars short each year for the next 20 years.  The figure rises considerably if we look at the lifetime costs of our existing assets.

It is time to give Council and Staff some help in finding ways to cut back on our so obviously flagrant City spending so as not to entirely impoverish our children and grandchildren, not to mention ourselves if we last a few years longer.  We need to carefully monitor the costs of growth.  Does anyone believe that we are still living in a world where things are continually getting better and better (at least in a material sense)?

The following Comments on the Budget/Plan were put forward: Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Bolin: Jan. 19, 2013

At its COW (Committee of the Whole) meeting  on Monday, Jan. 21, 2013 at 4:30pm in the Shaw Auditorium of the VICC, Council will receive a presentation from Ms. Jean Crowder, MP for Nanaimo-Cowichan regarding local and federal government issues.  One may hope that among these issues will be the right of our federally chartered Port Authority to sublet their responsibilities to a foreign company, to assign treaty rights to a foreign company, and/or to sunder parts of a city which are separated by waters of disputed authority.

Also on the agenda is an open spot for delegations who wish to speak to the 2013-2017 Financial Plan.  This opportunity is open to all and does not require prior registration.  This is an opportunity to raise questions about the City’s use of our tax dollars and to suggest methods for the improvement of services.  It can be noted that none of the six Strategic Priorities mentioned in the Strategic Plan recently adopted by the City pertain specifically to minimizing costs.

Following delegations on the budget, Mr. B. E. Clemens, Director  of Finance, will give a presentation of the use of the “Balanced Scorecard” approach to the evaluation of programs, infrastructure and services in Nanaimo.  This is another Big Reveal from the City and has been in the works for several years.  According to the Balanced Scorecard Institute: Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Bolin: Dec. 19, 2012

Monday’s Council meeting was the last of 2012 –and perhaps the last for eternity if some interpretations of the Maya prophecy are to be believed.  For myself, I fear that we will not get off so easily and that we will all be back in the hands of Council in the New Year.

However this turns out, as previously reported the agenda was packed… and so was the Shaw Auditorium.  Council made a number of housekeeping decisions and in addition, to their credit, made several policy related decisions which were good (which is code for I am in favour) and rejected one for reasons which in my opinion were not related to the merits of the question.

The meeting opened by Dr. Paul Hasselback, Medical Health Officer for VIHA with a presentation regarding our health profile.  In brief we remain a year behind both the Island and BC in life expectancy and the gap is slowly increasing.  By 2030 we are anticipated to see an increase of about 50% in people over 85 and 92% in people between the ages of 75-85 with all that this entails.  We continue to lose ground in education readiness and success when compared to the rest of VIHA and we remain poorer on all measures of economic wellbeing.  What is it that is leading to these recurrent conditions and what, if anything, can our municipality do about it? Read the rest of this entry »