United we Stand…
On May 28-30 the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) held its annual meeting in Toronto, Ontario. Nanaimo was well represented by Mayor Ruttan and three Councillors (Holdom, Kipp and Sherry), i.e. nearly half our Council. I am currently waiting for advice on the number of Staff who may have attended. One assumes that this was an all expenses paid event and I look forward to the reports of our representatives which can demonstrate the payoffs to citizens of their attendance. It can be noted from the program which can be found here, Program that a number of events were sponsored by firms hoping to do business with our municipalities. Thus we pay to send our representatives to them rather than they having to pay for their sales call on us. I also find it ironic that one of the workshops at the conference was entitled: “Local Government 3.0: Using the Web to cut costs and serve your citizens better”. Perhaps we would have been at least as well served by on-line attendance. We would certainly have saved money. Will our taxes be going down next year as a result of what was learned in Toronto? We shall see.
Organization such as the FCM, the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM), the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities (AVICC), and a host of other national, international and professional groups meet regularly to promote the interests of their municipal members. And there is nothing sinister about this, even though attendance at these events can be expensive and is rarely, if ever, examined for evidence of value for money. But perhaps even more important is what is missing from this list of organizations. There is NO organization, local, national or international, dedicated to and organized by and for the municipally governed, i.e. those who must live with the consequences and pay the bills. Local political parties can perhaps play an important role in such a structure. Perhaps an even broader force might be put together in the form of a ratepayer’s association active throughout the elective term rather than just at election times. What controls can we exert over our elected dictators in between elections and how do we institute them? I am convinced that the answer lies in some form of citizen organization rather than a reliance on the election of saints. The principle of checks and balances is out of order.
Ron Bolin
Posts and Comments on Nanaimo Governance 
Conferences like the FCM are hugely important for learning about what other municipalities are doing to solve some of the same problems we have, tackle some of the same issues, or create innovations that may be relevant to Nanaimo. If we want our elected officials and staff to remain current and innovative, we should support their attendance at events like these. As for industry sponsoring these events, this is nothing new and different, and I don’t think anything to be suspicious of. If organizers can’t get industry sponsorship money they will probably not be able to hold conferences like this, since I’m sure tax payers would oppose municipal money being used to make up the difference.
I too think it is important to send people, but it has to be the right people! This is however a point that must always be taken directly in that these people that go are spending the cities money and as such shouldn’t be doing things that can not be justified.
I am not denigrating the need to meet. All involved in municipal affairs need to exchange ideas and examine best practices. I am pointing out that we live in a new world of communication where youtube allows the presentation of information and ideas and chat rooms and email allow for the exchange of ideas, 24/365 instead of few days each year. I have attended many conferences in my day and found that there was good social value and the opportunity to look for alternate employment and that travel does indeed broaden one, but all in all I have found that the learning experience is only extensive if I have failed to follow the journals and now electronic media. So no, I don’t object to the learning experiences. I suggest, however, that there are more time and cost effective means in the modern world. We provide internet and Blackberry services to all our Council and to our senior staff. These service are both paid for and available for learning as well as scheduling.
With regard to commercial sponsors, I agree that conferences of this type might not be possible. But what do you imply? Should Coke sponsor our schools? Should our municipal government have sponsors? How about sponsors for our roads, our water supply, our sewer system? Where does this stop? Shouldn’t we perhaps spend some time cutting down on expenses rather that seeking ways to ignore skyrocketing costs?
It could be argued that there should be considerably more training for our elected officials (yes even at considerable additional cost) so they can be up to the task of directing and overseeing the activities of City staff. After a term in office the elected official could stand for election to an assembly of experienced advisors to offer much better advice and expertise than what appears to be available to them now. This training should be state of the art and help attract a higher caliber candidate.
Are we in danger of being sharply aware of costs but unable to see where best value lies?
Maybe our elected officials need to acquire this learning on their own time and at their own expense. Do you want to have a doctor who has decided that he/she will get trained after treating you for a few years?
I think rather that many are determinedly ignorant of the job and prefer to remain that way rather than going to the trouble of paying in time, effort and/or money to rectify that ignorance, particularly in a loose cannon environment. While I agree that I should be content if my neighbour were to be picked from a hat to hold office, I would still hold that he/she owes it to me and to the community to be aware of the nature of the organization by which he has been governed and will, in his/her turn, govern. Do our schools not teach civics any more?
Pay peanuts. Get monkeys.
Do I gather correctly that your view on this matter has nothing to do with results, but a whole lot to do with perks?
Do you wish to maintain that our bunch would be twice as good if we just paid them twice as much? Should we follow the 93% Lantzville plan?
No.
No.
…and the answer to question #3: no. Sorry Ron — I’m not holding up my end of this discussion but to suggest I’m promoting perks for our elected representatives and that I’m suggesting a mindless equation of 2x the money equal 2x the quality of the elected representative doesn’t leave a lot of room for exploring the topic or investigating alternative possibilities does it?
Neither does: “Pay peanuts. Get monkeys.” a quote from yourself above. Is there some other explanation?
I disagree. “Pay peanuts. Get monkeys.” doesn’t try to discredit or mis-characterize your point, it restates mine with a colloquialism.
The discussion has to somehow evolve beyond “our elected officials are bottom-feeding dimwits”. Though I suppose that might well be the case but surely we’d back that up with some evidence. And develop a plan of action based on our findings.
Is there some reason why people with greater skills, insight, vision, training and experience aren’t attracted to running for Council? Seems so. Do you know what it is? I don’t. Might training and remuneration be part of it. Maybe. A small part anyway.
Subjectively attributing a willful ignorance and a refusal to learn is an interesting conjecture and demonstrates an entirely understandable frustration but is it a useful insight? Does it help us get better candidates? Does it support the argument for municipal political parties?
Not to digress . . .
There are two freighters tied-up at the freight yard docks: the ‘Port Angeles’ and the ‘Black Forest’, both out of Hongkong: they have visited regularly all year.
They are loading raw logs, or to be more precise, they are off-shoring the best of Nanaimo’s well paying jobs.
The News report Nanaimo unemployment is at an all-time low, 4.6%: baristas, Starbucks, Macdonalds and stuffing shelves at Thrifty’s. Hardly C$50/hr fallers and scalers . . .
Oh, but don’t forget, lots of jobs a city hall, C$75,000/year and more, hyped-up clerks showing councilors which way to the washrooms.
The logs are spindly things that wouldn’t even have been described as poles as when I worked in the bush: more evidence of the wonton destruction of our precious resources and resource jobs.
Obviously those spindles wont fit the conventional green chains to which Nanaimo industry is accustomed. Nope!
So they are destined to be trashed into useless consumer trinkets by the usual “globalization” sweatshop desperados, to be returned as whatever cheapo gadgets that tickle our WalMart fancy!
But, we will be told, shipping jobs off-shore is a Federal matter and the ships are, of course, Harbour Commission, well out of City Hall’s jurisdiction and indeed this conversation. Such are the consequences of, convenient, dispersion of responsibility.
Sin embargo it impacts the city like a sledgehammer.
And there’s the rub!
So what is the city doing to ameliorated that “Globalization” impact? Sprawl upon sprawl in the south end! A tourist dock! A marriage parlour! The still vacant Pacifica with dolled-up sidewalks!
Nanaimo, these blog conversationalists emphasize, is, and has been, badly served by a bloated, bureaucracy, blatantly responsive only to select power bases, and a council who can only be described as . . . well . . . out of touch.
To the point today, as those two freighters load up what is council doing to replace those jobs. What can they do?
Councilor Loyd Sherry has been on council for twenty-nine years: sitting there like Humpty-Dumpty who has already fallen off his wall and doesn’t know it. What does he have to show for it? Indiscriminate sprawl.
Councilor Larry McNab has been on council for twenty-four years: sitting there like OJ Simpson who, inevitably, got caught after all. What does he have to show for it? Indiscriminate sprawl.
Councilor William Holdom has been on council for nineteen years: sitting there like Wilkins Micawber, “sprawl is not a zero sum game” waiting for something to turn up. What does he have to show for it? Indiscriminate sprawl.
There are no jobs in sprawl anymore . . .
As for change (remember Obama) . . . well . . .
Civic parties? I don’t see it.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Re: Frank Murphy 3 June 2010 at 10pm
I don’t remember any occasion on which I suggested that “our elected officials are bottom-feeding dimwits” and thus am unable to respond. What I have proposed is that most folks are pretty ordinary, that they have tendencies to react to group dynamics in a particular way and that therefore we need checks and balances on those tendencies. I have further suggested that political parties can provide, not without some danger, such offsets by providing a counterweight to the influences of their few donors or of the “wisdom” of other loose cannons in the small group known as Council. The point being that the party, with a presumably wider range of concerns and the ability to provide broad backing for them is, though not perfect, better than a small and hidden band of backers and bad small group dynamics.
To expect either saints or Solomons to put themselves forward on a turbulent political sea with no compass is to expect too much (well maybe saints, but we all know what happens to them). But a party with the proper platform and the ability to cover their backs might attract the kind of individuals, and enough of them, to implement some coherent policy. I add the caveat “enough of them” as I believe that another reason we may not draw more of the candidates for whom we would like to vote is that such people do not want to find themselves in the position of our current Councillors, i.e. emasculated (with one exception) by their isolation and inability to carry forward coherent policy and without the resources to access sufficient background information and research to investigate issues. In fact our current Council has trouble just trying to keep up with the stacks of documents and the rounds of meetings which a large staff has generated for them. A party can help in such matters. Life is no longer simple. We keep trying to pretend it is not so at our cost.
I anticipated your probably justified objection to “The discussion has to somehow evolve beyond “our elected officials are bottom-feeding dimwits””, especially if it seemed I attributed the quote to you which I didn’t.
Cut me a little slack, eh. A little licence. Is “our elected officials are bottom-feeding dimwits”” not a fair broad rendering of your statement, “many are determinedly ignorant of the job and prefer to remain that way rather than going to the trouble of paying in time, effort and/or money to rectify that ignorance.” Let’s not quibble.
And again, when will we exhaust our reservoirs of anger and indignation and ask “where to from here?”
Other than that I think political parties evolve from realities on the ground that just aren’t present in Nanaimo right now. The central broad issue people mobilize around. (freeways, neighbourhoods being bulldozed etc) That doesn’t mean we can’t put strategies in place though that can attract better candidates and get them elected.
That said, as I’ve said many times before that the work you and Fred Pattje and others did on the Cable Bay reverse referendum — getting enough people signed up to defeat it — indicated that there is a large and broad constituency out there undeserved and quite pissed off at what they see as an arrogant unresponsive City Hall. Could that be mobilized into a civic political party? I don’t know but my gut says no not right now.
re: Urbanismo 4 June 2010 at 8am
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Are you stating this as a description of current affairs or as a postulate with its accompanying inevitability?
… is that anything like the postulate exam my doctor gave me recently? Oh wait… nevermind, that was something else. Sorry, carry on…
Ignorance is fixable. Dimwittedness is forever. Bit Difference.
The issues you have raised as “broad” seem to me to be rather narrow and arouse neighbours at base and neighbourhoods at best. This is not bad, but it won’t lead to much change at city hall. The Cable Bay question, which was really one primarily of peoples anger at being mislead was one which could form a base. The HST is clearly another. I believe that the fundamental issues which can arouse participation revolve around money, security or “face”. And these issues are very alive in Nanaimo, just below the surface.
The bulldozers show up you see change at City Hall pretty quick. “Money, security or “face”. Yes. And that’s exactly where we have to engage the voter — on those fields. Nail hit right on the head. Now we just need a plan.