A Critical Look at a “Special” Council Meeting
Ron Bolin: August 24, 2011
The Special Council meeting of August 22 displayed many of the difficulties facing Council and thus the public regarding Nanaimo’s municipal political atmosphere:
- This important “Special” meeting took place outside the normal Council venue, at an impossible time for most citizens, in a small room with limited seating, and was not recorded for subsequent public viewing. It was not really open to the public in any meaningful way;
- The agenda for this meeting, in accordance with the usual practice, only became available to either Council or the public only two working days which straddled a weekend before the meeting. This ensures very little time for thoughtful deliberation by either Council or the public;
- An attitude by staff which I can only call, at best, unimaginative, and at worst , much worse, in providing critical information to Council.
Among the items at this Special meeting were such matters as:
- a Development Variance Permit for the new City Hall Annex, to my mind an essentially untendered expenditure of some $16 million dollars;
- a re-rezoning of the Howard Johnson site (which might be the next big downtown development site;
- the conversion/reversion of the Maffeo Sutton condo site which was readied at great expense as a bribe to Millennium to build a downtown hotel (before seeing whether the hotel would happen) to a park designation;
- the reversion of the height allowable in a number of residential zoning categories (more about this later);
- a number of text and map amendments to the just passed zoning bylaw;
- the award of a contract for City Employee Benefits at a cost of $835,866 per year for the first two years with re-evaluation subsequently;
- agreement to a partnering agreement with the recently incorporated Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation (NEDC) and the transfer of $1,375,450 in cash as well as other unspecified capital goods and services to the corporation;
- $495,320 for a new traffic light (do we have any idea how much our car culture really costs?); and
- receipt of a petition from residents who, like those in the Green Lake area, were incorporated into the city with a promise of sewer service, to waive the $1800 sewer hookup fee as was done for the Green Lake residents.
This provides some fairly heady decision making done at the far periphery of the public eye, eh?
While I believe that the matters involving the meeting place, time and lack of video backup, as well as the minimal time for reflection provided by the availability of the agenda are self-evident, the matter of Staff’s attitude regarding the residential building height matter requires some explanation.
From discussion at the meeting it was unclear when the change to the old zoning bylaw recommending an increase to 9m from 8.25m took place with some holding that it was a latecomer to the new bylaw. While I will forego any detailed examination of the issue here (I have written about it in a recent comment on a comment by Roger Kemble on this blog), I will note that Council was seemingly caught like a deer in a headlight when a citizen delegation pointed out that the amendment which Staff devised for Council (and recommended against), dealt only with R1 and R1a residential development while the same changes in the height of residential dwellings in other zoning categories led to the same problems. Rather than pointing out this discrepancy to Council, Staff chose to be strictly literal in their interpretation of Council’s request and thus, in my mind, acted in a manner incommensurate with their obligations to fully inform Council concerning the possible ramifications of their policies.
Council had also previously indicated that they wished to examine the possibility of permitting a greater height in new subdivisions under certain conditions. Rather than pursuing that policy suggestion, Staff seemed to wish to ignore it as too difficult. Neither of these policy suggestions from Council seemed to gain traction with Staff and this is regrettable as it represents, to my mind at least, a breach in the relation of Council and Staff: Policy and operations. Staff, as professionals, owe it to Council, as the representatives of the public, to assist Council in their policy deliberations without petulance.
From this representative series of events I would draw three recommendations;
- Bylaw and Big Money expenditures should be done at regular Council meetings at an adequate venue, at a time which can reasonably be expected to be allow citizens to attend, and where the meetings can be recorded.
- Agendas for Council Meetings should be available at least one week prior to the meeting to give both Council and the Public adequate time to review the issues coming before Council. The only last minute issues which should come to the agenda are those which arise as surprises. Too many surprises raises serious questions about management.
- Both Council and Staff could, in my opinion, re-evaluate their relation relative to policy and operations. It is easy for policy makers to come to poor policies, especially if they are expected to make them on the fly. Similarly it is easy for operations staff to feel that the policies which might be presented to them are naïve. Both positions are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. We have Councillors who are trying to do their best and we have professional Staff who keep our city turning over tickety-boo. Perhaps they could each help the other more.
Posts and Comments on Nanaimo Governance 
Ron,
“I have written about it in a recent comment on a comment by Roger Kemble on this blog. ”
Let us not get bogged down in who said what to whom, and when.
The essential issue is council’s relation to senior management. And at that, despite those on council who have been there for decades it should be a non-issue.
Clearly the city of Nanaimo is being run for the benefit of senior civic management and, together with council, are susceptible to nostrums from the institutionalized home builders, realtors and developers: each knows well which side the others’ bread is buttered.
Remember the rage Gerry Berry invoked with his well-orchestrated retirement package. Indeed for months, if not years, I heard complaints that Berry was in control of the agenda. As he was!
But Berry was not the problem. Nor is staff now.
The problem is a complacent, grotesquely inept council who claim staff hides behind waterproof employment contracts, staff associations and unions: institutions whose power needs to be challenged.
No, I am not anti union: I am, though, for good governance.
There are many ways in which council can wrest control back to where it belongs: one being to place all senior management on paid leave placing the onus on them to justify their contractual arrangements. I can attest, from professional experience, the city will continue to limp along business as usual.
If indeed, some of the complaints appearing on this blog have any credibility I am confident staff will be the first to wilt and we can get back, at last, to responsible governance.
Roger: We are on the same wavelength on this one. The question is how about listing some more of these “many ways in which council can wrest control back to where it belongs”? I believe that all they have to do to wrest control back is to take it. But given the circumstances, what would they do with it? I guess they have successfully passed the buck again, this time to the new Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation. I await with great interest this latest attempt to find someone to solve our problems for us. The last big bet was on Millennium. Now it is on the NEDC. Anything and anywhere, but we wash our hands of it.
““. . . many ways in which council can wrest control back to where it belongs” . . .”
. . . all the way from the geometry of the council chamber to a council paid to be engaged, essentially full time, rather than as amateur observers.
I hesitate to suggest the latter because the city lacks a substantial coterie of ambitious young people ready to stand up for their beliefs.
As for the former: well remember the old geometry, public and council facing off in direct line with staff relegated to the side. Now we have staff facing off directly at council shielding it from the public with the public lectern off to the side. Such semiotics may appear benign but in fact it describes a pecking order well suited to the current imbalance.
You may recall our ill-fated attempt to attract Jaime Lerner to the city. Frank Murphy and I went through all the motions to attract the world famous State governor/mayor, planner/architect to give our town a boost when it sorely needed it: heaven knows it still does!
We received enthusiastic prior support from the mayor and director of planning: the mayor even wrote an introductory letter on my behalf. On my return the back room “éminence grise” had obviously been at work.
A FCOTW was convened. The mayor booked off sick. The director of planning denied everything and that useless little shrimp councilor Holdom, true to form, came on cynical and sneering, comparing Lerner’s flood control policy of run-off lakes in beautiful parks (to take the seasonal sub-tropical deluges) to a gurgling drainage grating system in our northern sprawl.
“I have a doctorate in English literature”, he boasted. Well, Holdom dear little boy, I have a master’s degree in urban planning, so put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Civic dialogue in this town is really that bad and that, Ron, encompasses much of what we are trying to deal with here.
But really it all boils down to an aware and engaged polity.
I reading some of these notes it makes my stomach churn. You have to ownder as a new person to this community what exactly is going on withthe people that work at the city and the council members. Why are so many decisions being made in such a manner and the people of this community are not up in arms.
The politics of this community are really scaring me.
Welcome to the outsiders club.
In Nanaimo, City Hall is a very big business managing in excess of ½ a billion dollars annually. The work of City Hall is undertaken by three different departments: the Community Services Division, the Corporate Services Division, and the Development Services Division. I would say that the majority of issues raised by this blog emanate from departments within the latter division. In my view the other divisions are doing a fine job.
We see recent efforts by the Mayor to fix this division with the announcement of yet another committee; The Development Process Review Committee. We also see efforts by the Manager of this division to identify ways to improve service as reported in the media by the hiring of yet another consultant. I also note that this division is currently advertising for a Manager of Current Planning. Good luck with all of that.
We will not make any progress however if the same insider characters continue to play the same self interest roles be they politician, bureaucrat, consultant, or entrepreneur. This is very sad because this leaves the outsiders holding the bag so to speak when it comes to the truly pressing issues of our time
@ Joe . . .
“ . . . three different departments: the Community Services Division, the Corporate Services Division, and the Development Services Division. I would say that the majority of issues raised by this blog emanate from departments within the latter division.”
I dunno the official pecking order but surely most issues here, (i.e. governance/sprawl), come, directly and indirectly, within the venue of Community Services.
The approval of Cable Bay, now apparently defunct, and Sandstone . . .
http://www.sandstonenanaimo.ca/index.php?page=17
. . . surely fall within community? And, IMO, the incremental possibility to densify sprawl does too!
I was at the Sandstone public hearing. Everyone, except the developer’s reps. gave thumbs down. When challenged, Councilor Holdom’s riposted, “sprawl is not a zero sum game” whatever the hell that means?
Both approvals came relatively at the same time, about two years ago. The outcome being, what happened to the OCP and UCB?
An engaged council would have known at that time both Cable Bay and Sandstone were coming on stream a most economically inappropriate time: Cable Bay, office closed, web page off line. Sandstone has a new Rona without much business!
Go figure . . .
Sorry Roger the short answer is no.
Community Services is comprised of four departments: Engineering, Fire, Police, and Parks and Rec.
Development Services controls the planning processes.
The City Staff directory is well worth the study because it is in fact the org chart for the bureaucracy, a gold mine for any cultural anthropologist hoping to shed light on the decision making process at Nanaimo City Hall. For example and oddly enough the Manager of Current Planning is not even in the same department as the Director of Planning but rather is located in the Property Services & Land Division Department and works under the Director of Development, who in turn reports to the General Manager Development Services. Likewise in a parallel universe the Director of Planning also reports to the General Manager Development Services. In reading the job description for the Manager of Current Planning one wonders what the job description is for the Director of Planning. Are these competing, complimentary or redundant positions?
All of this is quite curious but more importantly does the org structure give us any clues as to how projects get promoted and approved?
http://www.nanaimo.ca/staff_contacts/directory.aspx
Would building $16 million buildings be considered Big Money items? If so, how can the public know what is going on when these decisions are made in camera? How can they expend that kind of money without going to tender??
To say city staff keeps the city running tickety-boo makes me wonder what was tickety-boo about the conference centre construction project, or the $65 million water treatment plant, or the $10 million emergency waterline to Harmac, or the $1,000,000 a year to run the conference centre, or the half million a year to the port theatre, or the $300,000 to the downtown business group ….. could add more but my blood pressure is on the rise again.\
City staff seem to have a level of competence when it comes to making sure the water mains and sewer pipes are doing their jobs, and they are not half bad at getting rid of the garbage, but they really seem to be out of their element when the get involved with mega million dollar projects.
And yes, there was limited seating for the council meeting, but alas, at least one third of the chairs were still empty.
Jim: You point out that the critical municipal functions appear to be working OK if not well, i.e. roads, water, sewer, police, fire, basic recreation. Our problem is that we expect the public not only to bake that cake, but to frost it as well. I like frosting, but my taste may be different and for this reason frosting is supposed to be done by private industry. We are rapidly becoming more command driven than the the old Soviet Union which collapsed under the weight of its frosting.
You comment about the empty seats at Monday’s meeting -even though the time and place mitigated against participation- was still indicative of the problem.
I continue, against the odds, to wish that I could figure out how to get a municipal political party going. The public is being ground to dust between the right and the left. Where is the middle?
Ron: my reference to the ‘basics’ was to indicate the areas of operation that city staff may be competent to run. I am certain that city staff (with dirt under thier nails) are quite capable of providing the basics, and require no direction from senior management.They do however, have to hire ‘consultants’ when anything major has to be dealt with. I do not think the basics are being ‘managed’ well if you consider the level of under funding of water, sewer and roads. Nearly $13 million a year according the the report last year.
City management have ZERO demonstrated ability when it comes to managing major construction projects, one needs look no further than the fiasco of how the VICC was run. $52 million ——– $75 million. Who oversaw those deals? The same bunch that is going to oversee the $65 million treatment plant. On a side note, how in hell do they know they need to borrow $22.5 million when the project is not designed nor has it gone to tender?? Why the rush to borrow? Why the rush to borrow for the Harmac waterline?? Does anyone really know what in hell is going on??
As for empty seats at Monday’s council meeting. There were more in the gallery at that meeting than a typical televised regular council meeting.
As for striving against the odds to get a political party going …… issue a press release, get some coverage in the Bulletin, tell people what your vision is and see how many come forward. If you can’t get enough support to start a party, how much luck are you going to have raising funds of any consequence?
The public in Nanaimo is no more being ground into dust, than the people living in just about any jurisdiction you can name. We are a generation that has lived well beyond our means and have given little thought to the future secure in our fat pensions and big brother governments ability to take care of us.
That is a pipedream for a whole other post.
If 50% plus one of the Council is on side with staff then nothing will change other than at the voting booth.
As for the meeting.
I would seem, as with other Council meetings, that is was scheduled to deter participation.
What working individual can turn out at the prescribed hour?
To answer my own question.
The average developer & real estate person have far more flexibilty than the hourly “average” worker around town.
Just who decides upon the Council meeting schedule?
As for the “mega million $$ projects..
The mayor & some members of Council consider it their job to “create” wealth.
I can only assume they mean to do so with taxpayer dollars & the creation of Corporate welfare..
” The Politics of this Community are scaring me”
Me too.
Unfortunately the word of bad decisions seldom reaches the street.
Our media does little to counter the advertising dollars of the developer & real esate industries.
There needs to be creative tension between a council or a school board and the managers. Council should not perceive themselves as part of a team (with management). That does not mean that there has to be all out war but there does need to be a “critical” relationship rather than a “concensus” relationship. It is the stuff of democratic balance.
Essential to that democratic balance is a power balance. Although a council is made up of amateurs, doing a part-time job, they do make the ultimate decisions. That should count for something. At the municipal or school district level in B.C., however, councils do not have access to independent resources (i.e. research assistants directly answerable to them) and outside of the major cities do not uusallly have the benefit of a supportive party structure.
Nanaimo has a particularly weak council. They are old (median age north of 70), tired and not particularly savvy. Several of their number think that their role is to interpret the wisdom of management for the benefit of their fellow councillors. As a group they are truly no match for management. Consequently they do not come close to providing the needed checks and balances to bureaucratic power.
David: I hope my comment did not lead to the thought that I was promoting Council and Staff as an INTEGRATED team with management (though of course they are all the team that we have). But rather that they owe it to each other to at least be, first intuitive and imaginative, and then honest, in their dealings with one another. Council is owed the complete and unvarnished views of their Staff, free from an attitude that says -as the circumstances did on Monday- that I will tell you just as much as I want you to know unless you pry the rest from my cold dead lips. Staff are similarly owed a reasonable statement of the policy directives of Council (if they could come together sufficiently to develop some).
I continue to maintain that this is why we have a weak Council. Both would wish to have both jobs: Staff to make policy and Council to run the operations. The proper balance is not easy and has gotten very far out of kilter in Nanaimo. As the third estate in municipal government, citizens, as you correctly point out, need to find a mechanism to assist Council in public service. I continue to hold that, as bad as the idea of municipal political parties may be, I would find it very difficult to see us hire new bureaucrats to perform the “ideas” function.
If a couple of hundred Nanaimo citizens actually cared enough to attend council meetings, and those meetings were conducted in such a way as to seek the counsel of the citizens, I am certain things would instantly change for the better.
As it is, there is no real mechanism to influence city council or city staff in any meaningful way. Sure, we can elect a new council, but we have no control over how staff leads them about.
If nine people are expected to provide good governance, then the counsel of a couple of hundred ‘joe blow’ citizens could provide an example for all cities to follow.
During the 10 years that I have lived in our fair City of Nanaimo, I have had three occasions that warranted my becoming significantly involved with City Staff – more specifically Staff of Development Services, concerning planning matters that would directly impact on my neighbourhood. Regretfully, for each situation, I have experienced a clear bias, on the part of Development Services senior management, to the Development & Real Estate fraternities.
Consequently, before a citizen even presents their views on a subject, based my experience, the playing field is far from level. Is there any wonder there are only a very few citizens of the general public who have the desire and a stomach strong enough to participate? Senior Staff seem to have lost track of their primary function, which I submit is to give consideration to and represent the needs of the general public. Do citizens have a right to expect an even playing field?