For some time, the City Hall employees have run the government and treated the elected council like transient royalty. Embarrassing shortcomings from the City sting the politicians. The bureaucrats throw up a wall to keep political inquiries at bay.
The maintenance budget for the Johnson Street Bridge plummeted a decade ago and that allowed the bridge to fall supposedly dangerously into disrepair. When Dean Fortin saw that the Federal government was looking to hand out infrastructure money for shovel ready projects in 2008, the Johnson Street Bridge became a magically urgent. When the application process didn't yield results, the City was stuck with a conundrum. If the bridge was unsafe and if something happened it would be bad. It would seem negligent.
The City is gripped by the fear of legal action. Lawsuits propel them to act or paralyze them. When the moribund VSEA was in negotiations to build the arena, councilors where locked up with fear of legal action should they not let the doomed venture continue to roll off the cliff. I had some interactions with the VSEA in that period and I have no clue how they were taken seriously by anyone. This enforces a legal myopia on its politicians and the city staff. It drives them to enact policies not because a given policy is the best for the city, but because a given decision holds the best chance of avoiding legal action.
With that in light, the bridge became a necessity. To build public support, there was a survey to "Choose One!". They held an information session (when you've disallowed debate, you can still shove the project through with information sessions to mimic public participation). I took my daughter. As I explained to her, "This bridge will suck down the money destined for your tuition, so you should get involved and informed." I remember a former reporter then on the City payroll worked the room to get people to fill out a ballot. I scribbled in the margin, "repair the existing bridge." My vote didn't get counted. Nor did anyone else's: Dean Fortin and his council selected the second most popular design option, demonstrating that he didn't care about the taxpayers if they disagreed with him. The design survey was cited as a poll and that council never committed themselves into going with the highest polling design. It was a publicity stunt to "inform our decision on bridge design." Idiots missed the machinations of council and those opposed to the bridge were forced to focus on the dirty tricks therefore validating a faulty system.
More organized resistance formed up versus the Johnson Street Bridge and they successfully petitioned for a referendum. The referendum was held and the city spent much more than $50,000 making their point. There's the official amount spent and then there's the unofficial amount spent: city workers co-opted to put up "Yes" signage was never divulged. Given how other votes go in Victoria, it's clear that if the "No" side had won, the bridge would still have been replaced.
Years of restrictive recycling and garbage collection practices have made throwing away garbage impossible. The amount of non-compostable garbage has fallen and because of that the ratio of compostable garbage that remains has climbed. Though the net amount of garbage has fallen, this leaves the artificial perception that the amount of compostable garbage has increased. We've successfully demonized garbage. There is less garbage per household now being generated, but somehow there's no apparent savings coming from our efforts. Indeed, when we were told to conserve water, we complied. In response, the CRD and Dean Fortin's City Hall raised the utility rates to compensate for our reduced water usage. They had such a short-sighted view of finances that they didn't know that less usage would result in less revenue. Likewise, they were not able to figure out that less garbage means that unavoidable garbage like kitchen scraps would be left over.
The concept of a garbage collection survey was spawned by the City Council on the reccommendation of the staff. The Waste Division staff brought the topic of carrying out a survey with their original report, they offered 15 different options. Yes, 15 options. City Council pared 15 choices down to 3 options and excluded the status quo. Sure, why not: after all that compostable garbage would feed the Hartland dump eco-system and disappear in a few short years. So, let's divert it before it disappears of its own accord.
When my survey arrived, I viewed this as a scam like the bridge survey-- a ploy to build buy-in instead of solicit for opinion. I immediately added the survey to our compost for our garden. It turns out I was one of the few people who got something out of the survey. A few weeks ago, the results were announced. CUPE 50 had pushed its members to vote for Option A, the model most advantageous for the staff. Most of the public who responded that they wanted the less expensive option that would have involved carting your garbage bins to the street. Unfortunately, that would convert into a savings of 18,000 hrs. of labour or 9 full-time positions would become unnessasary.
The Mayor and Councilors have accepted signifigant amounts of campaign money from CUPE 50 and similar unions. Campaign contributions buy influence and that was seen clearly when the opinion of City staff countermanded the will of the survey respondents and the will of the councilors. The taxpayers are taking a backseat to the employees. It's like seeing a prison were the inmates instruct the prison guards on where to take them to commit robberies.
The taxpayers and citizens are supposed to be represented by the Mayor and Councilors. The administration is supposed to carry out the will of the council in the administation of the city. Instead, this process runs in reverse: the employees call the shots, they instruct the council what they're willing to do, and the council has to act to apologize to the public who voice their displeasure. This means that an expensive and dysfunctional City Hall cannot be called to account. It can grow unchecked and it can take more money from it's victims. This survey process has trashed the notion that the city and its elected officials follow and respect the survey process.
Any bad deal needs slick salesmanship: someone to mollify the population. That job falls on the shoulders of the communications department. While councilors report that there are only 4 communications people working for the City of Victoria, that body count doesn't include the number of contractors and people in positions that can support the work of communications. It looks like the staffing levels differ based on who asks. According to Focus Online (http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/313), the City’s communications office employs 6.5 full-time staff with an annual payroll of $409,000. By contrast, Focus extrapolated that the Freedom of Information (FOI) office, lacking a full-time staffer, runs off of $70,000 or less per year. The FOI office is an important tool in the oversight of government activities. It's being starved out. We have a situation where the staff call the shots and the politicians have to approve the changes or they get ignored.
Councilors should call into question the purpose of the communications department and consider reducing the size of the department as well as peeling back their media purchases. While the heavy ad buys are no doubt keeping a trickle of cash going into the Times-Colonist, it's not needed. As Ben Isitt cited in Focus Magazine (http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/313), the city should place less of a priority on the boosterist PR that has been happening.
The council needs to take control of the City of Victoria's government and administration. Under Dean Fortin's reign, whole departments have sprung up that do little more than administer themselves. The council needs to obtain budget details and review the management salaries. They need to ask what the salaries get the taxpayers. For example, over 80% of the sustainability department's $1-million/year budget goes into administering itself. I would love to get a full-time job managing myself. Unfortunately, I don't have a ready supply of money coming from unwilling victims (aka taxpayers).
The City of Victoria cannot gain consensus or popular support for its initiatives, it has to manufacture support. The City of Victoria is not controlled by its citizens or their elected representatives, the mayor and council. There are many examples, but you need only look to a 6-day workshop orchestrated by the City staff (http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/287). Mayors and council were only allowed to attend the first couple hours of this very pricey private event. That in unacceptable. My elected officials should have full access to any of the activities of the staff included their closed doors planning sessions where they decide their own fates. The City of Victoria has long been in this situation where forceful bureaucrats and unions call the shots and the elected officials have to kowtow. We're not living in a democracy if our councilors and the mayor answer to the government. The government is supposed to carry out the will of the people, not vice versa.
