City Council erects another monument to its impressive escalation of debt

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
June 14, 2010

Well give yourself a giant pat on the back, Oshawa taxpayers, you’ve erected and paid for another monument to our city council politicians. The new council chambers and new wing of city hall opened for business last Monday.

Oh! Sorry! Not paid for yet. But you’ve accumulated more city debt.

The payback money over the next number of years is coming from our Oshawa Public Utilities Dividends and from city interfund loans such as the city’s various replacement reserve funds, which of course will be topped up again over the next number of years with ongoing tax collections. The OPUC dividends used to fund the project will not be available for use by the city to fund some of its operating costs to reduce the highest taxation mill rates in the GTA.

Although the most recently reported cost of the project is $15.4M, we really don’t know how much it cost because so many numbers have been bandied about by the politicians. The reported cost figures have bounced around more than a Harlem Globetrotter’s basketball---from $10.8M to $13.3M to $17.07M to $14.8M to $15.4M.

And now for city hall opening announcements, they have been dribbled downward once again. It’s also hard to determine, however, just what is covered in the costs being quoted, and what costs have been excluded to be hidden elsewhere.

And in press releases, we’ve been told that we’ve had cost reductions from tendered costs to result in cost savings from that $17.07M cost---oh yeah! Let me sell you a scenic cottage lot in the Hudson’s Bay swamplands.

I believe the total cost of the project is closer to $25M, and maybe more, when all renovations, furnishings, decorating, landscaping, rental of leased space and moving of equipment during the renovations, and preparation of temporary quarters during the construction, and hiring of the many project management and other architectural and interior design specialists and demolition experts are included.

Alas, we’ll never know. Politicians specialize in half-truths to pull numbers and arguments out of the air that they think you’ll believe. Like the energy savings paying for this whole project---bu-lsh-t!

In 2008, a 4.44% tax increase raised $4,126,938 so $1M is raised for approximately every 1% tax increase. Discounting variables such as city assessment growth, debt charges paid on borrowed capital, interest charges lost on city hall reserve funds capital, and the opportunity costs of what we might otherwise have done with this capital, we might estimate a 1% tax increase for the next 15 years to pay for the City Hall project, or a 2% tax increase over the next 7 ½ years, or a 3% tax increase over the next 5 years, or a 15% tax increase in one year to pay for this needless $15.4M demolition and rebuilding of city hall “A” wing and Council Chambers and refurbishment of Rundle Tower. However we pay for the project, it is a hefty penalty to pay for something we didn’t need.

We do know that the costs were higher than need be, though, since the old chamber and “A” wing were demolished before we had plans and signed contracts for the new project. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to tear down my house before I had plans, prices, and contracts for a replacement. But city hall is not nearly as concerned as we are with my bucks or yours!

Council Chambers re-building itself has been quoted as rising to $9M, a sizeable portion of the $15.4M being quoted for the entire project. At $1M to demolish the old structure, only $5M is left for the reconstruction of “A” wing and the total refurbishment of Rundle Tower. This hardly sounds creditable to me.

It’d take a forensic accountant to get to the real costs as the city accounting system spreads costs of any one project over so many accounts and over so many departments that no one ever knows the true costs. And these accounting entries often have insufficient descriptors so as to defy identification.

It’s amazing that city hall does not keep ledger sheets tracking the costs of individual projects. Only the costs of big contracts are identifiable. But don’t you know, children, that is done purposely so that construction costs can be juggled to keep the “truth hounds” at bay. Like those bouncing balls mentioned previously, the costs estimates and expenditures are all over the place. These city accountants are magicians at the behest of city council.

Fortunate for you taxpayers, though, we’ve been told that the costs will have no impact on Oshawa’s stratospheric taxation levels.

We hear this as a “toss out line” about the costs of all major City Council projects. If this is so, city hall must have its own printing press to churn out money. They just have to have a source of funds that is not taxpayer based.

With this extra debt, it’s amazing that city council can come in with a .9% tax increase this election year when they absolutely needed 4% increases over the last two years with the mayor vigorously arguing for a 9% increase immediately after the last election. I wonder what he’ll be calling for at the beginning of the next term if he wins. If I win, I’ll be calling for annual 3% decreases until Oshawa’s tax loads reach the average in the GTA.

If the city hall construction cost was the cost to erect a “good riddance” tombstone to the end of this shipwreck city council, perhaps most Oshawa ratepayers would consider it a bargain. As it turns out, there will be a brass plate erected prominently in city hall in perpetuity listing all those politicians responsible for this wastage. This should provide future councils a reminder about the penalties of wasting taxpayer money.

Now when the press toured the new council chamber last Monday, there was no mention of the upgrades that made this new building necessary---the leaking roof, inaccessibility to the handicapped, and energy efficiency.

You’d think that the rationale for demolishing the old and building the new would have figured prominently in the press presentation. Instead, mention was only made that seating capacity had been increased by about 50 to 196, that there was an up-to-date sound system, and a new video screening feature. All of these improvements plus all of the argued shortcomings that necessitated the huge expenditure could have been accomplished in a fraction of the cost of replacing the demolished building. These improvements could have probably been done for the same cost as demolishing the previous structures.

We should have suspected all of the sense behind this whole project when staff rolled out a report on June 28, 2007 that indicated city council had 3 options--- (a) do nothing, or (b) renovate “A” wing and Council Chambers for $15.2M, or (c) demolish and rebuild Council Chambers and “A” wing and renovate Rundle Tower all for $10.8M. A sensible council would have fired the authors of this document so that they could start new careers as stand up comics. This June report might better have been delivered as a huge joke on April Fool’s Day.

As Citizen, Rick Foster, wrote in a letter to the editor on March 3, 2009, “The way this project is going, the new larger council chambers are still going to be too small when the taxpayers converge with their pitch forks and melting tar feathers.”

Or as citizen, Ron Horner, wrote in a letter to the editor on February 23, 2009, “Oshawa taxpayers must really enjoy getting tax increases every year. They must, or why else would they allow this sort of waste to go on?”

And yet, Mayor John Gray in his February, 2009, “State of the City” address to city business leaders, politicians, and community stakeholder, cited this city hall renewal fiasco as one of city hall’s prime accomplishments.

Hell, I’d hate to think of their failures.

Oh yeah! MBA’s, Cullen Miniatures, overbuilding new ice arenas to put Oshawa in a surplus position as excuse to demolish arenas in older parts of Oshawa, highest taxes in GTA, cozy arrangement between mayor and some of his councillors and developers, handling of the UOIT student housing issue, GM Centre tax sinkhole, Regent Theatre fiasco, new downtown hotel letdown, Rundle House demolition, new Downtown Courthouse approved with insufficient parking and now all surrounding downtown streets reduced from 4 traffic lanes to 2 or from 2 traffic lanes to one, etc., etc., etc.

Now all that does put the city hall waste in perspective doesn’t it?

City Hall’s next major achievement to be announced? Dropping a Hiroshima type bomb on the Oshawa downtown!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/

Thanks for all your help boys…Don’t know what we’d do without ya!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 10, 2010

We’ve just passed the Federal Income Tax deadline and so that seemingly never-ending river of cash that floods governments at every level is obviously on our mind. No wonder they all seem compelled to spend like drunken sailors just to keep from drowning in all our cash.

And now on the eve of the new HST, which will increase Ontarian’s family tax loads by almost $800 annually, our minds are becoming focused on just what we get for all this money.

Recently our Prime Minister prorogued parliament so his commitment to Canada’s business did not interfere with his enjoyment of the Olympic Games. His $9000 an hour flights on government jets cost taxpayers about $45,000 for each of his trips to Vancouver or $90,000 for the round trip. This is only a small portion of his costs, however, when his accommodation, hospitality, security, venue tickets, etc., are included. His total Olympic costs undoubtedly cost the taxpayer tens of millions of dollars.

When Harper's Defense Minister, Peter McKay, took the same flight some months ago, he was asked by the press why he didn’t fly commercial. “Because it didn’t meet my schedule,” he responded. Well lah de lah. I took a flight out to Vancouver to volunteer in the Olympics, and guess what, I had to make my schedule fit the plane’s schedule. I couldn’t ask all you taxpayers to pool your cash to send me the Harper/McKay way!

Anyway, all this got me to thinking about where a lot of our tax cash goes and this exposes that strong sense of entitlement, the wastage, and the secrecy in too many places, even here in Oshawa with our local city government members, some of whom would be unemployed and unemployable were it not for their council seats. It's a fact that not one of our sitting council members made nearly as much in the private sector as they do from their Oshawa City Council political positions! And none of them has ever lived as high on the hog as they do now snorting at the public trough.

It’s not only here in Oshawa where Mayor John Gray feels he can use your tax monies to fund MBA’s for his friends, pay off parking and other bylaw infraction fines using a city visa card, use your tax monies to provide himself with a $40,000 birthday party, demolish council chambers and parts of city hall so that he and his political friends can get bigger office spaces and their names on a new building, and Louise Parkes, arguing for bigger office budgets so she can travel more on your dime, or Brian Nicholson arguing that university tuition money should be hidden in office budgets to hide these expenditures from you. After all, our taxes are the highest in the GTA and among the highest in the country and we wouldn’t want to lose this distinction, would we?

So Council…keep on spending, spending, spending….and we’ll keep on giving, giving, giving!

Whatever you do, don’t jeopardize our #1 rating as top taxpayers in the GTA! We want everyone in the GTA and in Canada to “Prepare to be amazed”….After all, city taxpayers reportedly spent $100,000 for some creative mind to come up with this motto-crap under our Mayor’s watchful eye.

Of course, voters have to be concerned with more than excessive spending by City Council. We have to be concerned that Councillors do not give away the store. How so, you ask!

Elections are expensive. With the General Vote and City-wide campaigning in Oshawa now, the upper spending limits for city councilor, regional councilor, and mayor are now approximately $80,000, $90,000, and $110,000 respectively. Politicians turn chiefly to the development industry for their election funds. Of course, we know he who pays the piper calls the tune…and so the developer’s political donations are nothing more than vote buying. Pleasing donors with "friendly votes" insures repeat donations for the next election. Thus politicians may give away our city store.

Politicians may give away the store, as is the case in Oshawa, with the smallest development lot levies in the GTA thus forcing the highest property taxes in the GTA on residents. Taxpayers then in Oshawa are called upon to subsidize the housing development in this city.

The largest proportion of campaign funds in Oshawa comes from the Development Industry with Mayor John Gray leading the pack getting the 77.47% of his campaign donations from the corporate sector.

Part of the real concern about use of our tax monies is the secrecy involved.

Because of inadequate controls, politicians can spend their office budgets with impunity. They can use these for hosting their friends at the Legion, buying birthday gifts for their children, taking their friends for a big night on the town, or buying flowers for their spouse. While all of these are admirable expenditures, they are not admirable uses for your tax money or mine.

When John Gray spent $40,000 of your tax money on the Stephen Colbert Day (The Mayor’s birthday party), he refused to let even his fellow councilors know the cost and it was left to one of them to file a $100 freedom of information request to get the costs disclosed.

Even at the Federal Level, the 308 MP’s and 105 Senators are very secretive about their “office budgets”, an acronym, of course, for the personal expense use of our tax funds and have been resisting audits of that half billion dollars of “petty cash” by Federal spending watchdog, Sheila Fraser, for some time. Each MP and Senator burned up $1,210,653.75 on average for their expenses...amazing.

All parties are complicit in upholding the culture of hidden Ottawa receipts, one of the few stashes of taxpayer funds not yet subject to review and audit. They have their own Public Accounts committee of parliamentarians to do this, they say. Unlike the spending scandal by British parliamentarians that ended the careers of 30% of them in 2009, we have no castle moats to clean in Canada and our guys don’t pay prostitutes for their professional service…oh yeah!

Locally here, city politicians rave that their salaries are tied to salary increases won by unionized city staff. I fail to see how this justifies politician’s excessive salaries. Doesn’t this tend to allow for excessive wage increases for all city staff as the politicians realize that they will personally benefit from big staff increases?

And salaries are excessive! An inspection of Ontario’s “Sunshine List” (Public Sector Salary Disclosure List) shows over 100 city employees making over $100,000 annually.

An email I received, signed “Angry Taxpayer” asked me to explain how at least 12 Maintenance Supervisors in the Regional Works Department could be making over $100,000 per year and why a foreman on an asphalt crew made over $130,000 when this job in the private sector would pay less than half of that. You’ve have to admit there are no explanations except that things are running wildly out of hand…and you and I, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, are paying for this largesse….even while struggling to put bread on our own table!

Recently questions of mileage allowances have been in the press. One Toronto city manager who earns in excess of $170,000 claimed $17,483 for business use of his automobile in 2009, a Toronto city engineer claimed $29,000 in the last two years and the highest claiming Toronto politician, Norm Kelly, claimed $14,000 in the last two years. That’s only slightly higher than the $10,400 tax-free every one of our Oshawa politicians claimed over the last two years. But hey! Our politicians don’t deserve near as much as those Toronto guys because our guys don’t have to drive so far and we don’t have to cope with all that heavy city traffic.

Some Oshawa city employees are claiming over $800 weekly for using their own vehicle for city business. That’s more than many workers in this country get in salary and more than it would cost the city to rent a vehicle from Enterprise or one of those big rent-a-car places.

But who gives a damn about costs when you can just reach deeper into the pockets of those generous Oshawa taxpayers to fund all your extravagances.

And now we find out that Regional politicians from Ajax, Pickering, and Clarington are sitting on the board of Veridian Corporation and Pickering reps are reaping handsome stipends and expenses of $29325 (Dickerson), $27845 (McLean) and $15493 (Pickles) annually to oversee the operations of the former municipal electrical distribution companies they sold to Veridian. The two Ajax and the two Clarington reps are no doubt harvesting the same.

No wonder we’ve been hearing rumblings for years about Oshawa City Politicians wanting to sell Oshawa taxpayer owned Oshawa Power Utilities Corporation to Veridian….There’s big personal bucks sitting in those hills for the politicians to do this. Many of the City Politicians could add another $30,000 to their annual income by selling off OPUC in exchange for a job of sitting on the Veridian Board of Directors….Isn’t it great how politicians are always looking out for our interests?

Thanks for all this public service boys….don’t know what we’d ever do without ya!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”,
every Monday, 6-9 pm EST, on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/