Pay up....After all UOIT is your University

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
February 14, 2011

Hey Oshawa taxpayer....how much of your hard earned cash will you volunteer to donate this year to the development of UOIT in Oshawa?

Whether you want to donate to the university is immaterial. The city donates part of your residential taxes to subsidize the operations of UOIT every day....and will do so every day into the forseeable future.

Now I am not badmouthing UOIT. We are indeed fortunate to have the university here in Oshawa to provide opportunity and convenience for our city students to attend university close to home.

Our local students, though, over the long haul have to pay more to UOIT than out-of-area students and that is not fair.

While all Canadian and Landed Immigrant students pay the same tuitions once they enrol in UOIT, city taxpayers continually subsidize the university operations through grants, subsidies, tax revenue losses, tax deferrals, and lost development charges...and that is not fair.

City taxpayers subsidize the university operations and still end up paying the same tuitions as out of town students. City taxpayers have subsidized the university operation to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and there is no recognition of these investments when our local students enter UOIT...Just not fair!

Why should the families of Oshawa students pay more to UOIT than non-local students? In Oshawa, you keep paying and paying and paying, and come tuition time, you’ll pay again!

City taxpayers provided outright grants ($8M towards a $11.6M campus recreational complex, an additional $2.5M towards the downtown campus), Tax deferrals worth $2M and foregoing development charges on Dundurn student housing.....and these are only costs arising from a cursory few minutes of research.

In addition, city taxpayers have also lost tax revenue for all the downtown buildings owned, leased, or used by the university which amount to additional millions. Again, shortfalls will be made up by city taxpayers.

And now, the city has announced public meetings for Feb 28, 7:15 pm, in the Council Chambers to provide more largesse to the university to ease its student housing problems.

At that time, the city will consider amendments to the city official plan to: a) allow the city to provide financial incentives from your tax dollar for the development of student housing, and b) make some specific student housing lands exempt from development charges.....both changes that will cost taxpayers additional millions.

All of these taxpayer costs are subsidizing the operation of the university and subsidizing the costs of student attendance at our university by out-of-town students. We are paying more so out-of-town students can pay less. Just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever!

In June of 2008, Councillor Tito Dante Marimpietri proposed that local students should pay less for attending UOIT in recognition of the fact that they’d already invested heavily in the university, an idea he’d borrowed from his days attending University in Montreal where he discovered students who had lived in Quebec for 11 months or more were eligible for discounted tuitions. Marimpietri’s motion was lost (Report SIC-08-37) in a council vote on Sept. 22, 2008

While Marimpietri’s idea is a sound one, it was unfortunately not thought through sufficiently to sell it to council or to make it equal to each family’s specific contributions, which is now easily doable with computer technology.

In 2008 when Council turned down Marimpietri’s idea, an estimated $15M of city tax money had been gifted to UOIT in one form or another. The total is much larger now and continues to escalate.

I’d suggest that all these taxpayer costs that are surplus to actually running the city are excess taxation and are huge windfall benefits to the university and should be considered “prepaid credits” towards future university tuitions for city residents.

After all, they are monies given to the university that would otherwise be raised by student tuitions. And as long as city officials are willing donors of our taxes, the university will continue, like some street corner begger, to reach out and take whatever we’ll give.

According to census data, there are 54920 dwellings in the city. If we considered the minimum $15M tax largesse extended to the university in the first 2 or 3 years, this would work out on average to approximately $275 donation per household.

This figure, of course, does not include all of the lost tax revenues for university occupied buildings downtown that will have to be made up by taxpayers, all of the lost development charges, and all of the tax deferrals for student accommodation.

UOIT president of the day, Ron Bordessa, questioned how such an inititative could be funded saying it was clear the city wouldn't be subsidizing the discounts. He stated that the university offering tuition discounts to city students would make it impossible for the university to offer the same level of service.

It all comes down to point of view. Rather than suggesting lost revenues, Dr. Bordessa instead should have been suggesting prepaid tuitions. After all, it doesn’t make sense that city taxpayers continue to invest in the university without some return on their investment.

All of these prepaid tuition credits could be computerized in the city tax department when residential tax bills were being printed and would be proportional to assessed property values and the total values of all forms of city university subsidies.

City residents applying to UOIT would simply apply to the city tax department for a tuition credit certificate that had built up for their residence over the years and this certificate would be presented to UOIT admissions for a direct deduction from tuitions owing.

Withdrawn credits would be deducted from totals and could be rebuilt in subsequent years.

This micromanaging of tuition credit accounts is entirely practicable with computerization and is, in fact, being done in some places. In Delta, BC, for example, in the interests of transparency, tax bills list details of various amounts making up the tax bill. Delta taxpayers approved an arena renovation based on estimates of their annual cost printed on their personalized voter registration card and this cost continues, along with other components of the tax bill, to be printed on annual tax statements.

Such a tracking system would be easy for the city to set up. If the Air Miles program can keep an updated total of your frequent small purchases worldwide, the city could certainly develop a program based on your tax account number, your assessments, and the total monies of all forms advanced to fund the university and its operations.

These prepaid UOIT tuitions would accumulate on both owned and rented properties with renters applying annually to the city for tuition credits similar to the Ontario Property Tax Credits based on bedrooms or living space with any credits awarded to tenants being deducted from the total credits assigned to the property.

Those who did not attend UOIT would lose the credit although it could be passed on to direct relatives: sons/daughters, grandchildren, nieces/nephews very similar to a RESP. The credits could also be passed on to social agencies for assignment to worthy students who could not otherwise afford to attend university.

Your tax dollars are subsidizing UOIT and it’s time you got some credit for your investment. After all, fair is fair...wouldn’t you say?

I’d suggest all readers of this column flood city hall politicians with this demand and get all of your friends to do the same.

The university should recognize the basic truths that we all live with...there are no free lunches...a truism the university practises every day of its existence with students.

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

Politics 101---A Basic Primer of Political Strategy for Political Neophytes

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
August 9, 2010

Today is my birthday and I should be getting reams of presents….but I’m reversing things a bit and giving out gifts of political advice from one who has been closely involved in politics for over 35 years as a Federal and Provincial Constituency Executive Member, Campaign Organizer and Strategist, Voting Delegate at a number of National and Provincial Leadership Conventions, and Federal Candidate for the governing party.

This column is written out of concern of a “Code of Conduct” campaign signed by 19 of Oshawa’s 27 “new” council candidates. The real concern is that this code of niceness may discourage some candidates from doing the basic and necessary job of every candidate in every campaign….that is, highlighting incumbent and council shortcomings to make the case that change is necessary.

The first and most basic lesson in Politics 101 is that voters never replace incumbents because they’ve found someone better. Incumbents are only replaced because they’ve messed up so badly...so incensing the public that change is demanded. And competitors to the incumbents have to make sure they stoke the flames of this public discontent. Public memory is short….and new politicians must make sure the public never forgets.

This “niceness code” makes no more sense than promoting the nicest person in the company as its CEO. In making that choice, niceness is not a factor…nor will it be a factor for election to council. Wise voters will be voting for candidates they feel will be effective leaders...but voters have to be concerned enough about the actions of the present politicians that there is an “ocean current” sentiment for change. We are seeing much criticism of council in “letters to the editor” and successful politicians will have to “stoke the flames” of this latent unrest if they hope to have a chance at election.

The naming of individuals, which is discouraged by the “Code of Conduct” Campaign, is part of the process. Election to City Council is not like getting elected as President of a High School Student Council, which is a popularity contest where niceness is important. Real politics is a savage “blood sport” with huge consequences for the public and where only the tough and thick-skinned survive.

Another problem with the “Code of Conduct” Campaign is that signing the code may be the “first lie” of some candidates who have no intention of it having any impact on their campaign behavior. They may see political merit on being on the “nice” list, even though it is unlikely to lead to many votes or any change in their conduct. Signing the code may only highlight the hypocrites, which in itself may not be a bad thing.

While there are many astute and knowledgeable voters, mostly because they are engaged with the council over some issue like high taxes, the student rental housing problem around the university, the $46,000 MBA funding issue, the $250,000 Cullen Gardens Miniatures issue, the burgeoning city debt which has risen from $15M to over $160M under John Gray’s administration, the Goodman Pond beaver slaughter issue, the Mayor’s $46,000 Birthday party issue, the demolition of many of our city arenas, the wasteful $20M demolition and rebuilding of Council Chambers and “A” wing of city hall, or the last election’s Ward/General Vote plebiscite issue in which the Mayor publicly stated it was not City Hall’s responsibility to inform the public about this issue. So much for transparency and accountability from this Mayor! So council fooled the public with a trick question they had never seen and didn’t understand into voting for an election system not used in any large city in the country but which was favoured by the politicians in preserving their lifetime seats.

Unfortunately, most voters are not so engaged, interested, or knowledgeable, and many who vote do so only out of a feeling of democratic responsibility. The public memory is short, and so voters have to be constantly barraged from all directions and with a unified message from all new candidates about the mess, the entitlements, the lack of transparency and accountability, and the giant mistakes and wastage of tax monies of the present bunch.

Without this message, which is the message the public has to hear to give them reason to kick out the present crew, I guarantee that there will be few new members of council….that is the history of the general vote in Oshawa. Out of seven general vote councils prior to 1985 counting for 107 total seats, not one incumbent lost their seat by the vote. All change on council over that time resulted from the death or resignation of the aging members.

In fact, in the upcoming “General Vote” Election, there is only one guaranteed new face for council. Two councillors have vacated their local seats, leaving two seats to fill from among those presently nominated, and one of those two new seats is likely to go to former local councillor Mike Nicholson, brother of Councillor Brian Nicholson. At the Regional Level, one councillor has vacated his seat which will likely go to former Mayor Nancy Diamond or Local Councillor Tito Dante Marimpietri. No other changes will take place unless all of the new candidates bring out the heavy artillery and start firing their big guns now. Just having good ideas will not cut it!

The second basic rule of Politics 101 is that you don’t get elected based on your knowledge or intelligence or ideas or education or platform or what you can contribute to the city.

One only has to look at Councillor Maryanne Sholdra for that. At the recent special council meeting having to do with the beaver cull, she arrived late as usual, and drew howls of well-deserved derisive laughter asking questions that had already been answered, and her “other planet” surprise that the beaver cull did not involve hundreds of beaver in the Goodman Pond rather than the well publicized 4 or 5 that even the children who were present knew. Despite her incompetence, she is likely to get re-elected with a “sign and ad campaign” in which she avoids all public appearances and minimizes any face-to-face contact with the public. That's why she didn't attend the recent forum for all City Council candidates. She knows in politics, as in “finders-keepers,” possession of a council seat is 95% of the law---and any public appearance by her simply exposes her incompetency to the public.

The “niceness” campaign plays right into the hands of the politicians in helping them to retain their seats by reducing public sentiment for change.

In fact, incumbent politicians will criticize any critique of Council mess-ups as destructive to the city, hoping, of course, to discourage opponents from exposing council and politician shortcomings. They know that its council actions themselves that result in political change, and they want to minimize voter knowledge of the mess-ups.

Falling for the “niceness” campaign is the new candidate’s and the city's worst enemy. It simply props up the incumbent dead wood on city council helping to insure their re-election. You have to give voters reason for voting for change. You have to attack their record and performance at every turn. Otherwise, you don’t have a hope in hell of winning. Niceness will simply not cut it!

Campbell’s Soup sells well because of the very recognizable name and red and white label and its long standing staple of a family’s diet going back to great-great-grandmother’s time---not because it is the best product around. Politics is not much different from this. The politician’s name is important….not that it’s good or great…but that it is recognized and familiar. Just as mother will pick Campbell’s off the shelf first without questioning whether it is best, many voters will pick the familiar name off the ballot without giving quality a thought. You only stop buying Campbell’s Soup when it’s left a bad taste in your mouth for some reason.

Same thing for politics! You only stop voting for a politician once he’s left a bad taste in your mouth. The job of new politicians is to remind voters of that “bad taste” left by the current bunch. Otherwise, voters will continue to pick up that “political can” of Campbell’s Soup never considering the quality of what is inside with the majority of voters never considering that there might be someone more deserving of their vote.

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

Playing Children’s Games at Oshawa’s First Mayoral Debate

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
August 2, 2010

STOP THE PRESS...THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN AND SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION FOLLOWING STATEMENTS FROM THE MAYOR THAT HE WAS NOT ATTENDING THIS EVENT. AFTER IT HAD GONE TO PRESS AND PROBABLY AFTER THE FORMAT WAS REVISED AT JOHN GRAY'S BEHEST, HE CHANGED HIS MIND...ALAS TOO LATE TO REVISE THE PRESS RUN FOR THIS ARTICLE. IT IS REPRINTED HERE IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM AS WE DO NOT BELIEVE THAT MAYOR JOHN GRAY SHOULD THREATEN TO WITHHOLD HIS PRESENCE AT THESE VOTER INFORMATION MEETINGS UNTIL FORMAT CHANGES HE WANTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO LIMIT THE CANDIDATES FREE FLOW OF COMMENTS AND MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT TO RAISE ISSUES AND QUESTION A RECORD THAT JOHN GRAY CANNOT DEFEND. WE BELIEVE IN AN OPEN AND FREE "DEMOCRACY" WHERE RULES ARE NOT GERRYMANDERED FOR THE BENEFIT OF ONE POLITICIAN.

The Municipal Elections will be here shortly and things are starting to heat up. The first All-Candidates forums are scheduled for 7 pm, August 3 and 4, at the Oshawa Golf Club. Sponsored by the Cedar Valley Homeowners Association, they have given some incumbent politicians cause to unveil their election strategies.

Mayor John Gray has said he will not attend the August 4th Mayoral Forum. I guess his strategy is to play “hide and seek” with the voters. This may well be his wisest strategy, as his attendance would compel him to defend the indefensible, an impossible task when you think of some of his mess-ups over this past term.

If Gray did turn up for this election forum, his preferred game of “hide and seek” may turn out instead to be a game of “pin the tail on the donkey.”

We do know that John Gray does not believe that democracy requires an informed public. After all, he is on record as publicly stating city hall had no responsibility to inform the public on the plebiscite question that gave Oshawa an election system not used in any large city in the country.

Many Oshawa voters have decided that John Gray and his council have exceeded their “best before” shelf life and the complete Council shelf has to be re-stocked.

In almost 40 years of observing Oshawa city politics, I can’t recall a sitting mayor ever being opposed by more than one incumbent councillor. The fact that he is being opposed by six candidates including two incumbents and one recently defeated councillor speaks tons about their respect for Gray’s leadership. The “inside” politicians are striking like vultures on half dead road kill just waiting to be devoured.

Gray’s excuse for not attending the debate is that the sponsoring organization has lodged a lawsuit against the city to get it to enforce the R1A zoning in its community just south of the University Campus; secondly, that questions may arise that might jeopardize the city’s legal position, and thirdly, that the Association has already endorsed a candidate other than Gray.

John Gray is dead wrong about the lawsuit being lodged by the sponsoring organization. The lawsuit was filed by four independent non-executive members of the organization, and has not been endorsed by the executive.

If sensitive questions came up that might jeopardize the city’s legal position, the Mayor could simply pass on answering such questions with that explanation. He must know, however, that such questions could come up in all Mayoral debates. Is he then going to miss all the debates?

I have heard rumours that other incumbents challenging Mayor Gray may also boycott this mayoral debate. Of course, that is one of the advantages of the General Vote implemented by this council. Face-to-face and door-to-door campaigning is less important than faceless “big bucks” campaigns and high name recognition which council has worked at relentlessly over the last term with their incessant name calling, backbiting, bitching, grandstanding, and verbal assaults to grab the press.

In Oshawa’s old days of the General Vote prior to 1985, the huge 11”X17” ballot, with close to 75 names, allowed politicians like long-time councillor, Ruth Bestwick, to holiday in Florida at election times, so sure was she of her re-election.

I don’t know about any candidate endorsement by this Ratepayer’s Association, but am quite confident that Gray’s lack of leadership in the student housing issue, that has seen the community become predominantly one of student rental accommodation contrary to R1A zoning that restricts development to single family housing, excludes him as a choice. Similarly, Mayoral Candidate, Louise Parkes, who has chaired the stonewalling of her committee overseeing the student rental issue, is not likely their chosen candidate.

City Council has tried to stall all action on this issue until after the October 25th Municipal Elections giving promise, but no action, to the concerned homeowners, and patronizing their university administrative friends with their inaction. Initially, they made their campaign donor development friends happy with political help in making sales attractive to student housing investors.

It is difficult for council to dance with all of the competing partners on this issue. In the end, council inaction has frustrated and angered all players in the puzzle.

Students have suffered because of the insecurity of their housing needs and because city policy has not made clear to the university its responsibility in providing for adequate student housing; the university has suffered because of the bad “student housing” publicity which has undoubtedly led some prospective students to seek other educational possibilities; residential home owners have suffered because the huge student rental population has made their properties unattractive for single family occupancy; investors have suffered because city indecisiveness has reduced property values as a long-term student rental business and the unresolved issue makes sales to potential single family occupants unlikely; developers are unhappy because the unresolved issue has made their developments unattractive to both home buyers and investors; and Oshawa has suffered because the whole issue, marked by planning shortsightedness, has been a national black eye and disgrace for the city. Altogether, it’s been a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose-lose situation for all involved.

At the outset, city hall, with city politician’s tacit and/or active approval, was the chief contributor to the creation of the problem. Despite the R1A zoning, Oshawa’s Planning Department approved revisions to building plans for up to seven bedrooms knowing that the purchasers were investors in student rental housing even though that was contrary to the zoning in place. Campaign donations to city politicians by the developers certainly helped to turn other cheeks to grease these sales to student rental investors.

Mayor John Gray gets about 80% of his political campaign funds from developers, among the highest levels of any politician in the GTA. These donations are not given lightly. Friendly votes and friendly development policies are expected in return. When a politician gets such a high proportion of their campaign funds from the development industry, do you really believe your interests are at the top of their agenda?

With the huge development dollars he will raise, you can be sure that John Gray will have a well-oiled slick campaign, but astute voters will look beyond the slickness to the ineptness with which he’s run the affairs of this city. His vulnerability is demonstrated by opposition from within his own council. Those on the inside know a deuce when they see it…and they want to trump Gray’s leadership deuce with a pair of threes of their own.

The incumbent politicians opposing the mayor have their own crosses to bear. They sat on their hands watching this whole student housing fiasco unfold. They were sitting silently at the table supporting politician’s MBA tuition funding. They were passive supporters of Gray’s decision to spend $45,000 of taxpayer’s money on his own birthday party. They were silent supporters of the beaver kill recently, or they didn’t read their agendas, and thus cannot be trusted to arrive prepared at council meetings to represent Oshawa’s best interests. They were avid supporters of the $1/4M Cullen Gardens Miniatures mistake. They allowed the wasteful and unneeded $25M expenditures on the demolition and reconstruction of city council chambers and city hall “A” wing. They allowed residential taxes to balloon 13% over this last four year term to continue to provide Oshawa taxpayers with the highest mill rates in the GTA. And the list of blunders goes on ad infinitem.

John Gray and his band of incompetents are dishonest in claiming among the lowest tax increases in this election year when they upped taxes by 13% over their recent term. By way of playing games with you, they said it was easy to come in with under a 1% increase this election year. They must think we have short memories to fall for this ruse. You can bet, if the present gang is re-elected, they will push for big tax increases at budget time, a short three months after the election, to make up for the “lowball” they lobbed this election year.

Oshawa’s sky-high taxes contribute to the lowest priced real estate in the GTA which robs Oshawa homeowners of thousands of dollars of home equity annually. As Oshawa’s new mayor, I will be calling for yearly 3% tax cuts until Oshawa reaches the average taxation levels in the GTA.

In summary, Oshawa voters will have an important decision on Election Day. For more of the same, they should re-elect the present bunch. If they want a break from this “train wreck” council, they should work actively with all their Oshawa contacts to replace every city politician.

The choice is yours. Make it wise! Make it informed! Take responsibility to discuss the need for change with every Oshawa voter you know.

We do not need a “comedy-of-errors” band of Keystone Kops in charge of Oshawa’s business.

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

City Councillor claims things are rotten at Oshawa City Hall

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
April 12, 2010

When Mayor John Gray was criticized for spending in excess of $40,000 of hard earned taxpayer monies to fund his personal birthday party, also dubbed the Stephen Colbert Day, he justified the expenditure by insisting that the value to the city of the publicity gained by the expenditure was incalculable.

I wonder whether he feels the same way about the widespread national attention given to his use of $46,000 of taxpayer funds for MBA’s for Councillor April Cullen and his Executive Assistant, James Anderson. For this, he and the city got widespread publicity bordering on the incredulous and laughable from editorialists right across the country and downright anger from those at home having to pick up the tab.

In an earlier column, I explained that I was kept up to date with John Gray’s funding of these MBA’s in a commuter newspaper in Vancouver where I was volunteering at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

And this week, we find that groups of ratepayers have to sue the city to have them uphold the city bylaws restricting housing around the university as residential rather than as student rental housing which the residents claim is destroying their neighbourhood through ongoing problems with noise, parking, parties, garbage, and vandalism.

All this, the residents claim, is threatening the safety and well being of homeowners in the area. The resident’s lawsuit is about reclaiming their neighbourhood through the enforcement of bylaws already on the city books.

Once again, this story was picked up by the Toronto Star and has hit the national media and was read by hundreds of thousands of Toronto Commuters on Monday April 5 as the front page headline of the freely distributed Metro Newspaper screamed, “Rowdy renters…Oshawa families suing city in bid to reclaim neighbourhood.” No doubt, similar headlines featured the same story in commuter newspapers distributed in all of Canada’s largest cities.

Residents near the university refer to their neighbourhood as ”The Streets of Broken Dreams,” and cite broken glass, beer bottles and condoms strewn around, front lawns torn up by cars, eggs thrown at houses and garbage piled up.

In one case, students retaliated against an older couple who complained about rowdy behaviour by placing pieces of glass in their backyard to cut their dog’s feet.

Oshawa is getting so much negative publicity that it seems as if the negative publicity value of their actions is a major determinant of what they do.

And now we learn that part of Mayor Gray’s renewal plan for the downtown is to do everything possible to facilitate movement of some of the university faculties downtown so that those disruptive problems experienced in the university neighbourhoods will also be experienced downtown.

I guess Mayor John Gray’s idea of renewal is flooding the downtown with students to discourage the adult population with their superior buying power to go there to support higher end restaurants and stores. This will surely prove to be another disastrous step by Gray’s inept administration.

Just as the city hall is complicit in creating this future downtown problem, they were complicit in creating the residential housing problems around the university.

Short-sighted thinking along with city planner’s approval of housing renovations to install up to seven and eight bedrooms in some houses to allow for student rental housing was a shirking of municipal responsibility to uphold the areas as residential in the first place.

Any politicians on the ball would have been calling for student residential housing from the initial stages and setting aside land tracts zoned as such from the very beginning. And now we are seeing the same short sightedness with student housing in the downtown.

Earlier, Oshawa made the National News in the Toronto Star, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and Macleans Magazine, when city hall bylaw officers with police and locksmiths in tow raided student housing around these same university neighbourhoods inspecting panty drawers of absent students to search for leasing documents.

This action hit the student newspapers of many of Canada’s universities informing many prospective Ontario students and their parents of Oshawa’s Neanderthal civic administration and, of course, discouraging their attendance and limiting the growth of our university here.

The proof is in the pudding! Oshawa city council has learned plenty of ways to get free national press. There was no need for Mayor Gray to personally spend the $45,000 on his birthday party to get that press that he called incalculably valuable.

And yet the city continues to spend countless numbers of our tax dollars to publish carriers for politician’s mug shots which are distributed at great cost to all front doors in Oshawa. Most of these end up unwanted and unread in the recycling bin. But where was the attempt to communicate when we really needed it---an explanation of the plebiscite question on our city council voting system which robbed our various Oshawa communities of their guaranteed representation on City Council.

With all of its press exposure, Oshawa is becoming one of the best known communities in this country. You can hardly pick up a newspaper anywhere without some reference to Oshawa. Unfortunately, most of the information is bad and a function of the political leadership of this city.

All of the national press has translated into making Oshawa a less desirable place to live, if housing demand indicated by housing sales figures released by the Toronto Real Estate Board is any indication. The first quarter sales figures for Single detached housing show an average Oshawa single family house price of $255,808 for the 194 sales that occurred in Oshawa for the lowest housing value over the entire GTA.

Late breaking news as I write this column is that Councillor Louise Parkes has announced her candidacy for Mayor of Oshawa in the upcoming October 25th, 2010 election.

In a Toronto Star article of April 7, 2010, Parkes stated that, “Leadership is a huge issue…Things are falling apart because of leadership style and a ‘systems failure’ at city hall…things are rotten,” she says, “and I aim to fix it.”

Parkes is right. Things are rotten at city hall and she is part of the problem…not part of the solution.

She was key cheerleader for the city’s purchase of the Cullen Gardens Miniatures and key critic of council’s decision not to proceed at great expense with the project.

She was asleep at the switch when she voted against providing citizen information about the ward/general vote plebiscite question and subsequently voted to rob communities of their guaranteed representation on city council; asleep at the switch while Mayor John Gray was approving the MBA funding; asleep at the switch while council was approving the costly and unnecessary demolition and reconstruction of council chambers and city hall “A” wing; asleep at the switch while the Mayor was funding his $40,000 birthday party; asleep at the switch while Council approved demolition of North Oshawa Arena, the Civic, and potentially Children’s Arena and Harmon Park Arena.

Indeed something is rotten at city hall. Louise Parkes was the councilor who pushed for bigger councilor office expense budgets and travel allowances…and pushed for failed Glyn Laverick to take over the Regent Theatre. After voting for high tax increases for Oshawa for years, she is now a convert for lower taxes. Yes…we need more of Louise Parkes at City Hall. Yeah! Right!

With Parkes now in the race, maybe Councillor John Henry will be encouraged to get into the race. Anti-council sentiment is at such a feverish pitch that I want to knock off as many sitting councillors as possible to give the people of Oshawa a new beginning in the governance of this city.

Because I am confident of becoming your new Oshawa Mayor, I want as many new council faces as possible. Oshawa needs a clean sweep of council!


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

A Sure Sign of Election Year

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
February 15, 2010

City council approved a .9% increase this year, the lowest increase in years.

This is a political game designed to secure your vote for council incumbents in the October 25, 2010 municipal elections.

This low increase results from 2 factors---it's election year, and the outright anger of Oshawa residents about Oshawa city’s tax grab to give us the highest taxes in the GTA, if not all of Canada.

This obscene level of taxation will not change with the low tax increase for next year. You will still pay more next year than you ever have in the past.

City voters should not fall for this low one-time increase without looking at the past history of this Oshawa City Council and its mismanagement that has produced Oshawa’s excessive taxation level.

City tax levels are so high that about half of the 25 GTA municipalities will pay around 50% or less of the taxes you’d pay in Oshawa on a $350,000 house. Don’t be fooled by this one-time “election ploy” low increase!

Oshawa’s highest taxation levels in the GTA and among the highest in Canada hurt every Oshawa resident.

High taxes rob every Oshawa homeowner of tens of thousands of dollars of home equity, make Oshawa a less desirable place to buy, make it difficult for homeowners to sell their houses, and keep developers away who can increase their profit margins by selling houses at higher prices in lower taxed municipalities.

High industrial and commercial tax rates discourage relocation of businesses here limiting local job growth.

In every way, sky high taxes hurt Oshawa and its residents.

City Manager Bob Duigan has said this will be one of the lowest tax increases in Durham Region---this may be so but we will still pay significantly higher taxes than any place in Durham Region.

What city council needed to do, and which I propose as the next mayor of Oshawa, is to provide annual tax decreases until our tax rate meets the average in the GTA.

The investment rule of 72---dividing 72 by the interest rate approximates the doubling time of capital can also be used in computing halving time for financial amounts. This rule indicates that a 3% annual tax cut would half our taxes in 24 years but would quickly allow us to reach those average GTA tax levels in approximately a dozen years as other jurisdictions continue their annual tax increases.

This pace of closing the gap would be a slow enough cutback for our local government to transition to the impact of these reductions while at the same time alerting all city managers and employees to the need for cost cutting, increased productivity, less wastage, and a reduction in the costs of government. Every expenditure would be measured against “real need.”

That rule of 72 indicates that our 4% tax increases of the last few years, if consistently maintained, would have doubled our current taxes in 18 years (72/4) while the 9% tax increase supported by Mayor John Gray two years ago would have doubled our taxes in just 8 years (72/9).

Remarkable is the statement by present Mayor John Gray that Oshawa’s low increase this year will not impact as higher increases for next year.

Can we trust this of a Mayor who argued for 9% tax increases two years ago?

And what makes him think he can speak for the new council after the October 25th election?

With the rudderless leadership he has provided this dysfunctional council so far, and some of the irresponsible and faulty judgements he has made, and his many outright lies to the people, it is unlikely the angry electorate will re-elect him Mayor.

When voters are making their election choices, they have to look at the history of the Mayor’s and Council’s decisions over their terms on council and just not decisions they make in an election year.

Hopefully the memory of the voters is like that of an elephant or a dog beaten into submission---they just never forget!

Oshawa politicians like Brian Nicholson and Mayor John Gray have told voters that we enjoy the lowest taxes in Durham Region and among the lowest in the GTA.

They must think we’re dumb!

And how about their credibility with statements like this?

I think they owe the public a plausible explanation of why we’ve had consistent tax increases of 4% over the last few years when it is much lower this year.

Gross mismanagement has given Oshawa the highest taxes in Durham Region and in the GTA and the surplus charged by Oshawa, often in the thousands of dollars over other jurisdictions, and even neighbouring jurisdictions, would be enough to provide you a nice winter holiday in the sunny Caribbean climes or new appliances, or even to make a number of your car payments per year.

For example, that $350,000 Oshawa house would be taxed at $1275 less in Clarington, $1400 less in Scugog, $1300 less in Whitby, and an astounding $3200 less in Toronto.

Our tax rates are criminal!

Oshawa tax rates keep you poor and rob you of personal life-style expenditures that you have earned and you deserve!

In ratepayer meetings the Mayor attended recently, the only thing the angry voters wanted to talk about were the sky high taxes. When questioned, the Mayor suggested that high taxes resulted from some lower priced neighbourhoods and that was the reason taxes were high for those gathered.

Such Bunk!

Every city has both higher and lower priced neighbourhoods and the mayor must realize this---but once again, either he’s not very smart or he thinks we’re very dumb.

Taxes are high only because of the mill rate set by the politicians and for no other reason.

As you know, taxes result from the market value of your house as assessed by the Ontario Property Assessment Corporation, an arm of the Provincial Government, multiplied by the mill rate set by the local municipal government.

Those low priced neighbourhoods the mayor referred to would also be taxed at the highest levels in the GTA for equivalently valued homes anywhere in the GTA.

Everyone in Oshawa, no matter the value of your property, is taxed at significantly higher levels than any other part of the GTA.

In fact, compliments of the politicians on your city council, Oshawa is among the highest taxed places in all of Canada.

Isn’t it nice to be #1? After all, the city motto is, “Prepare to be amazed!”

My sister who lives in Vancouver showed me her tax bill.

Her home, assessed in 2008 at $414,500, had a 2009 tax bill of $1630. An Oshawa house of this value would pay 4 times as much---about $6500 in 2008.

It’s interesting also that her municipality had a referendum at the last election on a capital project---the enlargement of an arena.

Wouldn’t it have been democratic for the Oshawa ratepayers to be asked whether they supported the demolition and rebuilding of city hall council chambers and “A” wing---I think I know the answer!

It’s interesting also that my sister’s tax bill had a cost breakdown for various components of the tax---municipal general ($1285.82), regional library ($44.39), drainage (waste/storm water $109.49), North Delta Recreation ($29.51), Arena Enlargement (from the aforementioned referendum $25.37). This is a transparent and open tax bill, isn’t it?

Using this idea of a breakdown of costs attributable to each home for various facets of city expenditures, maybe Oshawa’s tax bill should have a separate line item for such costs as the $3M annual money losing GM Centre, the $1/4M Cullen Gardens Miniatures purchase, the $40,000 expenditure approved solely by the Mayor for the Stephen Colbert Day (Mayor’s Birthday Party), the $40,000 Mayor’s “Boy Toy” bright yellow gas guzzling Muscle Car, Councillor April Cullen’s and the Mayor’s Executive Assistant’s $40,000 tax funded MBA’s personally approved by Mayor John Gray, the $25M demolition and rebuilding of Council Chambers and City Hall “A” wing and the refurbishment of city hall Rundle Tower, the $100 tax-free weekly gas allowance for each city councillor, the costs for taxpayer funded advertising including the needless city publications distributed to all homes which always feature the mug shots and comments of all city councillors, the taxpayer cost for the $1M demolition of North Oshawa Arena and the costs to demolish all of the other targeted arenas.

I could go on and on but I think you get the idea of a truly useful transparent tax bill that we need to judge the performance of this city hall bunch and see where our tax dollars really go.

And what do you think the wish of city voters would be on a plebiscite about demolishing city hall and the civic auditorium?

Yeah! Ridiculous! Irresponsible! Wasteful!

Governments operate with a mindset of increasing budgets every year…and they have a rush to use up all unused cash at the end of every year….Lord forbid leaving any cash in the till because that would lead to a smaller allocation in subsequent years.

This is thinking that has to be changed. It leads to burgeoning fat, inefficiencies, and unnecessary expenditures and wastage all at taxpayer expense.

This is a mindset that has to be changed and will be changed under my administration.

It’s a mindset that wouldn’t be tolerated in any business where the bottom line is important…and it won’t be tolerated in my administration.

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

Damn Lies, Bigger Damn Lies, and Consultant’s Reports

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
Feb 8, 2010

City Council told us that they had to demolish and re-build Council Chambers and City Hall "A" Wing because it had a leaking roof, then they said that it was not handicapped accessible, and then not energy efficient, where they finally found a justification that they thought would stick.

We were then told that the $25 Million demolition and rebuilding of Council Chambers and City Hall “A” Wing and the refurbishing of Rundle Tower would be paid for by energy savings at no cost to the taxpayer.

Lights bulbs are advertised by the energy payback time, a pitch never applied to costly appliances like refrigerators.

Brilliant though! City politicians are selling us on light bulb marketing to cover our city hall refurbishing and reconstruction costs. Yeah! Right!

I have maintained that the project was an unneeded wastage of tax money.

The leaking roof was a maintenance issue which is required for even brand new buildings, the accessibility problem was a minor renovation project, and energy inefficiency is a problem with every public building including Buckingham Palace, Parliament Buildings, The Louvre, The White House, etc. and will be the case of any recent construction in a few years as new standards and materials are developed.

The city employs "hired gun" consultants, almost like the "expert" witnesses employed on both sides of a criminal trial, who will produce reports, or testimony in the case of expert witnesses, to support the "preconceived" positions of those paying the bills.

I know that energy efficient windows installed in my house may pay for themselves in my lifetime, and while there may be some cost savings with the city hall projects, we all know they would never repay the $20M to $25M to $30M cost for demolishing and rebuilding city hall as City Politicians claim pointing to the consultants report that made the claim. But you can pay “hired guns” to say anything!

Without having access to all of the technical studies, I do have some common sense to apply, and so I made some assumptions for the demolition and rebuilding of Council Chambers only, and expect that the result would be the same on the entire project.

Suppose the Council Chambers cost as much to heat/cool as 100 homes. My house costs about $1500 to heat/cool per year so the Council Chambers would cost about $150,000 to heat and cool. Suppose reconstruction would result in an increased heating/cooling efficiency of an impossibly high 50%. The savings for heating/cooling the newly constructed $8 million council chambers would be $75,000 annually resulting in a cost savings of $75,000. At this rate, it would take ($8M/$75,000) 107 years to pay off the construction costs with the accrued energy savings not counting the debt charges on the money used to pay for the construction.

Now do you believe City Hall's Claim that energy savings will pay for the job? You don't? Me neither!

Now apply the same arguments to the complete project...the demolition and rebuilding of Council Chambers and "A" wing and the refurbishment of Rundle Tower at a cost somewhere around $25,000,000.

City Hall must think we're stupid!

But this is only one example of the misinformation and often outright lies fed to the people.

Council must think we’re innocent little chicks with our mouths wide open waiting unquestionably to receive all their BS. They’ll find we’re not!

This kind of information given to the public shows that council thinks the voters are dumb. That’s no way to show respect for the people. And I resent it!

There are lots of examples of this kind of lying and misinformation given to the public.

1. When the General Vote was being approved by city council, the Mayor publicly stated for the television audience watching the council meeting that night that city hall had no responsibility to communicate details of the plebiscite question to the public---no reason to explain the meaning of the question, the consequences of a change, or indeed why the question was asked since there had never been any concern publicly expressed about ward voting. He said this communication was the responsibility of concerned citizens like me to fundraise and inform the public.

Informal third party campaigns suggested by the mayor are against Ontario Municipal Election Law which the mayor must have known when he made these statements---but the lie sounded good to the uninitiated.

Council even voted not to give such information.

Doesn’t it make sense that if council wanted an accurate measure of public opinion, they would have wanted to inform the public.

Their failure to communicate showed they didn’t care.

They kept the question secret and worded it a way as to get the answer they wanted.

This is vote manipulation of the highest order.

Council should be ashamed of themselves for denigrating democracy this way. It was akin to the vote fixing of third world despots!

2. A common city hall statement following approval of every major funding expenditure is that it will have no impact on taxes.

We’ve been told that on the rebuilding and refurbishment project at city hall and on the building of GM Centre.

Every penny council spends has a direct impact on taxes.

Governments do not have any other source of income except from the people.

Creative accounting does not eliminate the impact on taxes.

Take the building of the $45 million GM Centre downtown.

They mortgaged, sold, or borrowed against part of the city ownership of the profitable Oshawa Public Utilities Commission and profits that would normally be returned to the city to assist in financing on-going city operations are now lost revenues directed to debt repayment or dividends to the note holders leaving tax payers to pick up the shortfall as inflated tax burdens.

No impact on taxes? Do you believe it?

No, I don’t either!

3. Recently, Councillor Brian Nicholson claimed on his facebook page in response to a complaint about high taxes, that Oshawa had the lowest taxes in Durham Region and was one of the lowest in the GTA.

This is a blatant lie.

When I pointed out the misinformation, Nicholson tried to skirt around the issue by saying he meant something else, and then proceeded to attack my credibility.

There is no question about Oshawa’s high taxes as anyone can see by consulting the GTA tax calculator.

By referencing this resource, Oshawa taxpayers would note that we not only have the highest residential taxes in the GTA, we also have significantly higher taxes than our surrounding neighbours, Whitby, Scugog, and Clarington.

Further, they’d be astounded to discover that an Oshawa house valued at $350,000 pays the same taxes as a Toronto house valued at $866,100 and that a $350,000 Oshawa house would be taxed at $1076 less in Clarington, $1389 less in Scugog, $1167 less in Whitby, and, get this, $3153 less in Toronto.

Nicholson has been on City Council for more than 20 years.

Was he lying to the public or after 20 years of budget deliberations, is he still unaware of our criminally high taxes here in Oshawa? I guess he just doesn’t get it!

Space limitations prevent me from identifying a good number of other examples of the damn lies and the huge damn lies being constantly fed to Oshawa people.

If the mayor and city council had any respect for the people and any respect for democracy, they’d tell us the truth…for once---please. Just for once!

Oshawa will have a chance to do a lot better at the next municipal election on October 25, 2010.

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