It’s Tax Time Again.... Get Ready For Your Annual Tax Hit!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
February 21, 2011


Doesn’t matter that Oshawa is the highest taxed place in the GTA.

Doesn’t matter that we had a tax revolt in the city just prior to the last election and so voters turfed 64% of the past council out of office.

Doesn’t matter that virtually all those elected were calling for tax cuts, tax freezes, or holds on tax increases.

So hold your hats! Looks like we’re gonna be hit with another tax shot that’s gonna blow your wallet to smithereens.

It’s the season of political doublespeak and city staff and council members are priming you for a 1.4% tax increase on the proposed 2011 city budget.

During the election campaign, John Henry pledged financial accountability to taxpayers. He promised to go over the budget with a fine tooth comb with a process he called zero based budgeting whereby all line items would be generated from the ground up. “We’d start with zero dollars and build up the budget line by line justifying every expenditure along the way,” he said. With that promise we’d be expecting a change in the process, wouldn’t we?

Any change in the process though would have had to result from direction from council. But there was no motion! There was no discussion! There was no intent on Henry’s part to change the budget process! All of that gobbledygook about a new budget process was just there to fool the people and win votes. It was all a big lie! The only grand scheme Henry announced were two night time public meetings as opposed to daytime public meetings. Henry’s election promises to impose a new system were quickly forgotten upon his election....and by this he has broken the public trust in the biggest issue facing voters in the recent election.

The night time budget meetings were poorly attended by the public with only one person attending the first of the two meetings. Interested ratepayers know that even forensic accountants among the public would not be any more successful in wading through all of the ill defined budget lines than the politicians in comprehending the bureaucrat’s spending wish lists, BS, and ill defined budget lines so cleverly crafted so as to hide any disclosure they want from prying eyes and questioning minds.

Guess that’s why only one member of the public attended the first meeting...voters know it’s only a charade...and they don’t want to be used!

In any case, I pointed out during the election campaign that political oversight of the budget with the system Henry proposed would be an impossible task as bureaucrats have all of the detailed knowledge about the operations of city hall and hold all the trump cards in the budget battles. In the classic contest between bureaucrats and politicians, bureaucrats always win.

It’s like child’s play for bureaucrats to play pussy cat with weak politicians hiding all of their wish lists in mountains of numbers which are often rounded up in multiples of $5000 or $10,000 to provide plenty of space to hide the fat.

The budget hides so much excess fat to cover a myriad of unbudgeted items like huge consultant’s fees to supplement the handsomely paid but apparently inept city staff, and the almost $1/2M combined city/regional retiring allowances for defeated Oshawa politicians. Despite all of these unbudgeted costs, last year's .9% tax increase still generated a $650,000 surplus.

Excuses are always given for budget increases and this year it is expiring labour contracts and increased worker health insurance premiums, etc., but this is not new. There are always attempts at justifying requested budget and thus tax increases.

Bureaucrats have suggested some very politically unpalatable tax increases to replace lost tax revenue should politicians want to reduce the proposed residential tax hikes. They’ve suggested, for example, that reducing the proposed budget to only a 1% residential tax increase could be accomplished by: 1) Increased fees for downtown metered parking, 2) Introducing a $5 youth user fee for outdoor sports fields, and 3) Increasing senior’s basic annual membership charge for city recreational facilities from $5 to $122.37 yearly. They don't get it that these increased fees would greatly reduce participation.

No where do city officials suggest re-prioritizing budgeted items to cut city spending or indeed looking for increased efficiencies to make up the shortfall.

When you give the city staff the responsibility for coming up with the budget without giving them guidelines or direction, you are not likely to get anything different from past practices....and certainly not a hold or cut in taxes....that would only come as a result of demands from strong politicians.

Had I been elected as mayor, I would have led council to direct the city manager to present a budget reflecting a 3% tax cut for city property owners without any service cuts. And we would have sent back the budget as many times as necessary until the bureaucrats got it right.

Such a system would have caused city officials to look for increased efficiencies, set priorities, and gain some appreciation for administering the city without the benefit of a budget that balloons as much as necessary to include anything they damn well please. Such a system would even work to change the mental set of administers so they would have to start living within a fixed income budget like the rest of us.

Such a focus on limited finances would also focus the entire city staff to exercise more care in their expenditures. If the bosses don’t give a damn about wasteful spending, why should the front line workers.

As an example of not giving a damn about public expenses, some city workmen were doing some sidewalk and curb repair work on my street last summer and abandoned the barricades and sidewalk metal forms on the boulevard and finally picked them up close to two months after the work was completed when a neighbour called city works on a number of occasions, finally getting action when he threatened to take the stuff to the dump. Another example of lack of care are the snow plow operators beating the hell out of the curbs so as to create summer make-work projects.

The wastage of the make-work practices of many city hall workers reminds me of the old union “featherbedding” tactics of duplicating and then trashing work in unionized newspaper offices for work that had not been done in-house.

According to the Ontario Public Sector Salary Disclosure List, the city had 71 employees making more than $100,000 in 2009, with salaries ranging from just over $250,000 for the city manager and an additional four earning over $150,000 annually. This is significantly more than the vast majority of these individuals would earn in the private sector....and yet with all these handsomely paid workers, city hall still requires vast sums to be spent on consultant’s reports.

We need a new kind of business thinking whereby officials must figure out how to do more with less....the same as in the private sector.

Without focussing employee attention on waste, fat, improved productivity, and improved efficiency, you perpetuate the idea that these are not important...that city hall with politician’s blessing can simply go to the people for more and more cash every year.

The only way to focus attention on the bottom line and controlled spending is to determine the upper limits of spending at the beginning of the budget process and have city staff work to deliver more with less.

After all, this is the approach that must be taken by every private sector business if it expects to survive in this competitive world.

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

The City Budget---The first significant order of business

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 3, 2011



On this first column of 2011, while city politicians are still in a “Resolution Mood” for the New Year, I hope, along with the vast majority of city residents, that Council resolves to cut taxes at their upcoming budget deliberations in February.

High residential taxation was the number one concern of voters during the election campaign, and everyone elected promised in one way or another to hold the line on taxation levels.

The budget meetings will be a good start to assess the sacred trust city voters placed in the newly elected to honour their campaign pledges. Not one politician got elected based on a promise to raise taxes. All got elected on promises to cut or freeze taxes.

So the February budgetary process will be the first major item on the city council agenda and the first real indication of whether politicians will honour the commitments they made to city taxpayers in the October 25 Municipal Elections.

Early indications are that Mayor John Henry will not be honouring his pledge to put a hold on taxes. At a recent Regional Council Meeting, he led the charge in arguing for an 8% increase in the water/sewer rates.

Henry admonished fellow councillors who did not support the bureaucratic recommendation by rhetorically asking if anyone knew of a service more important than water and further if anyone had heard of the Walkerton E-Coli Tragedy.

As if increased expenditures would have avoided the Walkerton issue in which criminal convictions were issued against the two supervisors charged with irresponsibly carrying out their duties to insure water quality in Walkerton.

In terms of Henry’s first question...”Is there anything more important than water?” it appears that Henry is mistakenly convinced that money is the cure to all evils and that more money would have resulted in better supervision by those charged with insuring water quality. How naive!

Henry has also demonstrated by his reasoning that the key component in pricing a commodity value is how important it is to humanity. Using the same reasoning, he would place a great economic value on the air we breathe and thus, if he could find a way, want to tax it at a high rate.

His support for the incinerator on Oshawa’s border as demonstrated by his nomination and vote for Roger Anderson as Regional Chairman, the chief proponent of the incinerator, seems diametrically opposed to his concern for clean water and human health. Anderson’s incinerator will spew health damaging pollutants into the atmosphere and into the lungs of our children.

In supporting huge water/sewer rate increases, besides breaking his election pledges, John Henry is clearly falling into the trap of politicians who fall hook, line, and sinker into the slick bureaucratic sleight of hand that works to justify greater budgets every subsequent year. This is a stunt that the bureaucratic stunt meisters can pull off when politicians are not too bright!

In his campaign for Mayor, John Henry, pledged to justify all budget items on a line-by-line zero based budgeting process whereby every budget item had to be justified from the ground up.

This care in the budgeting process that he promised is certainly not evident in his unquestioning and unhesitating support of the bureaucratic appeals for the extra water/sewer cash.

In the first budget and taxing question he faced, John Henry abandoned his pledge for the line-by-line zero based process he promised.

Henry’s system would be time consuming but would replace the traditionally used incremental system where current allocations are based on a percentage increase over the totals of the past year. Only the percentage increase over the last year then becomes debatable under this system.

In abandoning the zero based budgeting system he pledged, and accepting the incremental system, he guarantees us a tax increase every year.

Henry calls himself a businessman who wanted to run the city like a business and yet he abandoned the most basic idea of business...that is of looking for increased efficiencies rather than simply throwing more money at a problem. Indeed the system Henry has now adopted continues to reward or pad all existing, present, and past inefficiencies with an agreed percentage increase. This acts to compound all tax excess problems that have accrued over the years. The excessive capital pools generated will, of course, be eaten up by unnecessary discretionary city hall spending.

Guaranteed percentage increases in budgetary items removes all incentive to cut out the city hall fat, waste, redundancies, and inefficiencies and continues to reward all those things that are an anathema to business practice that Henry pledged to stamp out.

If any internal efficiencies result in cost savings to produce a surplus in government accounts at the end of the year, there is a bureaucratic “rush” to spend the surplus to avoid any money being left in the till at year end.

Surplus monies left in an account is catastrophic to bureaucrats as it announces to politicians that too much money had been allocated in the past year and signals a need to cut allocations. This is to be avoided at all costs according to the bureaucratic mind-set.

As a public service administrator in my past life, I often received emergency “directives” from budget supervisors near year end to spend money....send requisitions for any furniture/equipment you want (not need) and we will cover the costs.

These supervisors wanted to break the bank in the current year with unneeded purchases to insure budgetary increases in the following year. After all, you can’t “require” increases next year if you’ve left money in the till this year.

This is a game all bureaucrats play which is quite in contrast to the private sector where wasteful expenditures cut “bottom line” profitability. In government service, there is no bottom line as bureaucrats are confident that politicians will always approve digging deeper into the taxpayer pocket to replenish empty public tills to fuel more out-of-control spending.

In business, with the business mind-set, there is incentive to cut waste, cut inefficiencies, and cut fat to improve profitability. In the public service, the mind-set is to do whatever it takes to increase costs and spending to insure a bigger budget in subsequent years, even if that means wasteful spending, decreasing efficiencies, and duplicate and redundant operations and procedures, and increasing bureaucracy.

A classic example of this wastefulness in Oshawa is the unnecessary creation of a heavily staffed and space-rich “Information Oshawa” department where you will see handsomely paid workers huddling in unproductive “chatting groups” on any city hall visit. There is one worker sitting at the front counter to handle simple public inquiries and otherwise to direct technical inquiries upstairs to departmental specialists.

For example, I stopped by one day, and as a political columnist for the Central Newspaper, asked for the Agenda Materials for the evening’s Council Meeting. I was told I’d have to go upstairs to the Clerk’s Department for that.

Similarly, any developer wanting more than mundane elementary information would be referred “upstairs” to the planning department. Such a generalist department as Information Oshawa may have blank forms to dispense but no detailed or expert advice or opinion...but a taxpayer cost of millions of dollars per year and an unnecessary waste endemic to public service but an anathema to private business.

Another wasteful expenditure, of course, was the $20M redevelopment of city hall. While a number of rationales for this wasteful expenditure were foisted on the public by the last council, none stuck and so politician’s settled on pegging the huge cost to the need to house this unneeded Information Oshawa.

Smart! A rationale for a wasteful $20 M city hall expenditure is tied to an unneeded and wasteful city department.

In short, the only way to guarantee a hold on city hall spending is to provide incentives for increasing efficiencies. This is only done by mandating small cuts to departmental budgets and then having departmental managers look for cost savings within their departments.

During the election campaign, I suggested all city hall departmental budgets should be cut by 3% to allow for a 3% residential tax cut. Every 1% tax cut would reduce city tax coffers by about $1M. A 3% tax cut would reduce the city’s $115M residential tax "take" by about $3.5M. This would be similar to taking $3.50 from you if you had $115 in your pocket.

That’s a cut you, I, and the city could live with. We’d do it by cutting out unnecessary and frivolous spending...just as the city would!

We need some demanding political leaders, though, as these cuts would only come as the city bureaucrats were dragged kicking and screaming from their gold plated latté cups.


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

Oh Henry! Welcome to your first call to the world of leadership

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

Despite the fact that you have no “real world” leadership experience, Mr. Mayor Elect, the people picked you off the shelf due to your slick sign campaign based on MP Colin Carrie’s sign list, and we’ve been looking for the clues of your vision for this city to figure out what you stand for.

It’s difficult! We can’t recall any real leadership you gave on the term of council you’re just finishing. Certainly you didn’t stand out as a dominant member of that dysfunctional council.

We do recall a major error, though. You voted for the General Vote that the people have strongly criticized in this recent election and wonder now what you’re going to do about it.

Perhaps you’ll follow my plan to have a giant communication program about the ward vs. general vote question followed by an online poll and a mail in ballot for those who aren’t online to get informed public opinion with the promise of implementing what the people want for the next election.

I know the people will want to return to ward elections, the system every large city in the country uses if they don’t have municipal political parties which municipal law discourages in Ontario.

And Mayor Elect Henry, the people will be watching you on this issue!

Perhaps you didn’t know enough about municipal election systems when you voted for the general vote. You didn’t know the devastating dysfunctional and non-productive effects it had, and that’s why it’s not used in any large city in the country…or perhaps you were bullied into your vote by the council powers of Pidwerbecki, Gray, Nicholson, and Kolodzie.

It’s easy to see that being the “new guy on the block,” you were pretty easy to push around. As our new mayor, hopefully you will not be as easy to push around and hopefully you will insist on knowing a little more about those things that win your vote.

The people are depending on you and will be watching.

We do know that you supported all of the missteps of this past council. The 13% tax rate over the term, the MBA funding which passed your eyes without a whisper, the needless city hall demolition and rebuilding which wasted at least $20M of our money that you didn’t contest, the $46,000 Mayor’s birthday party that didn’t wake you up until it was too late….and now you’ve sold yourself as the savior of responsible spending….good luck!

The people are depending on you and will be watching.

You sold yourself to the public like that popular Oh Henry chocolate bar that you distributed at the mayor forums. Buyers typically don’t bother to look beyond the packaging, to inspect the ingredients to see whether they are healthy. Perhaps, voters have not yet looked any more carefully at the reasons for their votes for you…but that is about to change.

Every one of your utterances and every one of your hesitancies are now being placed under the microscope and the people are watching.

In reading your brochures, and listening to your presentations at the Mayoral Debates, you are still a “pig in a poke” for me, and perhaps for your voters. In listening to your debate presentations or reading your brochures, I haven’t found anything of significance yet that would tell me and your voters of your vision for Oshawa.

Your website, www.votejohnhenry.ca and your brochures never really told me about any specific ideas and plans you had for the city. For those who want to check your votejohnhenry.ca website to review what they’ll be getting for their vote, unfortunately all traces of what you said you stood for has now been erased.

You've ensured that voters won't get a chance to compare what you promised with what you deliver!

I still have one of your brochures which claims a realistic plan to ease Oshawa’s tax burden without describing your plan except for adoption of zero-based budgeting, which is a meaningless term for you as a policy setter.

Any policy plan has to focus on the end result, not the process to get there. The end result is a policy function of council which will in turn have a process impact on the bureaucrats.

The process impact we want is to cut out the city hall fat, waste, and inefficiencies. The “Tea Party Rebellion” has arrived! The means by which we achieve the end results don't matter.

If, as a result of the .9% tax increase this year, a game playing plan is to make up this year’s shortfall with compensating increases in February….Watch out, the public is watching! The public is sick and tired of games!

Council’s role is to approve the budget and not make it up starting from scratch as implied by your description of the zero-based process as having every budget item justified from the ground up.

Are you as mayor, going to get into discussions “from the ground up,” for example, about justifications for postage cost allocations? I think not. This may work in your home and in your little 2 man business operation where purchasers order from catalogues, but doesn’t work for a large organization.

Can you imagine the GM CEO and Board of Directors wanting to cut costs, and implementing your zero-based system and micromanaging the cuts across the system? Would the CEO have the time, the interest, the departmental operational information and details to micromanage or would the CEO and the Board simply set the policy and let those in charge carry it out? This is what the bureaucratic officials and department heads are for.

So Mr. Mayor forget the micro managing crap and your zero-based budgeting crap and get down to business.

Cut the spending allocations by 3% across the board as I suggested in my campaign to provide a 3% city tax cut for all residents and then work on getting the Regional Politicians to do the same thing to bring taxpayers a 3% cut in our Regional taxes. This is real leadership.

And while you're at it, don't forget to reduce our industrial/commercial tax rates to at least make them competitive with Whitby, Ajax, and Pickering. Otherwise, we'll lose all of the spin-off industry from UOIT to our neighboring municipalities.

Forget the smoke and mirrors crap and work on job #1 of cutting taxes. That will be popular across the Region.

As a policy setter, you understand that all the bureaucrats want increased budgets every year, but simply cut the crap. Insist on a 3% spending cut at both the city level and the regional level to cut out the fat, the waste and the efficiencies at both levels.

It’s doable if you focus on the end result and forget about all of the meaningless “smoke and mirrors” words like zero based budgeting which offers no change to our escalating taxes.

This will be your test, Mr. Mayor, and the people will be watching. If you let the people down, Nancy Diamond and I will be watching in the wings.

Forget the crap. As a matter of policy, you and council should simply dictate all department budgets be cut back 3% as I suggested during the campaign to insure tax relief to the people.

Might I also suggest you, and the voters of course, look at my vision permanently available at www.wepromise.ca. This may give you some ideas to start implementing direction in your leadership of this city.

Another critical problem you will have to deal with is the potential transfer of many of the 170,000 airplane landings and takeoffs to the Oshawa airport once Buttonville Airport closes. The Buttonville sale closed last Wednesday to make way for commercial and residential development, and as one of the busiest airports in the country, all its business will have to transfer elsewhere.

City Staff have been working on this issue for a year, Mr. Mayor. Why didn’t you or one of the other incumbents bring this up as an issue? So Mr. Mayor, get busy placating the Glens’ Residents over the increased noisy flights over their neighborhood.

And while you’re appeasing the Glen’s residents, Mr. Mayor, we do have a noise bylaw in town that restricts the takeoff and landings at the airport between 10:30 pm and 6:30 am but which exempts police, medical, and industrial emergencies and Oshawa based returning aircraft from this noise bylaw.

Those surrounding the airport would note that the extremely noisy police helicopter appears to do training circuits over the north end most every night after midnight interrupting the sleep of many north end residents. Part of the city enforcement of this noise bylaw should require the filing of the reason for these very frequent late night police helicopter flights on a public website listing the distinct law enforcement requirement of these late night sleep disturbing flights.

You have your work cut out for you, Mr. Mayor, and the people are watching!

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

The Election Post Mortem...without any regrets or tears

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
November 1, 2010


The election is over and the people have spoken. I am happy with many aspects of the results and have concerns about other aspects of it.

I ran as mayor, obviously because I believed there were many shortcomings in council actions and in the direction it was taking this city. Had I been satisfied with council, I wouldn’t have run.

In many ways, I feel my campaign set the agenda and tone for the election and in many ways determined its outcomes. Some candidates adapted some of the ideas I had proposed, and no doubt others will be adopted in the future and I will be communicating some of these ideas directly to those elected.

The Mayor’s race is the only one voters are vitally interested in as they realize it is the Mayor who sets the agenda, tone, and direction for Council. Therefore the Mayor’s Platform is important. The ideas of those running for other positions gets lost in the shuffle. Because the Mayor alone gets elected on his platform, council members have a moral responsibility to support the Mayor’s platform in implementing the will of the people. My race for Mayor therefore, gave my ideas the light of day.

My key reason for running was to try to defeat those members of city council who irresponsibly voted to give the city the unwieldy “General Vote” election system not used in any large city in the country. The resulting 70 name ballot made it impossible to know the candidates. This lets incumbents hide in the weeds and get elected on name recognition only rather than service to the community.

Of the seven council members supporting the implementation of the General Vote, only Pidwerbecki, Marimpietri, and Henry survived this election with John Gray, Louise Parkes, and Maryanne Sholdra being defeated and Joe Kolodzie resigning. I also wanted to defeat April Cullen for getting her MBA at taxpayer expense and Brian Nicholson for his general dishonesty, bullying, lack of integrity, and lying about his academic credentials. So success in this objective was achieved.

A classic example of the General Vote’s shortcoming is Maryanne Sholdra’s near win in the election. She was widely recognized as a wasted council seat missing many meetings, often arriving late and leaving early, and absenting herself regularly during meetings. She didn’t seem to understand the issues and her participation was limited to asking questions and making remarks that had already been raised. Despite this, she just narrowly got defeated and in the process beat out Mark Paton and UOIT Business Professor Will Thurber, both of whom have MBA’s that might have brought a business sense to the council table. Interestingly, voters missed on 2 additional MBA candidates in Kevin Brady and Doug Hawkins who would have brought intelligence and business sense and knowledge to the council table.

In our democratic system, “the public is always right” even though they don’t always “get it right.” Sometimes a candidate’s name is more important than their platform. This is especially true with the General Vote where there are so many candidates. Coming first on the ballot like Aker, for example, or having "politically great" names like England or John Henry is a distinct advantage. The poor guy with the handle Esrick H. Quintyn didn’t have a chance even if he was as good as Jesus Christ.

The General Vote system was highly criticized by voters and hopefully the new city council will implement a midterm information program for citizens and then provide an online voting system, supplemented with a mail-in ballot, to canvas citizen’s desires for a return to Ward Voting for the next (2014) election.

The announcement of such a program, along with the implementation of residential and industrial/commercial tax cuts to make Oshawa competitive with Whitby, Ajax, and Pickering in attracting new investment in this community will be an early test of the responsiveness of John Henry’s administration to the wishes of the people. Without these, he will go the way of the Dodo bird following the next election as Nancy Diamond is now sitting in the wings waiting for the opportunity to resume the Mayorship should Henry flounder.

Some have questioned whether John Henry has the strength of personality and intellect to lead this council. Over his four years on council, he has not shown any real leadership, vision, direction, or insight into Oshawa problems. Indeed in this election, he has not defined any real platform except to put all of the best ideas of council candidates on the table to select a new course for Oshawa. I don’t think real leadership is seeing which way the wind blows. He did have a great sign campaign though and was fortunate in having access to Colin Carrie’s Sign List.

In terms of insight into Oshawa problems, John Henry’s answer to attracting industry at the CAW retirees Mayor Debate was: “We have a deepwater port. We’re on the main rail line across the country. We’re on a major highway. We have an airport. We have a skilled workforce. We can build anything and ship it anywhere in the world!”

What Henry failed to see is that we’ve had all these attributes for the last half century and still have a net outflow of industrial jobs. He failed to know that the city has the highest industrial/commercial tax rate in the GTA that scares away industrial investment like a cornered skunk. We are not competitive with Whitby, Ajax, and Pickering where investors would save from $206,000 to $226,000 annually by locating a $25M plant there. It’s amazing that our incoming mayor did not know these basic facts about this crucial problem.

I do commend John Henry, however, on his apparent honesty, integrity, and sincerity and, for Oshawa’s future, do wish him well and pray that he’s up to the job.

From all reports, if we can believe the election materials of successful candidates, we have a number of fiscal hawks elected in Nancy Diamond, Bruce Wood, Roger Bouma, Bob Chapman, and John Aker so we may very well see tax cuts in our future.

Despite what some voters have told me, I had the strongest and most far-reaching and visionary platform of any candidate for any position, and a city lawyer said my platform was “head and shoulders” above all candidates, some have criticized me for running a negative campaign.

I did expose city council’s missteps, mistakes, and misdeeds and over the campaign became aware of the tremendous liberties Louise Parkes was taking with the truth. Her motto “Fair Taxes” did not seem at all consistent with her practice on council in wallowing in the public trough for her own entitlements---the highest expensing councillor, arguing for a bigger office budget to cover her travel expenses, a 54% salary/expense spending increase in the first 3 years of her present term and exorbitant cell phone bill $23 less than the total of 8 of her fellow council members...and felt a responsibility to expose these inconsistencies to the public. I could not stand by and watch her blatant lies fuelled by her personal ambitions.

Many election observers, me included, have roundly criticized two of the newspapers in town for printing their choices for election. These endorsements were simply personal choices not based on any survey or opinion polls and were no better than your judgement or mine. Readers do expect the comments of the press to be somewhat objective and accurate but no rationale for the decisions were made. That leaves open the charge that the papers were trying to influence the results to protect their city advertising revenues.

Oshawa Express correctly chose John Henry as Mayor, but were wrong on 3 of their 7 Regional Councillor Choices and wrong on 2 of their 3 Local Councillor Positions. Only 6 of their 11 choices were right for a poor 55% accuracy reading.

Oshawa This Week was wrong on their choice of Mayor, wrong on 3 of their 7 Regional Councillor Choices and wrong on 2 of 3 of their Local Councillor Choices. Only 5 of their 11 choices were right for a pathetic 45% accuracy rating in predicting the results.

I believe it was unprofessional for these papers to publish this information when it is not based on any scientific and objective polling. After all, it is the people who elect the council, not the press. Hopefully the accuracy of both papers in their general reporting is higher than this.

Clearly neither newspaper had its hand on the pulse of the people. It is unclear how much these affected the election results but certainly it is irresponsible journalism.

All-in-all, the hard work and $4800 I spend on this election produced a good show in a race with a $100,279.20 spending limit. And with this effort and expenditure, I believe I helped to shape Oshawa’s future.

Despite the election result, I’m calling it a “WIN!” I accomplished much of what I set out to do---a win in anybody’s book!

I’ll call my $4800 election expense an investment of a responsible and concerned citizen in Oshawa’s future.

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

Attracting industrial commercial development and jobs to Oshawa

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
October 11, 2010

This is a question that comes up in every mayoral debate and is one that Mayor John Gray gloats over in mentioning the courthouse and university and their location here in attracting high level employment to this area.

Neither, of course, have anything to do with his efforts or city council policies. City policies neither encourage nor discourage government or educational facilities from locating here since city tax policy does not apply to such buildings which, along with churches and government buildings, are property tax exempt.

City policy, under John Gray’s leadership, does provide active discouragement for the location of industrial/commercial businesses with its job growth here.

Besides having the highest residential tax rates in the GTA, Oshawa also has the highest commercial/industrial tax rate in the GTA. In 2010, Oshawa’s Industrial tax rate was 5.144417. Throughout the GTA these rates were as low as 2.14 in Markham, to 2.49 in Whitchurch Stouffville, to 2.46 in Vaughn, to 2.46 in Richmond Hill, to 2.64 in Newmarket, to 2.75 in Mississauga, to 2.53 in King, to 2.92 in Georgina, and to 2.66 in Caledon. Industrial concerns would pay only half the property taxes in any of these cities mentioned than they would in Oshawa….so why locate in Oshawa?

The tax rate means big dollars to the location of an industrial plant. A plant costing $25M would be taxed at $1.361M in Oshawa and at $535,000 in Markham in 2010….If you were a businessman with $25M to spend, why would you bring your plant and your jobs to Oshawa when a Markham location would save you $826,000 in taxes every year? Oshawa high taxes actively discourage industrial concerns to locate here.

The only jobs growth we can attract are government and university jobs, which because of their tax exempt status are not discouraged from locating here, by the high Oshawa industrial/commercial tax rates.

Both the courthouse and the university are great for the city, but neither pays property taxes to assist with the costs of administering this city, and so neither contributes to providing any tax relief for residents.

In driving into Oshawa along the baseline, the 401, or Taunton Road, you can see loads of commercial development right up through Whitby until the Oshawa border, and then the commercial development stops to be replaced by vacant fields, due to the abrupt increase in commercial rates once you hit the Oshawa boundary.

Commercial establishments like the OC shopping centre and the big box stores along Taunton just have to grin and bear our high taxes for the sake of having Oshawa outlets. The high Oshawa taxes would, however, make these stores less profitable than their neighbouring stores in Whitby, Scugog, or Clarington. Perhaps that is why outlets like Home Depot located in Whitby first, and Oshawa customers had to trek over there to the baseline store for a number of years to make their purchases.

Similarly, Oshawa’s 2010 residential tax rate at 1.704499 was highest in the GTA. GTA residential tax rates ranged from Oshawa’s highs down to Toronto’s lows of .0831, to Vaughn’s .977, to Richmond Hill’s .979, to Oakville’s .983, to Mississauga’s .982, to Milton’s .878, to Markham’s .963, to Halton’s .995, to Aurora’s 1.077.

So a $350,000 Oshawa house in 2010 would be taxed at $5966 and $2901 in Toronto, $3419 in Vaughn, $3490 in Richmond Hill, $3441 in Oakville, $3437 in Mississauga, $3073 in Milton, $3335 in Markham, $3500 in Halton and $3770 in Aurora. The second highest taxed place in the GTA is Brock at 1.530 which would result in a tax of $5355 on that $350,000 house, still $611 less than Oshawa’s sky high taxes.

No wonder we have a tax revolt underway in Oshawa. One homeowner told me his city taxes were like a mortgage he could never pay off!

Like the high industrial/commercial tax rates that make Oshawa a less attractive place to do business, our high residential tax rates make Oshawa a less attractive place to live. This is why Oshawa has the lowest priced housing in the GTA.

High taxes depress house values robbing homeowners of tens of thousands of dollars of home equity. Lower taxes, after an adjustment period, would see a rise in housing values and a lowering of the tax rates to produce the same city revenues.

As we continue to be unable to attract industry, and are only able to attract tax exempt institutional uses like the university, a higher proportion of the costs of administering the city will be transferred to the residential tax rate, causing even higher taxes into the future unless we take the bull by the horns and cut our industrial commercial taxes.

If we don’t do so, any high tech job spinoffs from UOIT will locate in Whitby, Ajax, or Pickering where a $30 million factory investment would generate an annual real estate tax of $1,543,325 in Oshawa but would save the investor $226,060 annually if built in Pickering, $219,577 annually if built in Ajax, and $206,480 annually if built in Whitby.

So if you were an industrial investor, why would you pay from $17,207 to $18,838 more monthly to locate farther from Toronto in Oshawa than the lower taxed, and closer to Toronto, Ajax, Pickering, or Whitby?

The city is going to take a revenue hit when it does significantly cut taxes to attract industry and all those millions spent on the needless city hall reconstruction and the $40M spent on the GM Centre to increase the value of the Oshawa Generals, so they could be sold by their owner for a considerably improved price based on the taxpayer arena investment, might well have been spent in transition spending subsidizing the city’s reduced industrial/commercial tax rates to attract industrial/commercial jobs investment in this community.

Attracting industrial/commercial development is crucial to Oshawa’s future. We have to not only get our residential tax house in order, but we have to start lowering our industrial/commercial tax rates if we are going to attract industry and jobs to the city.

The costs of doing business is everything! If we don’t lower the industrial/commercial tax rates, Oshawa will become more of a bedroom community with more mass outflows of residents, along packed highways every morning, crawling into Toronto, and Oshawa shall continue as the lowest priced housing but highest taxed place in the GTA.

The Mayor and council with their rose coloured glasses which block them from seeing the serious consequences of the high tax rates facing this city have to be replaced before more damage is done to this city.

High taxation levels are resulting from a city council that believes in spending our way to prosperity. This is a pipe dream that has driven many into uncontrollable debt and bankruptcy…something this city council with its high taxation levels seems intent on doing to our citizens. City hall spending reminds me of the “big-time” spender with the high life style struggling behind the scenes to pay the bills to keep up the appearances. Diamonds bought with borrowed money soon lose their gloss!

This city council is one that believes if you zone for industrial parks, etc., industry and jobs will come. On the contrary, the high taxes “smell” from a mile away and scare industry away just as effectively as a cornered skunk. Without lowering industrial/commercial tax rates, industry would not locate here even if the land was free. Industrialists know that you can pay off construction costs of new plants, and that a skilled workforce is mobile, but that taxes go on forever.

Oshawa's sky-high industrial/commercial tax rates not only rebuff business from locating here, they act as an "eviction notice" for companies already here.

But hey, what kind of economic understanding do you expect from a Mayor whose “real job” was as a part time bookkeeper and who has council members like Brian Nicholson chairing economics committees because he claimed to have a degree in economics and political science only to recently come clean admitting that he is a high school graduate with some economics courses, and Louise Parkes who claims an honours degree with her 4th year incomplete which means she doesn’t have the degree claimed.

Let’s get some bright and honest people on council before these incompetents destroy this city beyond repair.

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

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes---The only thing on Voter’s Minds!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
October 4, 2010

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes---The only thing on Voter’s Minds!

Well, there may be one other thing on voter’s minds. One man wanted a lawn sign while I was out door knocking this week and said, “There has to be a wholesale change on council.” He said any sign that had the word “re-elect” on it lost his vote. “Taxes are just out of this world,” he said.

An email this week informed me that 12 Durham Region Works Department Maintenance Supervisors named on the Ministry of Finance Salary Disclosure List are making in excess of $100,000 and one of these, the foreman of a paving crew, earned over $130,000 with $40,000-$50,000 of these salaries in overtime supervising night time and weekend jobs from their 9-5 daytime assignments. This is disgraceful! The private sector pays half the money for these positions.

He thought these salaries were criminal when hard-pressed families are struggling to pay property taxes increasing twice as fast as inflation. Why shouldn't they be scheduled to work the same shifts as the workers they supervise and put an end to this outrageous overtime expense? How many workers do you know, he asked, make $40,000-$50,000 in overtime, more than most Canadians make, to top up their very generous salaries. No wonder we have the highest taxes in Ontario.

In my response to him, I related stories of city employees pocketing over $1000 per week, 52 weeks a year in addition to their generous salaries, for using their own vehicles on city business. This madness has to stop. It would be far cheaper for the city to provide a city vehicle for work related travel.

Many city-owned vehicles also are driven on long work-home commutes, using fuel and other auto related costs at taxpayer expense.

This mindset where city politicians and city workers feel entitled to reach deeper and deeper into taxpayer pockets to fund their own entitlements has to stop.

City workers are not alone in this drain on the city taxpayer.

You can read many claims of care for the taxpayer dollar and cost-cutting on politician’s campaign materials and websites that is equally disgusting, untrue, and misleading.

Louise Parkes has some display lines on her literature distributed by mail drop across the city that screams, “The Road to prosperity begins with fair taxation” and “Council must first set an example by tightening our own belt. Her signs of course say "Fair Taxation! Some fine example of fair taxation and belt tightening she provides!

While making this statement, she grabbed a 54% salary and expense spending increase in the first three years of this current term with the results not yet in for 2010. Fair taxation for sure! Over that time, her blackberry bill was only $23 less than the total of eight of her fellow councillors. She made a pitch at council for increased office budgets to cover her travel expense despite the fact her literature says council entitlements must end. Some belt tightening and some example of restraint! And some big lies completely inconsistent with her personal wallowing in the trough!

She has gotten some major press by calling for a 5% salary cut for council members and a wage freeze for the upcoming council term. This sounds good but is “smoke and mirrors” with no real savings for city taxpayers. The city portion of Councillor Salaries totals about $500,000 annually. So a 5% rollback would mean a total taxpayer savings of $25,000 annually or about $1 per household...now in a couple of years at that rate of savings, you could buy yourself one Tim’s coffee!

I am the only Mayoral Candidate calling for tax cuts. My plan, a 3% tax cut will cut about $3.5 million of fat, waste, and inefficiency out of city hall spending yearly at a slow enough rate that adjustments can take place without service cuts. City Hall rakes in about $115 million from residential taxes and it will be very doable cutting $3.5 million from their total tax take. It’d be easy! It’d be like finding a $3.50 savings out of $115 dollars in your pocket. And we’d have these regular 3% cuts until our taxes reach the levels of our neighbours. If they can have lower rates, why can’t we?

Parkes’ brochure claims she has opposed over $70 million worth of unnecessary spending this past term. This is a remarkable claim since she voted to support the $25M, but unnecessary, city hall demolition and rebuilding, pushed for the Cullen Gardens Miniatures purchase and wanted to spend another $2M for a site to host them, voted for the 13% tax increases over this term in a time when inflation was only 6.56%, initially approved the $46,000 MBA fundings until voters found out exposing the issue and then she jumped on the “political opportunity” bandwagon, and she throws around terms like zero based budgeting which doesn’t mean a damn thing in terms of tax savings for ratepayers.

While the “zero-based budgeting” sounds great, she knows that the budget items are all prepared by the bureaucrats and that council’s job is not to do the nitty-gritty job of micro-managing but to set the policy on big decisions like budget increases, approval of big capital expenditures, and setting policy for the city and finally approving the staff budget. Beyond that, it is a lie for her to let on to taxpayers that she has the knowledge, expertise, experience, qualifications, or time to know the fine details of every manager’s and every department’s spending details. They make up their own budgets, which are administered by the City Manager and his management team. Council only approves it.

My 3% tax cutting plan, on the other hand, is straightforward and simple to implement and is a “policy decision” which is within the purview of elected officials. I’d simply say to the managers, “You had “X” dollars last year. You have 3% less this year. You have to cut 3 cents out of every dollar you spent last year. Cut out the fat and waste, improve efficiencies of city hall, and make sure there are no service cuts. As I said earlier, this would save taxpayers about $3.5 million annually at the present assessment rates and is a small enough adjustment for changes to take place. The biggest change, however, will be in the mindset of officials who will concentrate on real needs and just not on wants.

Louise Parkes misleads the public in every way possible and she is not to be trusted. In academic credentials she presented to a local newspaper in response to a candidate questionnaire, she said that she had an “Honours Degree---fourth year incomplete.” That fourth year would be a requirement for the degree and so Parkes was misleading the public in saying she has that honours degree when she does not.

Along the same theme, earlier, Brian Nicholson claimed on Facebook to have a BA in Economics and Political Science from Trent University, and this claim as a person trained in Economics may have secured him all those Regional and City Finance and Economic Committee Chairmanships he’s had over the years. When questioned about the degree, Nicholson deleted all the references to it but not before I had a screenshot of his claims. He threatened to sue anyone, including a Toronto Star Reporter, who pursued the story. In his bio submitted recently to a local paper, he confirmed that he is only a high school graduate with some university courses in Economics and Political Science. His claim to the Economics Degree did not serve Regional or City Taxpayers well as his untruthful claim to an Economics degree would have held undue influence with his political cohorts.

But then, politicians often claim to be different than their records indicate. Mayor John Gray gave me a call this past week and, among other things, informed me that Mayor Candidate, John Henry, who campaigned on a promise not to take the $100 weekly car allowance in the last election, did in fact take it and cancelled it only recently when he declared for Mayor. If this is so, perhaps the extra thousands he would get would explain why he held on undeclared for so long.

John Henry also has portrayed himself to be a guy looking after cost-cutting, restraint, and responsible use of taxpayer money. But the most recent political entitlement, “Health Benefits for life for retired politicians” which got taxpayers mad as hell was moved by John Henry. And as a guy who wants to cut costs, why has he not been calling for tax cuts...or why hasn’t he been putting forth a platform.

Even as a fellow Mayor Candidate, I have no idea what John Henry stands for. To me, he is still a “pig in a poke!” I would never put my “John Henry” next to his name...although it is a great political name...and sometimes people vote for the strangest reasons.

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

Heard on the campaign trail

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
September 27, 2010

It is quite revealing out on the campaign trail these days. The biggest message you get immediately is the profound anger of voters at the antics of city hall.

Almost 100% of voters you meet at their doors bring up Oshawa’s high taxes and many can back up this concern by quoting facts and figures of friends and relatives tax costs in other municipalities.

One “property owner” I chatted with last Thursday, has been to city hall many times to get property rezoned and has been frustrated many times by, as he says, the insignificant peons sitting behind the desks at city hall who are frustrating and stalling progress in this city at every turn.

Invariably people point to the ineffective leadership of Mayor John Gray and want to turf him out of office.

Many residents are so sick and tired of this city council that they want to kick out the whole bunch and put new faces in every council seat.

Incumbency, they’re saying, is like a noose around their political necks. Council have fallen into every political pothole possible and have invented others to fall into if they weren’t just there naturally. People are fed up!

Voters are mentioning high taxes, the MBA’s, Cullen Miniatures foolishness, lifetime political health benefits, wasteful spending on city hall demolition and renewal, and the change to the General Vote which is producing an impossible ballot for voters to make sensible choices.

They place the blame on every incumbent council member for their role in helping city council fall into every mistake, mis-step, and mess-up possible and it falls head first drowning in every pothole it creates.

Over the last few days, I have heard the following comments:

• Hey Bill...you’re like the Rob Ford of Oshawa with your promise of tax cuts and shaking up city hall---We need it and I like it!...a lawyer...9/22/10

• Bill---saw you on the Roger’s TV mayoral debates and was really impressed. Love the way you went after the dishonesty of some of the politicians exposing them for what they are. Thanks for letting us know that Louise Parkes took a 54% salary and expense spending increase in the first 3 years of this term. I thought her press calling for 5% political salary rollbacks and her signs that say “Fair Taxes” showed she agreed with spending restraint. With her huge salary increases in this time of restraint, I know that her signs and calls for salary rollbacks are deceptive. Now with these deceptive tactics, I don’t think I trust anything she says. Boy...did she ever have us fooled!

• With the high Oshawa taxes, my wife and I want to sell and pull out of Oshawa.....heard numerous times

• The high Oshawa taxes are making it impossible for me to sell my house without taking a huge loss.

• My high Oshawa taxes are like having a second mortgage on my house---a Columbus resident who pays taxes of $12,000 yearly

• That was really stupid spending on the demolition and rebuilding of parts of city hall and I like your “Good Government Plan” that will seek public approval for these big projects and increases in politician’s salaries and benefits...A Glen’s Resident...9/22/10

• Politicians have introduced the General Vote to try to insure their election based on name recognition. Up here in Columbus, the name recognition of incumbents will lose them votes.

• Mr. Longworth---after explaining your plan to cut taxes by 3% annually, I believe you and trust you to carry out this promise. I might have been a little sceptical before I met you and heard your explanation. I now know it is completely sensible and doable after listening to you....a Glen’s resident, 9/22/10

• Mr. Longworth---thanks for stopping to chat....I’m impressed! ---a Glen’s Resident....9/22/10

• We have to throw out the whole bunch....heard numerous times

• I moved from Whitby and am really surprised at my taxes here which are much higher than I paid in Whitby---think I made a mistake!...a Glen’s Resident, 9/22/10

• Mr. Longworth----your sign---“Stop the Madness,” says it all!

• Mr. Longworth---I like your message! Can I have a sign and some of your literature to distribute in my community?

• Mr. Longworth---got your literature today. Can you come over to chat with me so I can put my questions to you face to face? My neighbours and I are mad as hell about taxes and there are a lot of votes for you here!

• How did we get this ridiculous General Vote and who is responsible?

• If Parkes gets elected as Mayor, the city will be in trouble and I’m making plans to ditch the city if that happens. Gray looks good compared to what Parkes would do!

• I see in the paper that Parkes spent $23 less on her cellphone bills than the total of 8 of her fellow councillors. Why is she calling for spending restraint when she hasn’t seemed to be exercising it herself?

• Why does Parkes have “Fair Taxes” on her signs when she seems to have the highest expenses on council?

• I know a lot of people who wouldn't vote for Louise Parkes if she was running against the devil --- a facebook comment

• When is Henry going to start saying something about his plans for this city if he becomes Mayor? By the way, thanks for telling me he was the councillor responsible for bringing lifetime health benefits for retired councillors to this city.

• Stop the press…just received as I’m writing this---I’m fed up! Council needs focussed and responsible leadership. You’ve got my vote! Please put your sign on my lawn…Doug J.

This campaigning really puts you in touch with the people of Oshawa and tells me I’m on the right track and the same track since being nominated on January 4, the first day for nominations. And, I’m not one to do a turn-around at election time!

I’m the only mayoral candidate calling for tax cuts and this is the key issue with ratepayers. They know that my tax cuts will cut out about $3.5 million annually from city hall’s approximate $115 residential tax revenue and feel, as I do, that this is a slow enough cutback to allow city hall to cut out the fat, waste, and inefficiencies, without any service cuts, and foster a mindset of restraint in every bureaucrat’s mind.

You too, can jump on the exploding “Longworth” bandwagon!

This is an important election to put Oshawa on the right track and I encourage every voter to become as informed as possible about the Mayor Platforms particularly, as it will be the Mayor who is most influential in setting the city policy framework for the next four years.

There has never been a time in the last decades that we’ve needed change more....and there has never been a time in the last decades that we need voters to be informed and get out and vote on October 25.

And now for one more benefit of this campaign….I’ve lost 15 pounds! Anyone want to help? This is better than weightwatchers.

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

Oshawa---Bush League or Big League? The Choice is Ours!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
August 16, 2010


At the first Mayoral Debates held at the Oshawa Golf Club on August 4, the Mayor Candidates were asked a number of questions, one of which dealt with the recently completed Harbour and Waterfront Agreement between the City and the Federal Government.

While I am pleased that the agreement returns significant acreage to the city, I am displeased that a key component of the agreement is to confirm our lakefront as a mixed-use industrial/recreational area with increased industrialization on the East Wharf.

This agreement gives veiled support for the construction of the proposed ethanol plant and a feeder railway spur line to the waterfront.

Oshawa Harbour Commission Chairman, Gary Valcour, in the Federal Press Release announcing the agreement stated that, “The agreement offers a strong message of Federal Government support for an industrial and mixed-use port in Oshawa providing current and prospective port users with the certainty needed for continued growth and investment.”

These words are very telling and clear---there will be expanded growth of industrial uses at the harbor. This increased industrialization which is one of the key components of the Federal and City agreement is of major concern. I feel that increased industrialization and recreation and greening of the waterfront cannot happily co-exist.

Increased port industrialization is inconsistent with what is happening at every other lakefront along the Great Lakes. Toronto has closed down virtually all of its lakefront industrialization---all of the grain elevators have been demolished and the warehouses have been turned into boutique retail malls. Increased industrialization is completely incompatible with creating a people place.

Mayor John Gray, in his simplistic and self patronizing way said, “Everything is wonderful---we are doing a great job---any criticism of city council is bad for Oshawa” and gleefully announced at the Mayor Debates that the settlement after 40 years of dispute is great, and gloated, ”Now we can get the marina built.”

The Mayor’s support for the waterfront deal and his haste to build the marina indicates, once again, the chief deficiencies of his leadership and his vision for this city. That is small-minded bush-league thinking which worships the past, piecemeal planning, and no vision of big league grandeur for this city.

I believe we need an integrated plan for the entire lakefront. A too hasty rebuilding of the marina will limit overall planning for a world class development.

With the waterfront agreement, I am afraid we will see a return of my earliest impressions of the Oshawa lakefront when I first visited as a toddler from Toronto with my mother too many years ago. Beyond my fascination with watching a “large” sailboat tacking up the channel to the marina, I still remember the dirt, the grime, the smell, and the visual pollution of the many oil tanks and the unkempt weedy fields on the east side of Simcoe a few hundred feet north of the lake and I remember how different it seemed to have railway tracks going down the centre of Ritson and Simcoe Streets. I even remember seeing a steam engine shunting its load down one of these main streets.

This waterfront agreement ushers in a return to these visions of the past. With this waterfront agreement, lakefront users will continue to be subjected to the noise, dirt, grime, odours, airborne pollutants, dispersants, contaminants and particulate matter, and visual pollution of smokestacks and rail spurs and truck traffic.

This increased industrialization plays major havoc with my plans for a world class development at our lakefront, one of the most naturally beautiful lakefront environments from Kingston to Niagara Falls.

The “East Wharf industrial barrier” will physically separate the west lakefront from the second marsh nature and ecological reserve and will prohibit integration of the overall development and ease of movement between the two.

In a time when Toronto and other inland ports are reducing the impact of industrialization and shipping at their lakefronts, Oshawa, with this Federal Government agreement, is going against the trend of the “greening” and “people-ing” of lakefronts.

Oshawa is a “bulk cargo” port when containerization is the norm, and Asia, rather than Europe, is the source for most imported and exported goods. This has made Great Lakes shipping less important than in the past. Goods arriving by container ship in Vancouver are moved overland by rail arriving in their original shipping containers even here in Eastern Canada.

The ethanol plant proposed for Oshawa would be better located in the Corn Belt close to its raw material on existing Trans Canada Rail Lines to reduce shipping costs.

The big thrust everywhere is to make waterfronts green and so all cargo warehouses and grain elevators have disappeared from the Toronto waterfront. If this is the trend in other places, why not here in Oshawa?

For the sake of a very few jobs and very minimal contributions to the economic well-being of Oshawa, we should not sacrifice the development and enjoyment of our lakefront for all our citizens. The proposed ethanol plant might employ 15 people and reduce lakefront enjoyment potential for 160,000 people…not a fair tradeoff by any measure.

Proper development to maximize people benefits at the lakefront has the potential to pour many more tax dollars into the city coffers than industrialization, and has the potential to increase real estate values in the entire south end and all of Oshawa, pouring millions extra into our tax coffers. Recreational, commercial, and residential uses will also generate huge capital and wealth creation to contribute to the Oshawa economy.

My lakefront vision as Oshawa’s new mayor is to discourage any industrialization of the lakefront and to instead develop our waterfront with all of its natural potential into a world class recreation and ecotourism destination and a prime residential area on Lake Ontario’s North Shore.

I would lead the city into sponsoring an international design and development contest attracting the best and brightest visionaries, architects, and planners from around the world to visit our lakefront to come up with integrated plans and ideas and proposals to give us a world class waterfront that would put a new face on Oshawa and give our lakefront iconic status similar to the iconic status of Toronto’s “New City Hall” which also resulted from an international design contest.

Any attempt to fast-track the marina without considering overall plans for the lakefront as has been suggested by Mayor John Gray, limits the integration of the overall design concepts for lakefront development…but unfortunately this short sighted planning characterizes city politician thinking resulting in giant problems like the student housing crisis around the university.

I believe that the lakefront development should be “big league” and not “bush league.” Besides a new marina, it would include high class condos separated by publicly accessible parks, gardens and walkways on the east side of Simcoe all maintained to parks standards by the condo developers. No development would block public access to any portion of our waterfront. All parking would be underground and all designs should be on a common nautical theme. All design schemes would include redevelopment of the present Lakeview Park and include plans for the entire lakefront including all lands over to the Darlington Provincial Park including enhancing hiking and viewing possibilities of the Second Marsh nature preserve.

All development would occur on city owned lands on which we would negotiate long term land lease agreements providing long term tax relief for the citizens of this city.

We need politicians who think big time---who have big visions and big plans and big confidence in Oshawa’s future to move us out of the bush leagues and into the big leagues. A place where people want to move because of the reputation of this city and its progressive leadership, and our quality of life---not because we have the cheapest and most affordable housing in the GTA.

Our lakefront can be a major tourist attraction, a major star on Oshawa’s landscape, an opportunity to put Oshawa and its lakefront on the national stage and a place to bring Oshawa national recognition that will make every city resident proud to call Oshawa his home…an opportunity to throw off the chains and reputation of “The Shwa.”

The proper “Big League” vision and approach will attract giant capital to develop our lakefront without costing the city taxpayer one dime and land lease agreements will provide tax relief into the forseeable future.

No longer should we accept being the doormat of the GTA.

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 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/

The Preposterous Mr. Gray

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
April 26, 2010

Absurd, crazy, daft , foolish, harebrained, idiotic, dopey, loony, nutty, half-baked, off-the-wall, batty, unglued, bonkers, and wacky are not usually words used to describe your mayor, the chief executive of your city. But Mayor John Gray’s asinine actions that have recently become public have once again earned our “leader” these apt descriptors.

You’d think that nothing could beat using our tax moneys to fund MBA’s for his ”chosen” or using our scarce tax monies to fund his own birthday party to the tune of $45,000, but this week we discover that he has used our property tax monies to the tune of $916 to pay Provincial Offences parking tickets and dog bylaw offences for private individuals.

While $916 is not a huge amount, there are important principles involved. Is there anything that the Mayor will not fund with our property taxes?

We just wonder how much more creative Mayor John Gray can get in the inappropriate use of our tax monies and wonder whether we are just discovering the tip of the iceberg in his reckless and unethical squandering of taxpayer resources.

As for these fines, a letter released by the City Director of Finance Services in response to details requested by the Finance and Administration Meeting of March 25, 2010, states: 1) that a media member attending the Oct. 7, 2009 KISS Concert was advised by a representative of the city to park in a handicapped parking space and was subsequently fined. The Mayor’s office paid the $316 fine to the Provincial Offences Office and was subsequently reimbursed by the media member’s employer in April 2010, and 2) The remaining $600 is comprised of tickets issued on Aug 12, 2009, by Animal Services staff to an individual for “allowing an animal to run at large (3 tickets @ $125 each) and for failure to register an animal ($110). These fines were increased to $600 due to late fees and were paid directly by the Mayor’s office to the Provincial Offences Office.

There are giant questions arising from these fines: 1) Was it the mayor who counseled the press to park in the handicapped parking zone and, if so, what does that say about the mayor’s attitude toward accessibility by the handicapped? 2) Is it legal for the mayor to use tax funds to pay fines issued to private individuals? 3) What is Oshawa’s Auditor General’s comment on this use of property tax funds? 4) How widespread is the mayor’s indiscriminate use of our tax dollars? 5) Why was the city reimbursed for the parking infraction in April 2010 only after the expenditure was discovered at the March 2010 meeting? 6) What is the mayor’s comment justifying the use of tax monies to pay personal fines?

In light of this squandering of tax resources, and to really put icing on the cake, the various mayoral candidates were asked by a local paper to comment on the major issues facing the city. All responded, “High Taxes!”

John Gray, the guy who paid these personal parking and dog infraction fines out of your tax dollars, and led a council wasteful in so many ways of our tax dollars, agrees that high taxes are a big issue. He said the city’s high tax rate results from its aggressive program of capital improvements. He didn’t mention them, but he might have mentioned the consistent million dollar losses of the GM Centre, the unneeded demolition of city arenas, and the needless demolition and rebuilding of a large part of city hall. He mentioned the low tax increase this election year but failed to mention the record high increases in previous years to give us the highest tax levels in the GTA. You can bet your bottom dollar that Gray expects to recoup tax revenues lost this election year with record high increases immediately following the Oct. 25, 2010 municipal election. You will recall that he pressed for a 9% increase immediately following the last election!

John Gray’s record is not one that favours lower taxes.

Two other candidates, Louise Parkes and Cathy Clarke are also city politicians who have consistently voted for the slash and burn and rebuild philosophy that has run our city debt levels to record highs. Both, like Mayor John Gray, are now calling for restraint this election year, no doubt to go back to the “drunken sailor” days of spending after the next election that they exhibited while on council.

A vote for those on council, past or present, is an invitation for them to persist with the wasteful and extravagant ways of the past that runs up our city debt, wastes your tax money, and digs a hand ever deeper into your pockets to feed politician’s sense of entitlement. If you’re pleased with the direction city politicians have been taking this city, vote for them!

If you feel the city needs new direction, you should consider a clean sweep of council. Those who have sat on city council and contributed to putting this city in the fiscal and high-tax and management mess that it finds itself should disqualify them from getting your vote.

As your new Mayor of Oshawa, I promise to give this city the real visionary leadership it needs starting with annual tax cuts until Oshawa reaches the average tax rates of the GTA. I believe 5 to 6 years of 3% annual tax cuts would do the trick at the same time as providing a slow enough cutback to city hall for adjustments to take place to cut out the fat, and cut out the waste and needless expenditures at the same time as protecting our levels of service.

Tax cuts, of course, are not the only aspect of my new leadership of Oshawa. I have visionary plans for the downtown and lakefront that you might read at www.wepromise.ca.

Come the New Year, Oshawa voters will literally throw out the old and usher in the new…we’ll throw out the tired and uninspired leadership of the past and usher in a new vision and a new beginning for our city.

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