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 System is Broke and Needs to be Fixed

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 24, 2010

Voices are being raised widely that the municipal election system being used in the Province of Ontario is broken and needs fixing. Factors such as career politicians, limited political turnover, election funding, voter turnout, ethnic diversity, giant advantages of incumbency, public cynicism, etc. have all been cited as contributing to low voter turnout. Provincial Legislation which sets the rules for these elections have been reviewed for revision but only minor tinkering has occurred.

None of the big issues that need fixing have been approached by the Provincial officials and their political bosses, probably due to the fact that a great number of provincial lawmakers have arisen from the municipal scene. These guys would hardly want to upset their municipal political brethren and friends, or indeed upset the apple cart that led to their own lengthy political careers, would they?

A group called “Better Ballots,” led by Toronto activist Dave Meslin, has been organized to bring “grass roots” awareness and interest to municipal elections and he was in town last week to address a Durham Chapter of Better Ballots organized by Bruce Wood, President of Oshawa Ratepayer’s Association.

Better Ballots Toronto has compiled a survey of 14 election ballot and voting possibilities and have been surveying citizens to establish what would make a difference to voter participation and turnout, and one of the local papers had an online poll of the survey .

A number of items on the “Better Ballots” survey have to do with making voting more convenient (weekend, online, and telephone voting), lowering the voting age, and extending the vote to permanent residents. These are “apple pie” changes and should be implemented without question.

Internet and telephone voting would undoubtedly increase voter turnout. Despite politicians publicly citing low voter turnout as a problem, privately they like low voter turnouts because that favours incumbents.

Online voting was voted on and defeated by Oshawa City Council as incumbents probably thought the general vote “incumbent advantage” would be reduced if voters could research their vote and then vote from their list. We certainly will be publishing lists to help voters with this task of choosing.

Council rationale for defeating internet voting revolved around security concerns, yet they collect taxes and allow for paying of parks and rec course fees, etc. on the net. And, of course, there are many jurisdictions in Ontario that already have internet voting…so those security concerns are council fantasy---or stretching at straws to support stuff they wanted to avoid! Forget the voting convenience, Oshawa!

Lowering the voting age is another “Better Ballots” good idea. Civics classes in high schools would certainly improve student’s knowledge of the candidates and habits started early often persist into the future. Start-em-young, I say!

Pre-election contribution disclosure is another “Better Ballots” good suggestion. While this may not increase voter turnout, it may affect voter selections. Mayor John Gray, for example, gets close to 80% of his campaign financing from the development industry. This may pre-dispose him to support zoning changes and subdivision approvals needed by developers and city infrastructure expenditures like water and sewage expansions helpful to the development industry but at great cost to the taxpayer.

Knowledge of campaign funding sources would be useful information prior to elections as it is certainly believed by many, that, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

While many of the Better Ballots ideas may improve the election voting process, I feel that there are major systemic problems with the entire election process that have to be addressed to effect real change in improved voter interest and turnout and a real change to the improvement of municipal governance.

I do believe that the "Better Ballots" proposal for term limits is crucial, and I was a guest panelist on the Dec. 8/09 TV Program, Goldhawk Live, arguing just that.

There is so little municipal turnover in the Province that, it has been reported, that only two incumbents out of Ontario’s largest cities were defeated in the last municipal election. So little turnover allows for inadequate room for council renewal and also sends the message to voters that the act of voting does not matter.

Election to council has become lifetime employment for many municipal politicians and prohibits new blood with new ideas and real world work experience from coming into the political fold.

This is certainly true of Oshawa City Council which has a number of members who have been on council for over 20 years and some with very limited or no other work experience.

Rather than legislating this change, the past Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing indicated term limits was a decision for individual councils to make. Of course the Minister that uttered this ludicrous suggestion had a vested interest as he resigned his MPP position shortly thereafter to attempt to return to his former job as Mayor of Ottawa. I would support petitioning the Minister to make term limits the Provincial Law as sitting council members are unlikely to vote to limit their lucrative council seats.

Many of the problems with municipal voting are systemic problems that have not been addressed by the “Fair Ballots” ideas although I applaud their efforts at suggesting reform.

I have SIX KEY SUGGESTIONS that I believe would lead to real reform leading to much better municipal governance and a growth in participation and voting:

ONE---For increased government accountability, municipal political parties (distinct from Provincial and Federal Parties) should be allowed. They are already legal in British Columbia and Quebec and should be here.

Oshawa’s general vote, for example, is impossible for voters without the use of local municipal parties that would simplify the huge ballot into various “teams” with the platform they promise to deliver.

Each political party would then go to the people with a platform.
The platform itself would provide the key choice for voters rather than the individuals involved.

The members of the party would be expected to implement the platform or run the risk of losing support in the next election.

At present, municipal politicians run as individuals and cannot make promises or be held accountable for council decisions as they have only one vote independent of all others on council.

Municipal parties would provide some obligation on the part of their associated politicians to support the group platform or risk losing group endorsement in the next election.

It is a more accountable process if you know what you are going to get before the vote and hold politicians to account to deliver on their promises.

Voting for a party with a platform would provide voters with a real sense of having a “say” in their governance and a crucial role in setting the direction for their municipality on all the key issues. It would also provide politicians with voter support for implementing the initiatives, especially big ticket initiatives, they had promised.

TWO---Campaign costs are “out of line” and eliminate many worthy candidates from participating. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, for example, spent $100 million on his campaign. Costs are escalating in Oshawa, as well, where the upper limits for a Mayoral Campaign are $110,000, for a Regional Campaign about $90,000, and for a City Councillor Campaign about $80,000. These costs are outrageous and eliminate most citizens from considering political office.

I believe all political campaigns should be publicly funded. This would eliminate the risk of donor control of council members and their votes, and also, in recognition that different constituent groups bring different interests, skills and backgrounds to the council table, allow for inclusion of a broader spectrum of citizens to the political process.

Campaign variables such as print advertising, signs, political forums etc. would be highly regulated and publicly and minimally funded and supplied by the municipality using its tendering and bulk purchasing powers.

Many candidate forums would be organized and funded by the municipality, as would flyer production and delivery as responsibility to insure an informed electorate would rest with the city.

Every candidate would have identical opportunity to present themselves to the voting public thus presenting a level playing field to all.

Candidates would be required to post bonds of approximately $2000-$3000 to insure serious campaigns, and this would be refunded if they secured 25% of the winner’s vote tally.

This process would allow all serious candidates to run and would not put rich candidates at an advantage because of money or incumbents at an advantage because of their ability to raise donor funds from the development industry.

All city election costs would be recouped by the city through a reduction in the present excessive political salaries and expense budgets.

THREE---Voting is not only a right, but a responsibility that many people of the world would give their right arm for.

Therefore I would introduce incentives to vote. I would assess a minor voting incentive “tax” as part of the property tax bill for every homeowner in the city. This would provide a monetary “reward” of perhaps $20 for every citizen casting a municipal vote.

The total payout would be totaled and recouped by way of tax assessments over the following four year council term.

A heightened obligation to vote would also encourage responsible citizens to get to know the candidates and hopefully select a stronger council.

FOUR---Council salaries and expenses are getting out of hand. Sitting as a municipal councilor is not a job but a privilege.

Therefore I would support fixing council salaries at those of the average worker in Ontario as assessed by Revenue Canada data and not the executive salaries and perks city politicians are commanding today. The Ontario Provincial Legislature put a ceiling on the salaries of School Trustees a few years ago and they should extend salary limiting legislation to city politicians.

FIVE---Over the long haul, I would favour working with Durham Regional Councillors and the Ontario Provincial Legislature to eliminate Oshawa City Administration and Council as well as those of all of the local city municipalities within Durham Region.

This was done by the Mike Harris Gov’t in Toronto and the City of Toronto now has the lowest taxes in the GTA. A $350,000 Oshawa house, for example, is taxed at the same rate as an $880,000 Toronto house.

Oshawa City Council costs about a third of your property tax bill and yet has very few important responsibilities as all of the major responsibilities were given to Durham Regional Government when it was formed in 1973.

Region wide planning of our Fire Protection Services and our Parks and Rec Services would result in far more strategic placement of these facilities.

Eliminating Oshawa City Council and Administration would cut out significant overlaps and duplications of service to result in huge tax savings.

At the same time, you would still live in Oshawa, just as residents of North York, Scarborough, or Etobicoke still live in those places, despite the fact that their local governments were eliminated many years ago.

SIX---I would support petitioning the Provincial Government to mandate the publication of detailed itemized expense reports on city web pages. Citizens have a right to know where every one of their tax dollars are being spent and publication of this information would insure careful consideration by politicians of all of their expense spending. This is a current issue at all government levels but disclosure has been denied by Oshawa City Council.

At the Federal Level, the $503,500,000 spent annually by our 308 MP’s, an average of $1.634 million per member, is coming under closer scrutiny and MP's feel mounting pressures to allow for an audit by Sheila Fraser, the Federal Auditor General, but this has so far been denied by parliament

If all these changes were implemented, I guarantee Municipal Governments across the Province would be more vibrant and voter interest and participation would increase exponentially.

Editor's Addendum
Every political system is broken and needs to be fixed. Movements such as the Occupy Wall Street Movement and a recent grassroots movement to amend the USA Presidential Election System are proof positive of the need to bring fairness and the ordinary citizen's participation into the process.

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

Term Limits

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
November 23, 2009

This week I am going to focus on two ideas proposed by Councillor John Henry at a Committee Meeting this past week….Term Limits for City Politicians and his proposal to rectify the loss of local community representation due to City Council’s decision to adopt the City-wide general vote.

Henry is suggesting that council appoint councilors as ward representatives in something he called "special interest" wards.

While the first proposal is outstanding, it will not get the support of council, and the second is ludicrous, but will probably be adopted by the next council elected in November, 2010.

The real question is why Councillor John Henry proposed these ideas knowing full well that neither has a hope in hell of succeeding. He is either naïve or just spouting wind proposing ideas that even he probably disagrees with.

Funny how things work in politics. So why would Henry do this?

The only criteria for election under the general vote is “high name recognition” and does not at all depend upon quality of input to city business or a high level of service to ward voters responsible for political success under the ward elections that are used in every large city in the country except for Vancouver which has Municipal Political Parties. These are illegal under Ontario Municipal Law.

Funny that Oshawa City Council has abolished the system used virtually everywhere else and has adopted a system not used in any large city in the country. If Oshawa City Council’s system was best, wouldn’t it be widely used?

In requiring only high name recognition for political success and making every councillor a competitor for the same city wide vote, the general vote promotes a non-productive and dysfunctional city council. All councilors will backstab, bitch, bicker and grandstand to grab the press to enhance their name recognition. No councillor will support a good idea coming from a fellow councilor since they wouldn’t want to give any competitor a “leg-up” for the next election.

So let’s use these ideas of the dynamics of a general vote council to see why Councillor John Henry would make his suggestions and why council would never support them leading up to an election.

Henry’s first idea is limiting councilors to 3 consecutive terms (12 years) for any single position on council. This idea is outstanding since we have 3 council members who have sat on city council in excess of 20 years and 9 of 11 councillors have sat for over 12 years. Wouldn’t it be useful to insure some turnover to bring vitality and fresh ideas to council? Term limits are not a new idea and are used with some frequency in Democracies around the world. Term limits guarantee that councils do not become dominated by senile“flat-earthers.”

When the question came up for committee discussion, it was if the city council “truck” was stuck on the top of a manure pile…and you were asked to help push it off as city council drivers spun the wheels and shot it right back in your face. It’s time for city voters to reverse the spin!

All of the political “spin” was negative….but what would you expect. With the lucrative part time job on council, why would councilors vote themselves out of this windfall? It doesn’t matter what is best in producing vibrant leadership for the city. Opponents said, 1) in a democracy, no candidate should be denied the right to run for office, and, 2) turfing office holders out after 12 years would result in too many inexperienced members. They didn’t mention that shooting the idea full of holes would guarantee the positions of the council dinosaurs.

Holy Cow…the most powerful politician in the world, the USA president is limited to 2 terms or 8 years and thus an inexperienced president is elected every 4 or 8 years….but inexperienced office holders are incapable in running Oshawa’s business? Get real!

In terms of democracy, I don’t know why politicians are so keenly jumping on this track when they failed to insure the most basic and fundamental democratic right in regards to the general vote plebiscite question, the right to be informed which Canada’s Supreme Court has indicated is a citizen’s basic right and a most basic requirement for democracy to function in Canada. They said it was not their responsibility to inform voters about the question. Ludicrous! What would be your reaction if your child failed a test because the teacher refused to teach the content of the test?

Politicians cannot tackle this question of term limits because of conflict of interest problems. The Ontario Municipal Act prohibits them from voting on issues in which they have a pecuniary interest. Now that the issue has arisen, I suggest that council must now hold a plebiscite on this question to let the people decide. The result would then be forwarded to the Provincial Government to encourage them to introduce legislation allowing term limits.

The idea of term limits was discussed, but unfortunately not adopted, in government proceedings leading up to recently introduced revisions to the Municipal Elections Act.

The second idea introduced by Councillor John Henry would have politicians themselves divvying up the city and appointing themselves to their favoured wards. This goes against everything we believe in our representative democracy and also the chief rationale given by council for adopting the general vote. They said that ward voting led to councillor’s parochial views in only being interest and engaged in their own communities without taking a city-wide view, a red herring flouted by ward system opponents prior to 1985 when I brought ward politics to the city.

I don’t know how new arenas downtown and in the north end, new firehalls in the developing parts of the north end, rebuilding and renovating city hall downtown, etc. squares with the idea of parochialism since these expenditures required majority council votes.

Council then is unlikely to undermine the chief rationale they gave for changing the election system….they can’t very well appoint ward representatives now that they have just thrown them out.

And why would Councillor John Henry vote continually and on every question to throw out ward representation and want to return it now? With no ward responsibilities, Henry must realize that his workload will be substantially reduced as he won’t have to deal with any constituency problems and thus will be able to devote more time to his other endeavors.

The idea, though, is philosophically ludicrous. In a democracy, don’t voters directly elect their chosen politicians to represent their specific interests? It’s only in autocratic totalitarian police states that despots, dictators, fascists are appointed to look after the “people’s interest.”

While city bylaw officers with police and locksmiths in tow raided UOIT student bedrooms rifling panty drawers for leasing documents might be close to these kinds of regimes, we’re not quite there yet!

So why would Councillor John Henry introduce these ideas to committee? He knew they wouldn’t fly. He also knew that none of his fellow general vote competitors on city council would support his or any other councillor’s good ideas.

Now the real question. Was John Henry really sincere about these ideas that he probably doesn’t support….or did he simply want to grab the press?
Good Ideas John…but no kudos from me!

Be sure to follow Bill’s radio broadcasts, “Eye on City Hall”, every Monday, 6-9 pm commencing November 30, 2009 on http://www.ocentral.com/thewave/