City Hall works to undermine Free Press in Oshawa

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
May 23, 2011

On May 12, the Mayor attended the 356th Annual Mayor's Breakfast, this hosted by the Christian Business Ministries Canada (CBMC) of Oshawa and District.

This was a public event and presumably the Mayor was going to make some pronouncements about this city. In anticipation of these announcements, Tamara LeClair, a talented local videographer, requested permission to film the event.

She was given permission by the event organizers who in turn informed the Mayor`s Office who refused the request---there being the rub that fires the inspiration for this column.

Countless others, not seeking permission, may of course have informally videoed or recorded the event. In such public events, we have been conditioned by experience to have implicit and implied permission to photograph, record, or video, unless that permission is explicitly denied either verbally or by signage

So while Ms. LeClair was polite in asking for permission to video, there was little need to do so. And of course, the mainstream media never seek permission in recording of news events, often recording at the outright annoyance of the subject of their cameras

The situation is quite different, obviously, in small private gatherings where the substance and privacy of individuals, by the nature of the gathering, is seldom for public consumption.

The Mayor`s Office, in turning down the video request, and in fact, any time they turn down an opportunity for publicity, raises serious questions.

While at first blush, the video refusal sounds insignificant, upon reflection it has huge implications for democracy and the governance of this city.

Politicians and public officials thrive on publicity and see it as a necessary component of their political success. Thus they’ll put city business on hold to go and cut a ribbon...as long as the press is there.

All politicians operate with the same motto, "Any publicity is better than none!” Unless, of course, it is the kind of publicity recently earned by the disgraced Head of the International Monetary Fund.

In a deeper vein, information is an absolutely necessary component of a democracy. According to Canada`s Supreme Court, it is a basic right of citizens to be informed of all viewpoints, as part of their enlightenment, in order to make informed ballot choices.

So straight jacketing formal and informal media limits public information and thus undermines democracy itself.

And in this age of social media, every individual can be a legitimate public commentator, and in fact, can often be as powerful as the traditional press.

This is, of course, where democracy started in the first place. Every individual had opportunity for input, comment and discussion in gatherings in public squares. And the internet and social media is now that public square of much of the social discourse and dialogue. Democracy has come full circle!

The decision to disallow LeClair's video seems to have been made by Mayor John Henry`s Executive Assistant, Mark Sheriff, an appropriate surname for a guy to straitjacket the Mayor into the straight and narrow.

Sheriff, as you will recall, is the Past President of Colin Carrie’s Conservative Riding Association that was instrumental in getting Henry elected. When Henry got elected, Sheriff resigned from that role to take his present Executive Assistant role in the Mayor’s Office.

And Sheriff, as a rabid Conservative, will get the inspiration for his political decisions from his hero, Stephen Harper, whom you will recall limited the press to five questions in the recent election. Harper wanted to keep his message straight forward and scary about what others would do to the economy without being handcuffed into explaining details of his own record or his plans for the future and why they would be better.

He simply wanted to make unsupported and unsubstantiated declarative statements unsullied by any sloppy explanations that in themselves would raise more questions in the public`s mind. He just wanted to dumb down his message so we ordinary folks could understand it. The truth of what he was saying didn’t matter.

So Sheriff, having made the decision to refuse the videoing, then worked to justify his decision. He stated LeClair, 1) didn't run a legitimate business, 2) didn't make money at it, 3) would use the video for other than personal use, and 4) would redistribute the video on facebook. He also stated that she was "unaccredited"---all clues as to how City Hall would conduct its public information campaign.

In response to questions on how to become accredited, “The Sheriff” indicated that it was necessary to be on City Hall’s List of media contacts without stating how to get on that list.

Sheriff stated that he couldn’t permit “just anyone” to video Henry because they would then have to let everyone and his brother have that right...and that will just not happen as respect for the office would be lost.

Sheriff didn’t explain how Mayor John Henry's tooling around Southern Ontario to various City and Town Council meetings in a Mackie's Moving Van to seek support for extension of the 407 highway to Hwy /35 enhanced respect for the office of Mayor of the City of Oshawa!

In any case, Sheriff’s attempts to explain his refusal to allow Ms. LeClair’s videoing of Henry's speech was obviously an amateurish grasping at straws to justify a decision he had made---but it does speak volumes about how city hall information is going to be disseminated.

Sheriff’s refusal in this case ignites serious concerns undermining the basic principle of the “free press” to report various sides of issues, events, and personalities, unhampered by the whims of City Hall.

It implies an attempt by City Hall to allow media access only to those selected which calls into question the selection criteria. Is it only those media outlets that would put a positive spin on all City Hall activity, no matter the smell, that is favoured with City Hall accessibility?

We do know that City Hall only advertises in a few “friendly” newspapers and allows distribution of those publications in the libraries and other city facilities. To keep that “friendly” designation, those papers a) print frequent pictures of prominent city politicians, b) print frequent puff (public relations) stories on prominent politicians, c) print frequent “rose-coloured glasses” stories about the city, d) never print hard stories that are critical of politicians or City Hall operations, and, most importantly, e) never do any investigative reporting to scratch below the surface of City Hall operations.

This lack of objectivity is a severe disservice to Oshawa voters and means that city taxpayers are kept in the dark about many “sensitive” stories such as the mysterious, abrupt, hasty, sudden, surprising, and completely unexpected departure of Commissioner Stan Bertoia who controlled the largest budget of any city hall bureaucrat and who was responsible for letting contracts for public works and many expensive consultant’s reports. Bertoia left a city salary of $189,000 for one of about $110,000 for a much more junior position with the TTC, a resignation that is extremely unlikely to be voluntary.

It is amazing that no other city newspaper has taken up this story. It seems gaining favour with city officials and the politicians to boost their advertising revenue from City Hall is more important than real investigative reporting to properly inform city readers.

Funny---the only city paper to take on stories like this, the Oshawa Central Newspaper, does not get any advertising revenue from the city.

Guess that is because the Central is not a propaganda rag for City Hall. It takes its responsibility very seriously, particularly with this watchdog column, in commenting objectively with informed opinion on City Hall.

Newspapers have played an important role in the development of Free Western Societies over the last 200 years, one of the principal reasons democracy has flourished, and the Central Newspaper does not take this important responsibility lightly.

City Hall's insistence on patronizing only friendly newspapers is discriminatory, anti democratic, and censorship of the worst kind, and a supreme disservice to city ratepayers.

Real social change has come from newspapers that take their responsibility seriously...and that will not change at the Central.

We shall persist as the only FREE PRESS in Oshawa, unconstrained by any need to remain popular with the politicians.

You, the Citizens of Oshawa, are the most important players in our game---and our pledge is to be diligent in our reporting to you!

We shall continue to feed you a caviar and fine wine menu of information rather than the stale bread and polluted water you might get from other city news sources.

You can depend on us!

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

There's Gold in Them There Government Palaces

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
April 11, 2011

The Sunshine List of high roller public servants has just been published and no doubt has all private sector workers yearning for public sector employment.

The list confirms that there are now two classes of workers---those that work in the public sector and those that work in the private sector.

According to a Canadian Federation of Independent Business Report, Federal public sector employees enjoy a 15.1% wage premium over their private sector counterparts. Similar premiums over the private sector are earned by Provincial and Municipal government workers.

But wages are just part of the story according to the CFIB Report. Public sector non-wage benefits such as pensions, paid vacation time, paid health and insurance benefits, etc. remain, on average, 60 per cent higher than those of equivalent private sector employees boosting the Federal employee wage/benefits premium to 23.3% over their private sector counterparts when non-wage benefits are included.

And dramatic Public sector employment growth, up 24% since 1998, combined with the salary premiums paid public sector employees, has fuelled dramatic increases in the costs of government, all banking on that seemingly bottomless pit of taxpayer cash that redirects our disposable income away from the productive segments of the economy that would contribute to growth of every citizen’s standard of living and to the country’s productivity and wealth.

Since 1998, total wages and salaries paid to general federal government employees are up 28% compared to inflation and private sector wage growth over that period.

And then there is the question of job security. While private sector wages are frozen, workers laid off and plants shuttered, and workers fall prey to the vagaries of the sputtering economy, public sector workers soldier on with iron rice bowl job security with their guaranteed salary and benefits increases that bear no resemblance to the uncertainties in the real world

When we consider the wage and benefits premiums enjoyed by public sector workers, the Ontario’s Sunshine List, the list of public sector workers making over $100,000 annually, rubs salt in the wounds of taxpayers footing the bill.

The current Sunshine List for the City of Oshawa, lists 81 workers making in excess of $100G’s, 6 in excess of $150G’s, and one, the City Manager, at $259,110.75 including his taxable benefits. There were only 71 workers making in excess of $100G’s the previous year for a high income growth factor of 14% over the previous year, an unsustainable growth of city hall high income earners that city taxpayers just cannot afford.

Computing from a city report of February 2009, there were approximately 1194 total city employees at that time stationed in the various work sites with about 550 of these at city hall. Assuming most of the highly paid workers work out of city hall, almost 15% of city hall workers would be in the $100,000+ salary levels. This is a proportion of top earners not to be found in any corporate head office in the country.

In comparing salary growths for 2009 to 2010, the City Manager went from $251,526 to $259,110, a $8435 (3.3%) increase, Commissioners went from $168,192 to $181,978, a $13785 (8.2%) increase, the Auditor General went from $163,589 to $169,842, a $6253 (3.8%) increase, the City Solicitor went from $140,883 to $152,415, a $11,532 (8.2%) increase, and the City Clerk/Sr. Director Level went from $127,822 to $136,408, a $8553 (6.7%) increase....and all this without any market-place bottom-line performance criteria.

These one year pay increases are clearly unconscionable during yearly inflationary times of 1.3% (2009) and 2.4% (2010) but do indicate how “outrageous greedy civil servants can be. While you’re hoping to keep your job, they are grabbing pay increases of these mind-blowing magnitudes.

Actual wage 2010 increases by city senior bureaucrats quoted above ranged from 3.3% to 3.8% to 6.7% to 8.2% to accompany the 2010 inflation rate of 2.3%. Even the last term of council increased city taxes by 13% while inflation hovered about 3% over the term. Government costs are increasing far faster than citizen’s pay increases.

As an example of escalating salaries, if we compound the city manager’s salary into the future at the 3.3% increase he had last year, his 2010 $259,110 salary would compound exponentially to $267,660 in 2011, to $276,493 in 2012, to $285,617 in 2013, to $295.043 in 2014 at the end of this council term, to $304779 in 2015, to $314,837 in 2016, to $325,226 in 2017, to $335,959 in 2018, to $347,045 in 2019, to $358,498 in 2020, to $370,328 in 2021, to $382,549 in 2022 a mere 10 years into the future. These kinds of increases will bankrupt our citizens! Just how much can we afford? City officials need some restraint...and some common sense!

All this while Provincial Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has recently announced Ontario Welfare rates for a single person will rise 1% ($5.92) from $592 to $597.92 monthly, while a single mother raising a child will get an additional $10.14 monthly.

Shame! The single welfare mother with a child will get a measly extra $121.68 a year while some city employees will get a yearly salary increase of $13785.

Reminds me of my youth when my welfare family of 5 lived in one room in downtown Toronto.

The growing disparity between the rich and poor is highlighted by the obscene raises taken by senior city bureaucrats and this disparity is raising alarms by widely divergent voices from Chinese President Hu Jintao to British Prime Minister David Cameron to IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

In 2007, Canada's highest paid 100 CEOs pocketed the average Canadian's annual pay of $40237 by 9:04 a.m. on January 2, the first day of work in the new year.

Income inequality has emerged as a major social and economic issue in Canada and elsewhere, writes Canadian author and political commentator Frances Russell. No longer is it the sole concern of the left. A working paper by the International Monetary Fund states that if income inequality remains unaddressed, the revolutions taking place in the Middle East could possibly spread elsewhere.

It’s now time for those city politicians who got elected based on tax restraint to start pegging staff salary increases to performance and to some semblance of reality reflected in the private sector.

Thoughts from the Federal Campaign Trail

Got a Colin Carrie election flyer Wednesday inscribed with the apparent personally handwritten message, “Sorry to have missed you---Colin.” Only perplexing thing about this was it was delivered with my regular mail by the postman. Leaves me wondering whether the postman is campaigning on behalf of Carrie on his rounds----or is this a cunning and dishonest deception by the Carrie Campaign?

We do know Harper’s main message in seeking a majority government is to decry the potential for an “unstable” and “dangerous” coalition government, the same coalition he worked to form to unseat the Martin Government in 2004.

Harper fails to mention that it was a Lester Pearson Minority Government that brought us the Canada Pension Act, the National Health Act, the Auto Pact, and the National Flag---proof in the pudding that minorities have been good for Canada.

Did you unknowingly donate to some Municipal Election Campaigns?

The municipal candidate’s campaign financial forms are now on the city website. They disclose that Colin Carrie donated $750 to Mayor John Henry’s campaign and $200 to each of Roger Bouma, Bruce Wood, John Neal, and Tito Dante Marimpietri.

The real question is whether Carrie unethically and dishonestly used his parliamentary expense accounts, and thus your tax dollars, to donate to these campaigns.

This is only a part of his undue influence however. There are so far only two Carrie signs in my neighbourhood both arriving in the first days of the election. During the municipal election, one had a Henry sign and one had a Bruce Wood sign, that neighbourhood resident probably turning down Henry’s sign as he is a close neighbour of mine.

The indications grow stronger with the Federal Election that Carrie used his campaign team, his sign locations, his telephone bank, and probably his parliamentary expense allowance to promote conservative candidates at city hall, an undue influence usually avoided like the plague by most senior government politicians...but perhaps part of Stephen Harper’s agenda to gain control of politics across the country right down to the municipal election.

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

What's up Doc? Was There Some Illegal Hanky Panky at Oshawa City Hall?

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
April 4, 2011

Sometimes when a set of facts comes to your attention for which there is no public explanation, your imagination runs wild with speculation.

And today’s column is such a state of affairs.

A top city bureaucratic official, Commissioner of Community Affairs, Stan Bertoia, whose 2010 salary was $186,778.39, left employment at Oshawa City Hall and a few months later took up employment in a junior position (Head Civil Design) with the Toronto Transit Commission at a vastly reduced salary of about $115,000.

Mr. Bertoia’s former department controlled the largest city budget, in excess of $35M, of any city department.

His department was responsible for the maintenance, improvement and beautification of the City’s roads, parks and public open spaces, including maintenance of valley lands, walking and bike trails, and forestry and horticulture programs, management of the parking system, management of the City’s recreational facilities, including the delivery of fitness and leisure programs and support programs for arts and culture, as well as the management and maintenance of City buildings, waste collection and environmental programs----quite broad and far reaching technical responsibilities.

For such a senior official at city hall, you’d think that there would be some public acknowledgement of his leaving.

The lack of any public acknowledgement of this major change at city hall smells of rot.

Equally baffling is the very quiet appointment of Garth Johns, formerly commissioner of Durham Region Human Resources, whose 2010 Regional salary was reported as $181,981.42 to fill Mr. Bertoia’s former position.

Mr John’s appointment to this top level city position seems to have taken place without any external executive search, formal vetting process of alternative candidates, or any candidate competition, all of which you’d think would be standard for senior public positions.

Nor does any evidence exist that a set of job qualifications, background experience, or hiring criteria were ever developed. After all, the public has to be assured that the best candidate available was hired in any public service capacity and, in this case, there is no evidence of identifying candidate experience or qualification criteria.

Mr. Bertoia was a professional engineer, a basic requirement you’d think with a responsibility to oversee roads and public buildings and the whole host of technical responsibilities in his department.

Bertoia’s replacement, Mr. Johns, in addition to operating a part time Human Resources Consulting Practice, holds a BA in health administration, an MBA, is a Certified Health Executive, a Certified Municipal Officer and holds additional certifications in Organizational Development, Conflict Management and Coaching, certainly not the kind of technical expertise we’d think would be required to oversee major engineering responsibilities.

There has also been no public announcement of Garth John’s appointment to the city senior administrative position.

The only public acknowledgement is his appearance at the March 3, 2011 meeting of the city’s Community Services Committee Agenda as the “Acting Commissioner” which has since been recently replaced on the city web site as “Commissioner.”

You’d think that such a high level appointment would have been accompanied by a press release.

All of this secrecy about Bertoia’s leaving and John’s appointment and the giant mismatch in filling the vacancy leaves a smell in the air of cronyism and the mysterious and unexpected vacancy leads to thoughts of cover up….and why? Which is where speculation begins to take place!

Human Resources, which seems to be Mr. John’s expertise and experience, falls under Oshawa’s Corporate Services Committee….so Mr. John’s appointment to the technical Community Services Department seems to be a giant mismatch of experience, competence and training….and there has been no public acknowledgement of this significant change of upper management at city hall.

As best as I can discover, Bertoia left the city employ sometime after Aug 31, 2010, the last community Services Committee meeting he attended prior to the October 25, 2010 election, and became employed at the TTC in February, 2011. He didn’t attend the January 20th City Community Service Meeting and so at that date, he was absent, had been fired or had resigned, or was on enforced leave prior to the first meeting of the new council Community Services Committee meeting on Jan 20, 2011.

If indeed there were ethical issues involving a dismissal, did the city hide this from Bertoia's new public employer?

Another interesting question is why Johns would choose to leave his job at the Region for a very comparable salary at Oshawa City Hall. Perhaps Johns is now part of the succession planning for City Manager.

Anyway, there are too many questions....and no authoritative answers to the questions!

Public figures and corporations who are caught in difficult or unusual circumstances have learned to get out in front and take control of the situation, but in some cases, those with the facts just want to play dumb, and by so doing compound any residual public relations problems arising from the situation.

A personnel issue, presumably involving Bertoia, was discussed in a 5 minute closed session of the Jan 20,2011 City Council Finance and Administration Committee attended by Councillors Diamond, Bouma, Aker, Wood and Mayor Henry as well as Support Services Manager, Mary Medeiros, Corporate Services Commissioner Rick Stockman, and Finance Services Director Chris Brown.

This short 5 minute in-camera session was obviously simply an information session for councillors as there is no evidence of any discussion or decision being made in the few minutes and so I surmise the decision had been made earlier outside of the realm of council.

The fact that the closed meeting to discuss a confidential personnel issue was attended by the Corporate Services Commissioner and the Finance Services Director suggests discussion of unethical or illegal transgressions around city cash.

Smart PR people know that they can reduce the collateral damage of public speculation resulting from negative situations by full information disclosure--otherwise the public will expect the worst.

The fact that Mr. Bertoia left his city commissioner job at a 2010 salary of $186,778.39 for another employer that paid him about $115,000 annually which he started after a 3-4 month period of unemployment suggests a dismissal from his Oshawa position.

The fact that there have been no threats of lawsuits for wrongful dismissal suggests a dismissal for cause.

The fact that a “personnel issue” was discussed at the Jan. 20, 2011 in-camera meeting of the Finance and Administration committee of council attended by city financial officers, Corporate Services Commissioner R. Stockman and Finance Services Director C. Brown suggests a financial concern in relation to the personnel issue.

The fact that the personnel issue was discussed by a committee of council suggests a serious discussion about a senior level employee.

Obviously politicians Diamond, Bouma, Aker, Wood, and Mayor Henry who attended the Jan. 20th Finance and Administration meeting have decided to perpetrate the past lack of council transparency and keep taxpayers in the dark about potential difficult circumstances at city hall.

All of these politicians who have direct knowledge of all of the details of the issue campaigned on increased accountability and transparency, and now they’ve chosen to keep you, the taxpayer, in the dark!

In the light of no official information regarding this issue, and the juxtaposition of all of these factors along with Mr. Bertoia’s sudden and unexpected departure suggests a reasonable assumption of corporate fraud through one of the many types outlined in the Deloitte and Touché Report, “Confronting Fraud and Unethical Behaviour in Government” quoted in my March 7, 2011 Oshawa Central Newspaper Column "Greed Trumps Trust Even in Public Service."

As pointed out in the Deloitte Report, one in six cases of government fraud results in losses in excess of $1M and 26% of these cases were never prosecuted.

If indeed, there was some fraud perpetrated on public moneys in this case, then the public has a right to know the details of the loss and assurance that any guilty party would be prosecuted with full restitution and appropriate criminal penalties being sought.

If there was no fraud in this case, despite all appearances to the contrary, city officials have the responsibility to provide full information regarding Mr. Bertoia’s sudden departure from the city with a view to protecting his reputation and the integrity of the city’s financial controls.

A cover up is an injustice to every city taxpayer and every party interested and involved in this issue.

And another major question. Why is the Oshawa press not all over this like fleas on a stray cat? Is it possible they’re too busy researching stories on silly PR stunts like “Durham Politicians to shed pounds for good cause” to report on things that really matter?

We’d better pass this on to the Toronto papers for some serious investigation and reporting on Oshawa City Hall!

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

Where’s the fat?

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

Where’s the fat? This is a fine question to contemplate as I sit on the best beach in North America, Florida’s Panama City Beach, where I have "March breaked" with my family since the early 70’s. Unfortunately, I’ll be back home before you read this!

So if the column seems a little disjointed---blame it on the beach!

So where’s the fat? What are you going to cut out of the budget? Those were questions I was asked dozens of times during the last election campaign when I pledged to cut taxes by 3%.

Where’s the fat? That’s the million dollar question because it is covered up by bureaucrats, elected officials, and public appointees whose interest it is to not let us know.

They’ll not voluntarily inform taxpayers of this any more than a crook will tell us what they’ve robbed and where they’ve hidden the stash.

Just rest assured, though, that in the city’s $115M+ budget, there is plenty of waste, fat, excess, inefficiency, and even some corporate fraud if Oshawa’s City Government is typical of other governments at all levels in the country.

As an example of criminal excess, It has recently come to light, as a result of an $1800 Freedom of Information request by the Globe and Mail, that a Niagara Parks Commission Executive racked up $400,000 on his corporate credit card over three years, and this kind of irresponsibility runs wild in the public service.

Further stories of public agency and government official’s waste, graft, partying, and drunkenness at your expense would curl your hair.

While we read of these stories frequently in the national press, many members of the public continue to deny excess and wastage in Oshawa City Government. These people must believe we have the only clean government in the nation!

Equally frustrating is the public’s inability to access the information with high costs, redacted and heavily edited releases, stonewalling, and government’s outright refusal, despite Freedom of Information Legislation, to release requested information.

In terms of the Niagara Parks Commission’s big time partying on the public dime, the real question is how this was allowed to occur without any kind of internal or external oversight....unless, of course, they had a “gentleman’s agreement” that all members of the commission’s executive board should, as a matter of common practice, run wild with public monies.

I reported in a past column of being hosted to a fancy dinner by an appointed member of the Oshawa Harbour Commission and being counselled to order from the right hand “price” column, this Harbour Commissioner explaining the culture of excess that he’d learned from the Chairman of the Commission while generously entertaining themselves with wine, women, and song on the many distant conventions and conferences they’d attended doing “business” (or holidaying and partying) on behalf of the city’s harbour.

While taxpayers will often complain of the high political salaries and expenses and will even complain about the high bureaucratic wages listed on Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure, these taxpayer costs are only a small fraction of the highway robbery being perpetrated on city taxpayers.

Taxpayers have a right to complain about municipal politicians, not only about their handsome salaries, perks, and benefits, but more about the ineffective and sloppy job they do in overseeing the functions of city hall, and the waste, graft, inefficiencies, and questionable spending that goes on there.

While political salaries and some political expenses are disclosed on the city website, and high bureaucratic salaries beyond $100,000 earned by about 80 city employees are disclosed on the Ontario Public Employee Disclosure, charges on credit cards issued to various departments and officials are not publicly disclosed.

City Council does not monitor or approve bureaucratic expenses charged to city charge cards and thus they are not providing oversight on the most potentially blatant misuse of taxpayer cash.

If some official in the small Niagara Parks Board can rack up over $400,000 in credit card purchases over three years, what are the charges being racked up on the dozens of city charge cards issued to senior city bureaucrats?

Obviously, it is in taxpayer’s interests to “hire” astute questioning individuals as trustees of the public purse.

During the election, I was calling for a 3% tax cut without an ounce of service cuts as the only way to cut out waste and excess from public spending.

Interestingly, one astute voter pointed out that I’d just lost the election when I announced that policy, since city hall staffers and their extended families were all voters, probably representing in excess of 20% of the pathetically low voter turnout, and none of them would want to see any cuts in city hall budgets.

City hall staff interests are best served with the election of docile and accepting politicians who are afraid to rock the boat. At present, there is so little debate or discussion at city hall that the Mayor brags that city council meetings are lasting just over an hour.

To me, these short meetings demonstrate a real problem---when bureaucrats learn that nothing is being questioned, discussed, or debated, they will ramp up their indiscriminate spending.

In my March 7th column, I reported that 10.5% of all occupational fraud was government related and that one in six of these cases resulted in losses exceeding $1M. Without strong and effective political oversight, these cases are bound to increase.

A strong councillor would present a motion for periodic forensic audits of all city hall financial systems to insure iron-tight controls over city hall spending. They would also call for time/efficiency studies to reduce costs of city hall operations.

These are the roles played by Canada’s and Ontario’s Auditors General, both of whom independently investigate any area they please, and whose public reports have the power to muster public pressures to embarrass governments into calling independent Royal Commissions to fully expose inefficiencies and oversights, and criminal and unethical activity in public spending. The investigations often lead to departmental re-organizations and procedures to implement recommendations, and in serious cases, firings and criminal prosecutions.

Unfortunately the investigative freedoms and right to subpoena records and take evidence under oath is not included in the contract of Oshawa’s Auditor General whose power is limited to being a political hack in a charade to provide political support for all bureaucratic actions at city hall.

If Oshawa’s auditor general had real teeth to expose wrongdoing and questionable spending, he would have brought the MBA tuition funding to public attention, for example, instead of providing comment only upon direction of city council after the expenditure was exposed by a member of the public.

The city of Oshawa publishes lists of cheques issued every month but only the recipient of the cheque, often a numbered company, is listed and not the reason or rationale for the expense. Unethical spending can be easily hidden in a few cheques of the thousands listed and will not alert any political oversight unless they are unusually large in the tens of millions of dollars. Anything less escapes all political scrutiny.

I’d like to see every cheque issued by the city and every charge card bill, accompanied by their detailed invoices, go through the office of Oshawa’s Auditor General who would sign off on expenditures only after they had passed the scrutiny of the department head and the city manager. All this prior to the detailed information reaching the politicians for their final approval.

It’s not that public workers are any more dishonest than other workers on the planet---it’s just that lax supervision systems of the spending habits of managers creates opportunity that spawns excesses. It’s like dropping a $100 bill in the middle of the floor. It won’t be long before it’s picked up by even the most honest of citizens.

There are enough examples of public employee spending excesses regularly in the big city newspapers to justify closing all floodgates of unethical or criminal opportunity.

It is obvious every government at every level needs Rob Ford and his strong leadership to derail the gravy train!

Where is Oshawa's Rob Ford?

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 budget’s set! It time again... to start burning all that taxpayer cash!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Columnist
February 28, 2011

As expected, the wily bureaucrats have again outfoxed, outsmarted, and out-manoeuvred city politicians during this annual tax setting charade and come up with another tax increase.

While it’s not the .7% size of increase that’s important, it is the continual tax escalation by politicians, the majority of whom promised tax cuts or freezes during the recent election campaign. The politicians by voting for the increase have sent a clear message to bureaucrats that nothing has changed....Its tax and spend business as usual!

Politicians have told city officials in no uncertain terms that there’s no need to make changes. There’s no need to run a more frugal ship or to look for city hall operational or administrative efficiencies. The city hall spending spree goes full steam ahead. The incremental tax increases will continue to generate fat and waste within the system.

And politicians are being smug and self satisfied about their job overseeing the budget.

Theo Moudakis, Toronto Star

Amy England is patting council on the back for reducing city politician’s expense budgets by $800 each saving a total of $8000 of taxpayer’s dollars out of a budget in excess of $115,000,000, a small gesture, she agrees, but important because council is asking other groups to do with less and so council members should try to work with less as well.

This all makes sense except when we note that Amy also says focussing on reducing politician’s much less transparent Regional Expense budget totalling $280,000 over the term is insignificant compared to some much bigger Regional items to alleviate taxes.

Funny perspective I’d say, suggesting that an over $1/4M expense is not worthwhile focussing on for potential cost savings while taking bows for saving $8000 of taxpayer money.

In patting council’s back over this year’s smaller tax hike, Roger Bouma says, “It’s a great start and we’ll do even better next year!” Roger should know that the tax cuts should start now and not next year....unless we elected a bunch of procrastinators. And besides, taxpayer's current taxes are their immediate concern! And they know that future taxes will balloon on top of tax increases this year! They know the floodgates have to be closed!

Interestingly, one bit of cost saving to make this year’s budget possible was to postpone non-essential hirings to September.

I’d have thought that any council interested in controlling costs would have prohibited non-essential hirings completely. Hiring non-essential staff is pure fat and gravy personified isn’t it? And so city officials and politicians have implemented a directive to postpone hiring extra fat and gravy at city hall until September and then they’ll get back to their regular policy of hiring non-essentials I suppose.

Mayor John Henry wanted to bring a business sense to the operation of city hall. How many businesses are you aware of that hire non-essential staff?

I can see it now---a giant ad in the Financial Post---Oshawa City Hall now hiring highly paid non-essential workers with great lifetime health, pension, job-security, and retirement benefits. Guaranteed annual salary increases. As a non-essential "surplus" worker, you’ll have little work, and certainly no important work to do. Apply today! Send us your address and Mayor John Henry will come out in a Mackie's Moving Van to interview you.

While this year’s .7% tax increase may sound minimal to some readers, I want to remind all that last year’s .9% tax increase produced a $1M surplus in just two accounts that have been publicized with a $650,000 budget surplus to be rolled over to this year and also the $350,000 unbudgeted windfall paid out to defeated and retiring politicians.

And these surpluses are just the tip of the iceberg.

They don’t account for any of the additional needless and wasteful spending, operational inefficiencies and duplications, and a myriad of mismanagement excesses including unnecessary consultant’s reports that produce reports supporting bureaucratic decisions that have already been made.

But these wasteful excesses are borne from an organization that has learned that they can dip further and further into taxpayer pockets for as much cash as they can spend with little regard for costs.

And of course, the .7% increase politicians are boasting about will produce a .7% increase in all of the fat and waste over last year’s surpluses.

This year’s .7% tax increase will boost that $1M surplus of fat generated last year by an additional $805,000 this year for a total fat and waste of $1.8M generated in these two years alone....and of course this is a pattern that repeats each year with incremental tax increases resulting in huge excesses that balloon up city hall excesses, salaries, perks, and privileges. And this "fat" estimate doesn't even include fat to be generated by taxes on new construction.

No business could be sustainable with incremental increases in spending every year. It takes spending limits to force efficiency, productivity, and improvement on any system.

Of course the low increase boasted about this year is a huge lie as some city taxes have simply been shifted from residential taxpayers to those same taxpayers who will now pay greater tax to park downtown or have their elderly parents or grandparents pay a 1200% fee increase in senior’s basic fitness membership for using the city recreational facilities. These are increased taxes pure and simple. And as the saying goes, a rose by any other name is still a rose! And this rose stinks!

These user fee taxes may very well result in lost revenue as fewer users refuse or can ill-afford to pay the increased fees. I, for one, refuse to go downtown because of the parking costs. Why would I when free parking abounds at the Oshawa Centre or any of the other shopping plazas around. There is absolutely no incentive to go downtown and, of course, this results in downtown decay and shuttered businesses. Elimination of downtown parking fees, not increases, is necessary as a first step in making the downtown user friendly

Oshawa has continued tax increases despite the promises of virtually all politicians elected to bring tax cuts or freezes.

Real leadership would have followed Rob Ford’s Toronto example.

Like him or not, he is proving true to his word in cutting out the Toronto Gravy Train.

Ford has not only come in with a zero percent residential tax increase, he has also slashed other taxes like the $60 Toronto vehicle registration tax and stopped utilities like the TTC from raising ticket prices when their budget was cut.

In the case of the TTC, to fund $25M of budget projected shortfall, he directed transit officials to come up with $8M of fat and waste within their budget and for Toronto city hall to come up with $16M of fat and waste within their budget to cover the projected TTC shortfalls. These savings of fat, waste, and inefficiency were easily found.

Ford’s system requires public bureaucrats to squeeze the system for cost savings, operational efficiencies, wiser spending and more care for public money, and he is putting systems and cost restraints in place to insure just that.

As Toronto's Budget Chief stated, “We’re in a hole next year and everybody knows it...and Rule Number One when you’re in a hole is stop digging.” This is a message Oshawa politicians have not learned.

As Toronto City Budget Committee Vice Chair Doug Ford, and brother to mayor Rob stated recently, “There is not a lean and efficient department in Toronto City Hall!” The same is true here in Oshawa. When there are no constraints on spending over the years, those with spending authority have a field day.

With Toronto City Council’s approval of their tax freeze budget, city departments will have to find those efficiencies in order to survive, and their mindset will become much more businesslike as they prioritize in spending on needs and not simply on wants.

Oshawa City Council, on the other hand, have demonstrated by their weak leadership on this budget issue that the Oshawa City Hall gravy train continues and spending motors full steam ahead.

It’s unfortunate for Oshawa city taxpayers that little is being done to increase the efficiencies of program delivery and administration at city hall.

After all John Henry promised to bring a business-like approach to city hall.

And yet Henry’s City Council has announced that they are providing over $8M more of taxpayer money for city bureaucrats to spend next year.

Obviously, Mayor John Henry is no Rob Ford!

So get to it boys! Time to start burning all that extra cash! There’s a bit more where that came from!

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

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/

City Council Finally Gets Down to Work

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and Unfiltered Opinion
Reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
February 7, 2011

Well Council has taken its most significant decision since taking office over three months ago. It’s about time they got down to work!

Council may be a bit slow getting off the mark and down to work as it is a little tough carrying on business when the leader is gallivanting out of town in a Mackie’s moving van meeting Mayors of Southern Ontario’s many cities, towns, and bergs.

In its first significant decision, City Council appointed Doug Sanders as City Councillor to fill the vacant council position.

Sanders was nominated by Bob Chapman and seconded by Nancy Diamond and won support from Pidwerbecki, Diamond, England, Henry, Bouma, and Chapman.

In seconding Sanders, Diamond demonstrated that her powerful and scheming hand was behind Sander’s appointment. In her brilliance, she does have a way of being in charge but removing herself from centre stage when it suits her purpose. In this case, she publicly displayed that she was only a compliant accessory after the fact, disguising her strategic role as its prime mover and solidifying a political ally in Chapman, and, of course being able to step back and reject responsibility should any criticism arise now or in the future regarding the appointment. Sanders, of course, will now become part of the Diamond team.

From the outset, I think Council’s choice was a reasoned one. Sanders did run for local council and finished a few hundred votes behind Mary Anne Sholdra just missing the last elected position. And appointment of Sanders can be easily justified to impartial observers.

Mary Anne Sholdra, the only other nominated candidate had her name put forward by Aker and Wood and supported by Neal and Marimpietri. Sholdra’s nomination, like Sander's, can be justified to rational observers based on her vote count. Her rejection by council can also be strongly justified.

Roger Bouma nominated Mark Paton but did not have, and could not find, a seconder. Either Bouma was left out on a limb by his fellow councillors, was not in the loop when these things were decided, or does not understand how these things work. In any case, Paton was cherry-picked by Bouma, and was one of many reasonable choices, but was less clearly justifiable to the voting public.

Perhaps Bouma nominated Paton without a seconder to highlight the backroom manoeverings that had gone on.

Publicly, a few names seemed to dominate the public speculation of who was to be appointed with Will Thurber and Dr. Gary Gales dominating the list. Interestingly, neither of these individuals were considered for appointment as they didn’t get nominated as per the rules. Other names put forth were publicized by the individuals themselves through social media but none of these "outsiders" received any traction at all.

Despite Sholdra’s higher vote than Sanders, her past performance indicated she didn’t deserve to be appointed to the position. As a member of the last city council, she was heavily criticized for missing meetings, arriving late, leaving early, and absenting herself frequently during meetings.

Interestingly, in her personal presentation in support of her nomination, she pledged to correct these problems promising regular and punctual meeting attendance.

It’s amazing that any citizen seeking the public trust to look after the city business would find it necessary to promise good meeting attendance. That would seem to be a “given” for those who sought appointment.

For that reason, despite her electoral results, Sholdra had proven that she was not up to the job and should have retired from politics prior to the last election. For that reason, Doug Sanders was a good and reasonable council "first" choice.

Council’s recognition that the public doesn’t always get it right was a gutsy decision taken in the city’s best interest.

The public doesn’t always get it right is a given, especially on Oshawa’s massive general vote ballot containing the names of 70 candidates which severely undermines democracy in making it impossible to know the candidates.

In the last local city councillor race, for example, there were two candidates with MBA’s overlooked by the public; Will Thurber, a business professor at UOIT, Trent, and York, and Mark Paton. Instead the public elected, TTC bus driver, Mike Nicholson and narrowly missed electing Mary Anne Sholdra whose presence on council was a severe embarrassment because of her sheer incompetence, inability to understand issues, and her ability to keep alert and attentive at meetings.

The public also missed two MBA holders in the Regional Council race in Kevin Brady and Doug Hawkins, both of whom would have brought good business sense to city council. Both finished far out of the money. Instead the public elected a college student who stated that she was enrolling in university courses and narrowly missed electing Brian Nicholson who lied about having a university degree and has had no significant or successful work experience in the private sector.

While I do support the appointment of Doug Sanders, there are a number of observations I would make about this important bit of city business.

The first is, despite the controversy of the nomination process, the few people in Council Chambers to witness this bit of “democracy” in action leads to the question as to whether city residents really give a damn about what their council does. Certainly a huge dose of apathy was apparent in voter turnout.

Perhaps the poor attendance by the highly critical chattering classes was a symbolic boycotting of the legitimacy of the event.

While I support appointment to fill the position, I am critical of the very democratically limiting process city council followed.

In democratic elections, citizens are able to declare themselves candidates in the race, but the city council process didn’t allow this. Council members acted as gatekeepers deciding privately among themselves who could be considered.

This was the purpose of the nomination process requiring two councillors to put candidate’s names up for consideration and also the purpose of keeping the list of interested citizens confidential so that public campaigns could not be mounted to generate support for various individuals. This might have put additional public pressure on politicians to select specific popular candidates as well as sparking second guessing of the result by the public.

Historically, Oshawa has been a very parochial place where most in authority were related to each other with nepotism and cronyism dominating the city landscape. The council screening process for approved candidates echoes this past.

There have also been extremely serious city council communication oversights in the appointment process.

To my knowledge, there were no official communications calling for nominations, informing people of the appointment process, or indeed even announcing the date of the appointment meeting. All communication has been left to the responsibility of the public press without city hall vetting or oversight.

Because there was no formal application process to be considered for appointment, no complete lists of those requesting appointment could be compiled----so the public will never know which “gems” advanced their names for consideration.

This was the same serious oversight, of course, of a previous council that put the convoluted general vote plebiscite question on the ballot and forgot to inform the people about the meaning of the question and its consequences.

One amazing shortcoming of the entire appointment process was that no formal vetting process was completed prior to the new councillor being named. Only after the fact was the new councillor required to sign a declaration of qualification. It doesn`t make sense to sign a letter of eligibility after you`ve won the job.

Once bitten, twice burned would seem to have been a city lesson well learned---but not in Oshawa where we’ve now had two elections in a row where ineligible candidates have been elected.

The only way this vetting process could have occurred prior to appointment with the Council process adopted would have been to hold an illegal in-camera meeting to screen the candidates to insure eligibility prior to the Council meeting where the decision already made was going to be confirmed.

The 34 minute Council Meeting making the appointment was so efficient that it probably was just a formal replication of those illegal in-camera meetings---a charade to formalize a decision already made.

The appointment process was in the best interests of this city but I continue to question the wisdom of considered candidates being chosen in a closed and private way that smells of cronyism.

But hey, this is Oshawa and we have huge tolerance for a city council that hits us disrespectfully time and time again.

In Egypt today, the people are striking back! They`ve had enough....and obviously we haven`t----yet!

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---Prepare to be Amazed!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 31, 2011


There are a couple of Oshawa City Hall topics receiving coverage and comment in the media and considerable criticism in the social media this week.

First is the appointment of a replacement local councillor for the disgraced Mike Nicholson who refused to be sworn to council after winning a seat in the election, an occurrence that undoubtedly could only happen in Oshawa, and in two elections in a row in Oshawa--- “Believe It Or Not!”

This is so bizarre, it could probably be featured in the Ripley column by the same name for those old enough to remember the syndicated newspaper cartoon panel which pictured items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims.

Anyway council deliberations for Nicholson’s replacement will take place at a February 3rd Special Council Meeting and should be great fun for all who want a good night of free entertainment and a night of democracy (or not) in action.

Council has decided to appoint rather than call an election to fill the vacancy so some favored son or daughter is going to be gifted almost four years of part time employment requiring approximately 10 hours a month at a salary of approximately $300 per hour (1/3 tax free).

The lucky recipient will also be placed in a “shoo-in” position for election in the regular municipal elections in 2014.

The idea of appointment, and the appointment process itself, has generated giant Facebook debate by the chattering classes on both the pro and anti appointment sides of the question.

Of grave concern to some is that the right to be a candidate is contingent upon being nominated and seconded by a council member. This has led some to observe that, while candidacy in a regular election is open to all, is non-political, and is automatic upon applying and posting a fee with the city clerk, the appointment process chosen by council is more akin to council opening up its arms to consider only “friends” into the club and is therefore seen as cronyism and nepotism.

In supporting his successful motion to consider any interested candidate nominated and seconded by a member of council, John Aker stated, ”Everyone (every politician, he meant!) will be able to bring forth a candidate. It satisfies democracy. No one (no politician, he meant!) is excluded.”

So democracy we learn is about giving politicians the power to select council members, not the people. Hell, you learn something new every day! There are rebellions occurring today in Tunisia and Egypt by citizens who oppose that view as well as civil unrest in many places in the world where the people are too repressed even to rebel.

The process of requiring all those considered for appointment to be nominated and seconded by a sitting council member makes politicians themselves the gatekeepers of who can be considered and this is a very dangerous precedent.

It is however, the distinctive mark of dictators and despots worldwide who bestow their blessings on the chosen thus insuring continuation in perpetuity of the beliefs and policies of those in charge. Hell, they'd never appoint someone with new ideas who brings new or contrary thinking to the club.

The other danger in City Council’s process is that the names of those interested in the position is secret and only the names of those nominated will be made public. While citizens will not get a chance to vote, they will not even know who expressed interest in the position, unless they are nominated, to speculate on reasons for council’s choice.

The politicians have turned down a by-election because of the cost. But hey! There is a cost to every election and so should we throw out the idea of democracy to save money? Maybe dictators are just efficient cost savers!

As astute Facebook writer, Tom Mitchell stated, “If Mayor John Henry really thinks that money is the issue in filling the vacant council seat, he should hold an auction. Get a grip your worship!” Mitchell continued, “Politics isn't the office furniture biz!”

In terms of appointing rather than electing politicians, I’ll never forget a young guy I met whose Chinese name translated into English as “Red Star Rising.” He had reported to Shijiazhuang, the Capital City of China’s Hebei Province where I worked, to have his Assignment as Mayor changed to another city. At the time, knowing a little bit about Democracy and the Electoral Process in the free world, I was a little surprised to see politicians being directly appointed by a government. But now I know you needn’t go all the way to China to witness this phenomenon. You can see it right here in Oshawa.

But anyway, make sure you skedaddle down to city council chambers for the special meeting on Thursday Feb. 3 if you want to see all the fun. As with other meetings this year that might generate considerable public interest, this decision will be made on a night when Rogers Cable does not televise the event....All in the interests of non-transparency and non-accountability of course!

The second event of interest this week is Mayor John Henry’s infantile publicity stunt to hightail it out of Oshawa in a jump seat astride a Mackie’s 24 wheeler Moving Truck to various Golden Horseshoe Mayor’s offices and council chambers seeking support for Oshawa’s opposition to the Provincial Plan to terminate construction of the expanded Highway 407 at Simcoe Street.

The 407 issue is one that John Henry didn’t mention on the campaign trail so it appears he is a Johnny-Henry-come-lately to the cause. All of the considerable public interest so far has been generated by the superb leadership of the issue by Columbus resident, Rosemary McConkey. She has organized bus protest groups to Queen’s Park, has organized extensive sign campaigns, has generated media coverage, and has brought in many prominent speakers and politicians, even MP’s and MPP’s and the Provincial Leader of the Opposition to focus attention and interest on the cause.

And while many issues simmer in this city with little apparent action, our mayor is now hopping on McConkey's 407 bandwagon and cavorting around in a giant moving truck with prominently displayed, “Mackie’s Moving,” emblazoned on the side to chat with Golden Horseshoe Mayors and Councils. They must be impressed!

I wonder whether Premier McGuinty would have sprung to attention in Peterborough recently if he’d seen Henry jump out of the moving truck to greet him?

Maybe use of the Moving Van was symbolic.

During the campaign, I spoke to a number of people in new housing subdivisions north of Taunton who reflected to me that if they’d known about the enormous taxes here, they’d have never come. And the high taxes have decreased their house values below their outstanding mortgages trapping them here. If they could afford to move, they would, I was told repeatedly.

So maybe Henry’s use of the Moving Van was symbolic of this widely-held sentiment...even Henry is grabbing a moving van out of town!

In one report, I read, in response to criticism of being “anti-green” in burning all the gas in the giant rig rather than driving in his car, Henry said, “The truck was going past St. Catharines anyway and so I just hitched a ride.” There was no report on how he was getting home---the bus, hitchhiking, or helping to unload the Mackie’s Truck and then catching a ride back in the empty rig.

While it is common for municipalities to get their ideas supported and sanctioned by other municipalities, and numbers of such requests appear on Oshawa City Council Agendas every council meeting, it is extremely unusual for busy mayors to have the time or interest to make personal representations at many out-of-town council meetings. Mayors who do this either have time to burn or get an image boost from such public appearances....and John Henry might need an image boost after spending 20 years driving around in a truck to pick up office equipment for repair!

Maybe with all these meetings from Cornwall to Windsor, Henry is hoping to bolster his image and buttress support for a run at some higher office. LOL! If so, nobody best see him scamper out of that 24 wheeler!

With this PR stunt, it is obvious we have a mayor more interested in PR than substance. As PM Harper's conservative plant in the city, he is following his leader well....no substance, no action or leadership here, but flying around the world playing the big shot while looking for photo ops. Henry is learning well at the hand of his master!

With this Mackie Truck antic, Henry is continuing as a mayor of image rather than substance.

Anyway this image of Mayor John Henry jumping on the Mackie’s Moving Truck has sure enough generated tons of publicity for Mackie’s.....and tons of ridicule for Oshawa!

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

A Giant Windfall Payday for the City's “Fired” Politicians

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 24, 2011

Mayor John Henry’s campaign literature stated the city needed new, principled leadership at city hall and that he’d promote new accountability, transparency, and economic growth for the city.

In terms of the principled leadership promised, I’ve heard on good authority that Henry has been dragging his feet on meeting with COSCO officials regarding expansion into Oshawa since COSCO’s cut-rate on-site pharmacies would steal business from his wife’s pharmacy.

If this is true, putting his family’s self interest first is inconsistent with his promise of restoring respect for the taxpayer and providing accountable leadership at city hall. It sounds more like Chicago politics under infamous Richard J. Daley’s iron fisted and corrupt administration.

Mayor John Henry’s leadership has not enjoyed the customary “Honeymoon Period” always afforded new office holders. In Henry’s case, it was a record short-lived honeymoon as even many of his former avid supporters are now his critics.

Council’s indecisiveness in replacing disgraced Mike Nicholson’s abandoned council seat speaks volumes about council productivity and the mayor’s leadership. Since the city wide vote is undemocratic which depends upon voter knowledge of candidates, I do support council appointment to fill the vacancy out of fear that, in an election, many unwary Oshawa voters would jump off the turnip truck and elect Brian Nicholson or Mary Anne Sholdra.

Appointment does, however, remove the possibility that city council could seek public opinion on the general vote election system that was highly criticized by the majority of city voters. Fixing the election system would be a first action by a council truly interested in democracy.

Accountability and transparency is still a major question with city council, as it is with all governments, despite the fact that all elected city politicians promised a more open and accountable council. Sadly, what we have has not changed in this regard.

A prime example of this lack of transparency has to do with the severance payments received by retiring and defeated politicians. While information on this has recently been released on city Report FA-11-14 published on the January 20, 2011, Finance and Administration Committee Meeting Agenda available on the city web page, the report only gives half of the story hiding the full payout amounts no doubt to mitigate citizen anger at the largesse politicians serve themselves at taxpayer expense.

Section 242(1) of the Municipal Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.M.45, provides that a municipality may pass by-laws for paying remuneration to the members of Council, and such remuneration may be determined in any manner that Council considers advisable.

Because of the breadth of remuneration permitted by this law (anything Council considers advisable!), the parting allowance itself does not tell the full story of compensations and benefits provided.

And getting a clear answer to the full benefits is virtually impossible to establish....whether severance allowances, like politician’s salaries, are 1/3 tax free, whether there are monthly pensions when age requirements are met, whether drug and other health benefits are provided, whether equipment like computers, cell phones, and other electronic equipment were inventoried and had to be returned....and these questions could go on ad infinitum. Answers require very specific questions with no information being voluntarily provided.

I first requested disclosure of the severance amounts from the city clerk’s office on November 8, 2010, and was told the info would be published in an annual report in the first quarter of 2011 and that I’d have to file a Freedom of Information request (FOI) to see it earlier, direction I received on two subsequent occasions, although they couldn`t tell me the cost to provide this information they had at hand, having already written the cheques for the huge amounts.

Finally on Jan 8, 2011, in response to a threat to finally file a FOI request and to a comment from me that the giant lack of transparency in a council purportedly operating on policies of openness, accountability, and transparency would be a huge revelation to the general public, Percy Luther, of the Clerk`s Department, informed me that he had looked into this further, as I had requested, and informed me of the disclosure report FA-11-14 mentioned earlier.

City policy calls for political severance allowances of one month`s salary for every year of council experience. City severance allowances thus generated were: John Gray, $110,821.33; J. Kolodzie, $57,042.00; L. Parkes, $45,950 + $34,759 unclaimed retroactive pay when she campaigned as Federal Liberal Candidate during the period Dec. 2004 to Nov. 2006; A. Cullen, $21,072.92 + an MBA; R. Lutczyk, $22,183.00; and B. Nicholson, $22,183.00. Mary Anne Sholdra did not serve on council long enough to qualify for any severance allowance.

These handsome figures are only part of the story and don`t include Regional severance allowances nor do they include tax-free pay provisions, or any health or pension benefits outlined earlier.

Durham Region figures have not been published and these figures are much more difficult to establish than city severance allowances.

My first request for the figures resulted in the Regional Clerks department sending me the first page only of the Severance Benefits By-law (Number 61-93) which gave a preamble but didn’t get to any details of the severance allowance. In the end, they turn out to be the same as Oshawa`s policy in providing one month’s salary for every year of regional council experience up to a maximum 18 month's salary.

So secretive are the Regional Political severance allowances that it’d probably be easier obtaining top secret classified military intelligence. Getting information is not helped by the general lack of co-operation by Regional bureaucrats who dragged their feet at every instance often neglecting my requests for information. Information finally provided was not compiled into a single place and required extrapolating info from a number of separate sources.

Regional officials couldn’t help by simply running me off a computerized list of severance cheques already printed and distributed. That would make it too easy and the public must be forced to dig for information. Transparency is only a word, not a practice!

The experience list provided me recorded 22 years of experience for Brian Nicholson qualifying him for the maximum 18 months of salary. They didn’t seem to remember that he had a break in service with his defeat in 2000 and presumably collected 15 month’s severance at that time. Since the maximum payout allowed by the policy is 18 months salary, he presumably would only be eligible for an additional 3 years with his October 25, 2010 defeat.

Because Nicholson’s defeat was overlooked in the figures given me, I surmise that he has double dipped for a giant overpayment, collecting 15 month’s severance in year 2000 and the maximum 18 months on his recent defeat.

A request to Durham Region Payroll Officer, Joanne Cermak, to confirm Nicholson`s payout, went unanswered. Nor did she answer my other queries whether the payouts are 1/3 tax free or if politicians can claim any other entitlements, compensations, or retirement benefits such as pensions payable at some defined age of eligibility, health benefits, etc., all in addition to the handsome cash severance packages they received.

Based on 2009 Regional Salaries (and not the 2010 salaries that would have been used) the minimum Regional payouts to retiring/defeated Regional reps from Oshawa are: John Gray (16 months credit+ committee Chair = $69807); Joe Kolodzie (max 18 months credit = $69533); Brian Nicholson (if only 3 months credit based on payout remaining after 2000 election defeat and break in service = $11589 or $69533 if break in service and 2000 payout forgotten about in which case there`s been an overpayment of $57944----but what the hell, it`s only taxpayer money!); Robt. Lutczyk (10 months credit = $38629); April Cullen (7 months credit + Committee Chair = $30540).

So combined Regional and City severance WINDFALL allowances for our retiring and defeated politicians are as follows: John Gray $180628, Joe Kolodzie $126575, Brian Nicholson $33762 (or $91786 if Region overlooked Nicholson’s 2000 defeat and collection of eligible severance at that time), Robert Lutczyk $60812, April Cullen $51613 + that MBA.

So the best estimate of taxpayer payout to fired and retired councillors is a minimum $453,000, almost half a million of your taxes, maybe money well spent to get rid of these politicians.

Remarkably, these total severance allowances are worth about the equivalent of $3/4 million to the politicians if the allowances are 1/3 tax free as is their regular salary.

And hey, all of these payouts were unbudgeted and so were paid for from “found money,” that fat, waste, and excess I’ve written about so often---the fat, waste and excess that I suggested cutting by 3% during the election campaign....and the fat, waste, and excess politicians will pad by whatever percentage tax increase they hit you with this year!

Don’t worry! Be Happy! But pay those taxes!

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

EDITOR'S NOTE
A week after my unanswered request and days after my column deadline time, i received the following email which provides some, but not all, of the information previously requested that has been referred to in the body of the column above. These recently provided figures will allow readers to revise upwards the severance figures provided above....and they will also clear up the mystery of B. Nicholson's severance package and the questions raised by incorrect information provided me earlier by Regional Officials. The over-estimation of J. Kolodzie's allowance was due to overlooking the fact that he was an Oshawa Local City Councillor only for many years and not a Regional Councillor

Mr. Longworth, In regards to your inquiry about the severance pay entitlement of the 16 Regional Councillors who did not return for the 2010 to 2014 term, please see the information listed below. (You will see that only 15 have applied at this time.)

Individuals are entitled to this severance if they have more than three years of service, up to a maximum of 18 months remuneration.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Abernethy, Jim: $15,992.67
Crawford, Scott: $51,976.17
Cullen, April: $31,487.17
Emm, Gerald: $71,967.00
Grant, John: $15,992.67
Gray, John: $71,970.67
Johnson, Richard: $71,967.00
Kolodzie, Joseph: $27,987.17
Littley, Bonnie: $15,992.67
Lutczyk, Robert: $39,981.67
McMillen, Jim: $27,987.17
Nicholson, Brian: $27,987.17
Pearce, Marilyn: $44,981.67
Shepherd, Bob: $15,992.67
Trim, Charles: $44,981.67

Regards,
Tania Laverty
Manager, Communications The Regional Municipality of Durham
P: 905-668-7711 ext. 3813
E: tania.laverty@durham.ca

Oshawa's Annual Turkey Strut Tax Setting Mating Dance

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
reprinted from Oshawa Central Newspaper
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
January 17, 2011



Well it’s city budget time and the annual mating dance ritual, “The Strut of the Turkeys” between bureaucrats and politicians has begun.

It follows a predictable time worn pattern and the steps along the way are craftily designed to make you ecstatic in accepting your yearly tax increase.

Tax cuts, sold by the politicians, will usually come with some sleight of hand magic that will make you thankful for the city revenue cuts in some well publicized areas while taxes and user fees and service cuts are introduced in a myriad of other areas to more than make up for the well publicized cuts.

The real test of tax cuts is to see bottom line cuts in operating revenues of the city and real cuts to bottom line government expenditures. We must see a total reduction of monies taken in by city hall, not simply a rebalancing of tax sources with the net revenues remaining the same. We need governments to operate with more efficiency at less cost, the same goal as every profitable business worldwide.

I have written in past columns that when politicians approve incremental percentage tax increases, which is the usual case, the effect is to pad any past fat, waste, and inefficiencies that had crept into the administration over the years. The only way to cut such fat, waste, and inefficiencies is to incrementally cut departmental budgets.

The Annual “Strut of the Turkeys” budget process for governments at all levels is always the same and follows the following well defined processes.

1. Politicians call for a tax cut, hold, or small increase

2. Bureaucrats raise alarms about the disasters to occur as a result of anything less than the inflated X% increases they’ve requested and outline an exaggerated or inflated list of outrageous and alarming service cuts required to meet the demands of the politicians.

3. All of the cuts bureaucrats outline as required to meet political demands are those that have the highest public profile and political impact.

4. As a result, the politicians get cold feet at the alarms raised by the bureaucrats and they moderate their demands about the cuts, holds, or small increases, and give the bureaucrats the moderate increases they really wanted in the first place. In the process, bureaucrats make imperceptible adjustments to meet the reduced allocations with no discernable difference to the public. It’s like selling a used car---ask high so there’s room to negotiate down to the price you wanted in the first place.

In Oshawa, all those elected called for tax cuts or a tax freeze since this was the number one taxpayer concern.

Politician’s push for tax cuts is offset by a bureaucratic push for bigger budgets and all of the power is with the bureaucrats. If knowledge is power, bureaucrats have all the knowledge of their operations and by selectively providing or withholding information, mislead politicians about the true state of affairs. The combination of information denial and the provision of falsified information by bureaucrats underlie the annual cat and mouse budgeting process which defines bureaucrat’s reluctance to be dragged away from their gold plated lattés.

Part of the lies, of course, are the expensive expert "consultant's reports" written by consultants who agree to write what the city wants them to write in order to get politicians to "buy into" decisions favoured and already made by the bureaucrats.

All in all, politicians have no idea what is happening on the micro level in city hall and have to rely on senior officials for all information....and by selectively providing and withholding pertinent information, bureaucrats can effectively manage political decision making.

I recall a statement from a Director of Education who was asked to recount his frustrations at his Board of Trustees spending inordinate amounts of time discussing unimportant issues. "Frustrated? Hell no," he said, "If they waste all their time talking about those issues, they'll never get around to discussing the important stuff." What the Director implied with those words, of course, was his encouragement (and leadership) to keep non-vital issues in front of the Board so he was free to run the Education System without political interference. And of course Oshawa City Officials operate in the same way.

This is where we need strong political leadership to impose the council will despite the bureaucratic protests. Unfortunately, based on weak political leadership and inexperienced politicians, the present city council doesn’t seem to have the strength or will to grab control.

As policy setters, strong politicians can set policy for bureaucrats to implement and insure that it is followed. In terms of budgets and the resultant taxation levels, politicians can only approve tax cuts or increases and major expenditures. As a “show,” some politicians will suggest some cuts to simply show they are on top of the issue.

I’d like to point out examples of the “Strut of the Turkeys” budget deliberations by our present council to point out how the four principles of the Turkey Strut works in Oshawa but this is an impossible task, since nothing has been happening here on anything.

Hell, City Politicians haven't even figured out yet how to replace the disgraced Mike Nicholson who reneged on accepting his council seat after wnning the election because he found out he couldn't hold any elected office as a TTC bus driver. Good thing he isn't getting a chance to help run the "sometime complicated" issues confronting city business if he didn't know and understand that.

Because of the devoid of Oshawa City Council activity, I will have to look to Toronto examples which exist under the strong leadership of Mayor Rob Ford, who, in contrast to our new Oshawa Mayor, actually defined a platform during the election that people voted to accept. Winning on a defined platform, of course, gives the Toronto Mayor legitimacy in taking action to implement his platform. John Henry, in not having an election platform except for a few platitudes like “restoring trust,” “improving transparency and accountability,” and, “respect for the people” has had no real plan of action endorsed by the people.

In Step one of Toronto’s Annual ”Turkey Strut”, Mayor Ford called for funding cuts of 5% for all Toronto City departments and asked that all Departmental Budgets be produced reflecting that cut.

In Step two of the Toronto’s ”Turkey Strut”, Police Chief Bill Blair blared, “That’s impossible! We’ll have to cut 1200 police jobs!” he announced to a citizenry already concerned with crime and public safety even though Toronto crime rates have been decreasing for the last decade according to statistics. The poker faced chief knows he has to bluff when he only has a pair of deuces in his hand.

In response to questions of studies of required staffing numbers, he confirmed there’d been no staffing studies, and further that Toronto’s policing levels shouldn’t be compared to other Canadian Municipalities which don’t have Toronto’s problems but rather with similar sized Chicago which has twice the officers per capita and where every citizen has a constitutional right to carry a revolver in their pocket or purse.

Sure chief, Toronto, with its 59 homicides last year, should be compared to Chicago with its 458 in 2009. Right on Chief! Brilliant!

And by the way Chief, Canada is one of the safest countries in the world and Toronto is the safest city in North America---but hey Chief, in the turkey trot, you're expected to gobble up as much tax cash as you can to grow your department....whether you need the staff or not. It's the bureaucratic way!

In any case, Blair came out of a meeting with the Mayor beaming about a 2% increase to his budget during these times with a 12 month inflation rate of 1.9965%.

I guess the chief will not have to cut any fat, waste, or inefficiencies out of his department!

Toronto’s Library Board also defied the Mayor’s call for a 5% cut by asking for a 2.6% increase stating Ford’s cuts would mean reducing book purchases by 18,400 books and the closing of the City Hall Library Branch. Cutting books from the library’s $171M budget and closing the downtown city hall branch hits as close to the heart as possible without rendering the library system clinically dead and implies they are running a remarkably skimpy "no fat" system.

The Toronto Civic Administration also avoided a last minute 10¢ TTC fare increase by coming up with a magical $16M and the transit commission with another $8M to make up the $24M the fare increase would have raised. Now I wonder whether this magically found $16M came out of the fat and waste that was built into the city budget through the use of incremental tax increases which pad all built up fat and waste yearly by the incremental increase applying to every aspect of the budget including fat and waste. Even city officials have not been able to report where the extra $16 mill came from....Guess it's tough for them to say, "It's just part of the fat!" It is clear though that the $8M the TTC is expected to save does come from their padded fat and waste.

In any case, Politicians neither have the time, education, expertise, or knowledge of the many specialized functions within city hall to micromanage. The only effective thing they can do is cut funding which the city manager in turn would direct all his subordinate managers to do.

It’s only the Department Managers, who know where the fat and wastage is within their departments, but heretofore Public service bureaucrats have only been interested in growing the size of their departments since bottom line profitability or efficiency never enters the equation.

That is an aspect of government budget setting that has to change as we drag the bureaucrats kicking and screaming from their gold plated latté cups.

Toronto Mayor, Rob Ford, campaigned on the theme, "Stop the Gravy Train." With the points made above, Ford’s idea is meaningless unless he can demonstrate that he is extracting reduced revenues from the public and reducing the costs of government.

Announcing major tax cuts like the $60M auto registration tax is meaningless if the equivalent $60M is then extracted from the public by increasing user fees or saving the money through reducing staff and services.

The only way for Ford to stop the gravy train is to cut departmental budgets with the directive that there are no service cuts and no user fee increases.

Cutting costs by cutting service and staffing is easy and is what made then famous "Chainsaw" Jack Welch, former GE CEO a darling of the investment world. He forgot about improving profitability by increasing efficiencies, productivity, customer service, and new products and markets. Those keys to profitability are worshipped by the best CEO's just as improving efficiency and service should be hallmarks of excellent public administration.

Ford knows this, and it is only with reduced Toronto city overall expenditures without service cuts that Ford can demonstrate that he is bringing increased efficiency and productivity to civic administration by cutting out fat and waste.

The tax revolt in underway everywhere in North America and the people are demanding nothing less.

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