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/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The System is Broke and Needs to be Fixed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Politics Has Opened to the Masses---Get involved!

“Eye on City Hall”
A column of Information, Analysis, Comment, and unfiltered opinion
Bill Longworth, City Hall Reporter
May 17, 2010
As the election approaches, city politics seems like a war zone with facebook war-of-words battles breaking out everywhere and politicians attacking each other incessantly.

But what can you expect when the politicians have introduced the general or city wide vote which not only robs the various communities of their guaranteed community representation at city hall, but has produced a dysfunctional council by making all politicians competitors with each other for the same vote.

These are functions of the general vote that I predicted when I made a number of presentations to city council opposing the general vote. At that time, I said the politicians would backbite, bitch, bicker, and grandstand trying to grab the press leading to an unproductive and dysfunctional council and large parts of Oshawa would become disenfranchised over time as all of the political representation would come from a few of the richer areas of the city. We now see these predictions coming true in spades.

But the last thing we’d expect is for city politicians to take out their vitriol on voters who want to express their opinions. After all, that is a right we have in this country…right? But the unheard of is happening.

One Columbus resident who has been active as a responsible and committed citizen in working to preserve the rural uniqueness of her community has received the despicable scorn of Mayor John Gray and Councillor Brian Nicholson when she made a presentation to the May 3, 2010 meeting of the Development Services committee of Council. She addressed Durham Region’s planned amendments to its official plan pushing for about 3,000 hectares of prime agricultural land north of the proposed highway 407 to be rezoned for employment and residential use. Ms. McConkey argued this was hasty and premature rezoning of farm land which would quickly lead to urban sprawl. This rezoning of agricultural lands (Regional official plan amendment 128 *Durham Region Growth Plan passed by the Region last June but not yet approved by the Province) involves land mostly already owned by the Development Industry and is favoured by John Gray who is Chair of the Regional Planning Committee. It is interesting that Mayor John Gray gets close to 80% of his campaign donations from the Development Industry, and with so much cash coming from the Developers, Gray may very well be seen as a representative of the Development Industry and not at all of the people of Oshawa.

Interestingly, Queen’s Park agrees with Ms McConkey and, is expected to issue a formal denial of Durham’s rezoning attempts. The Province is not happy with the excessive amount of land the Region wants to earmark for future residential and employment land. In order to justify paving over more green space than sanctioned by Ontario, Durham officials set aside the province's population and employment forecasts and insisted their region would have 25,000 more jobs than expected by 2031.

John Gray, Durham Region Planning Committee Chair, supported by his #1 supporter, defender, and apparent sidekick, Brian Nicholson, seem very defensive about the Province’s probable rejection of Regional Rezoning Plans and unleashed their despicable vitriol on Ms. McConkey at the May 3, 2010, Oshawa Development Services Committee Meeting. You can view a video of their disrespectful and alarming attacks. This video gives ample example of the dysfunction of this council and also the disrespect some city politicians have for its citizens.

John Gray’s and Brian Nicholson’s despicable attack on a concerned citizen is difficult to believe as this kind of disrespect coming from elected officials can never be justified. Their questioning of this citizen debutant borders on the type of hostile cross examination worthy of some major criminal trial…except that the judges in those cases would demand greater respect of the accused.

This behaviour is just one more indication of why Oshawa is becoming the laughing stock of Canada...Cullen Miniatures, MBA's, Stephen Colbert Day, mayor's use of city charge card to pay off Provincial Offences fines, money losing GM Centre, unnecessary demolition of council chambers and City Hall "A" wing, handling of student housing issue, raids on student housing with police and locksmiths to go through student personal belongings looking for leasing documents, Regent Theatre, highest taxes in GTA, demolition of North Oshawa Arena and The Civic because of surplus of ice pads after construction of Legends Centre and agreement with UOIT with their ice pad complex, the Mayor's bright yellow "boy toy" gas guzzling muscle car, pathetic state of the downtown, the lake front/marina fiasco, etc., etc., etc.

We need a change of leadership in this city---and we need it fast to limit the damage!

Facebook pages mounted by Oshawa Citizens indicate a new age of politics is upon us. Not only are many of the pages informative and entertaining, they are changing the face of political campaigning and opening up information and opinion opportunity to every interested citizen Information generation and flow is no longer just the purview of the commercial media or those rich enough to buy media space or those prominent enough like incumbent politicians to get free media coverage. Every person’s ideas and opinions can now be expressed and widely diseminated. And politicians are finding it impossible to hide information or hide behind the press.

This week, for instance, we have learned that Councillor Louise Parkes, the city council rep on the Downtown Business Improvement Area, has been accused by former BIA members of being asked by Parkes to write letters to the editor supporting Parkes. Doesn’t this smell like the supportive letters to the editor disgraced former Conservative Cabinet Minister Helena Guergis directed her political staff to write to newspapers following Guergis’s temper outbursts during airport security checks when she was leaving Prince Edward Island in the last months?

We also learned that Councillor Brian Nicholson who regularly cuts readers from entry to his facebook pages when they disagree with him or correct the "misrepresentations," “spins,” and "lies" he tries to foist on his readers, it has been widely alleged that he has created facebook aliases to allow him to eavesdrop surreptitiously on facebook commentary about him and use these aliases to anonomysly write supportive and "apparent" third-party rebuttals in response to any negative commentary about him that is running rife over the facebook accounts of Oshawa residents, many of whom have expressed the idea that he must be defeated in the next election.

For your entertainment, you could do a search on facebook and find pages entitled, “Brian Nichulsoncullanclarkeydodadee,” “Candidates Behaving Badly,” “Stop Bullying in Oshawa Politics,” “The "SHWA" Dictionary,” “I Love The Oshawa Bunny Ears Man!,” “You know you're from Oshawa when...,” “Say 'NO' to Louise Parkes for Oshawa Politics,” etc., etc., etc.

This listing of facebook pages having to do with Oshawa City politics is certainly not exhaustive. Virtually every declared candidate has mounted both facebook pages and websites.

And more interesting, informative, and entertaining stuff is cropping up every day.

We have entered a new age of politics. It is impossible to hide information from the masses and everyone can have their say.

Maybe this is “true democracy!”…just like those early days in Greece when the earliest forms of democracy emerged---when everyone had their say and town meetings were the order of the day...

Perhaps we have come full circle. The grass roots are becoming more important in how we’re governed.

Now folks…We just have to get out and VOTE! This is our responsibility and an opportunity many people in the world would give their right arm to have.

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