Milburn Leaving City Hall
Thursday, March 1, 2012 @ 6:00 AM
Prince George, B.C.- Opinion250 News has learned Director of Planning and Development for the City of Prince George, Dan Milburn, is leaving his post at City Hall.
Milburn is joining the Prince George company of R.Radloff and Associates which provides engineering and development services.
“I’ve really enjoyed my eleven years at the City” says Milburn, who started in the Planning department as a planner, then moved up to the post of Manager of Current Planning for 6 years, was Manager of Long range Planning for 3 years, and has been Director of Planning and Development since March of last year when Grant Bain left the city ( first as Acting Director, then, officially named to the post in August of 2011).
Milburn says he thought it was time to make a move “I thought there was a lot of opportunity and growth with all that’s happening in the North”.
Bob Radloff, owner of R. Radloff and Associates, says Milburn will be a major asset. “He has a number of very good qualities” says Radloff who adds Milburn was being courted by several other companies outside the city, but Milburn wanted to stay in P.G “ I am fortunate to have him on board.”
Radloff and Milburn are not strangers as they worked together at Prince George City Hall when Radloff was the Director of Operations. That familiarity made Milburn’s fit with his company even better says Radloff “It was a natural.”
Milburn will work with the City until the end of March and start his new post as a senior planner and working on business development with Radloff on April 2nd.
It is not known if City Hall will try to fill the gap created by Milburn’s departure, or if they will stick with the hiring freeze and leave the post empty as part of the austerity program that saw several people lose their jobs and numerous other vacant positions left vacant as a cost saving measure.
Comments
Who knew the city has a planning department, let alone a director.
And now you know the likely reason why Dan Milburn is leaving.
What one does with the planning department is, in the final analysis, not up to the planning department, but the people the planniing department reports to.
This City Hall, its upper administration, and especially its Council is undergoing a meltdown.
At least, that is what it looks like to an outsider and also from the eyes of a few insiders that people have access to.
Remember, Grant Bain left previously for supposedly family reasons. But we all know what that really means in many if not most instances.
The writing was on the wall some time ago.
Could this be the same Mr. Radloff that enjoyed the willful blindness of Mayor and Council for years while he ran a consulting engineering business on the side? A consulting engineering business in direct competition with local private sector firms.
Or the Mr. Radloff that got a juicy direct-award contract from Supply Services to ‘manage’ the District Heating System project?
Of course!
“is not known if City Hall will try to fill the gap created by Milburnâs departure”
The understatement of the day.
When I came to town, the City had no planning department. I eventually it moved to internalize some, and then much of that work. They had a few good planners in the beginning. But, in order for those planners to show how good they could be, they needed the support of administration and Council. For many years they received that.
Eventually that support waned. One OCP after an other became a useless piece of work that no one even tried to adhere to.
Who in their right mind would come to this City at this time with a lot of good experience to head up a planning department? The City would have to change first, before someone from the outside would come here.
And it will take someone from the outside with an iron constitution to bring this City back on track in the area of planning.
“Could this be the same Mr. Radloff that enjoyed the willful blindness of Mayor and Council for years while he ran a consulting engineering business on the side”
Yes …. and do you blame him or the Administration, Mayor and Council at that time?
And … do we know whether they now have a changed policy that would no longer allow such a situation?
‘Yes …. and do you blame him or the Administration, Mayor and Council at that time?
And … do we know whether they now have a changed policy that would no longer allow such a situation?’
I certainly blame the Administration and Mayor and Council of the day for letting such an obvious conflict of interest occur.
They all knew about it, and chose to let the situation exist for many years.
And as far as I know there has been no change in policy. If the Chief Engineer and Manager of Engineering wanted to open Dyer Moonlighting Engineering Ltd., I think it would still happen.
If I remember correctly it was Radloff who recommended using the AAP to allocate the funds for the so called community energy system. Once approved he gets a supply contract. No wonder city hall needs a cleaning.
‘If I remember correctly it was Radloff who recommended using the AAP to allocate the funds for the so called community energy system. Once approved he gets a supply contract. No wonder city hall needs a cleaning.’
It was also Mr. Radloff who was responsible for developing the pre-tender project construction budget. It was WAY too low, of course, but succeeded in getting the project past Mayor and Council.
Now the project is being ‘managed’ by the City, who hires individual sub-contractors on an Abbott and Costello basis, much to the chagrin of the local Construction Association.
But more ‘management by the City’ means more fee for the project manager (Mr. Radloff), so life’s good!
Radloff’s company does not do work within PG city limits. In fact, their work is generally not in direct competition with other local companies, as they rarely bid on any projects. Most of their work walks in their front door requesting their help. Clients are willing to wait in line behind others because they trust his work.
As for Milburn, where would you rather work: at a place where your recommendations are tossed in the trash can, or at a place where you can be your own boss and stick to your principles?
I especially like your last paragraph, swordfern. So true for many people in life, isn’t it?
I suspect there are a few more pople at City Hall in that position who have feelers out. The thing is, local equivalent positions may be hard to find so one may have to move out of town.
Then again, one hears rumours about “good” people being difficult to find.
So Dan will be “working on business development with Radloff” according to the article. Right now, based on the web site, Radloff has very limited services so having someone like Dan there should help getting some of those projects that are currently going to L&M and others.
Maybe Cooper can hire them to work on getting their plan for the Golf Course through City Hall. ;-)
One of the earlier outstanding planners this city had was Graham Farstad. He moved out of the City in 1988, after being with the City for some 12 years, most or all of it as Director of Development Services, to go to where development was still happening.
Here is his firm’s web page:
http://www.arlingtongroup.ca
Mr. Radloff’s name is on the Boundry Rd. project as well. I think that is in city limits.
Dear Rocky. You seem to be willfully blind to the fact that Mr Radloff does not have a juicy direct award contract for managing the District Energy Project or Boundary Road. Check your facts once in a while before sending. It’s easily verifiable that he was an employee of the city at all times while in that role.
While your at it check the definition of conflict of interest if you can read
I have to wonder if our “Planning Dept.” has access to PGs Official Community Plan? Could our planning dept. be used to head off both “controversies” last year? Or is that out of their “realm”?
I worked under Mr. Radloff at the City for a number of years. He was one of the few directors who actually respected what the rank and file workers had to say. He was an excellent boss.
Harbinger – are you talking about the bottle depot and Haldi Road? Saw in the paper last week that the court case for Haldi is happening April 23rd week.
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