“We don’t have a problem in this city, we have just got to quit spending and until such time as the city hall gets its mind around that, no core review will be of any value.”

The city simply has to set priorities on how to keep its spending within the budget, within the ability of taxpayers to pay, within a new direction which defines decisively what is definitely needed and what is not.

The review will make suggestions. It will be up to the present city administration to separate the items and assign weight to them with the above mission in mind.

Then it must stick to the new direction. If it doesn’t the whole expensive exercise will have been futile.

You said it all Ben. Fourteen persent of the budget goes to debt services. Wonder if the core review will look at that,
Cheers

I’ve said this over and over “quit paying such high wages to the City employees”. It would reduce the debt quite nicely.

“the show piece of police stations in the province”

I think it is more than that, it is the show piece of police stations in the country from the outide.

How should a police station, or any place of busiess, for that matter, be judged? It think it should be judged from how well it works for the people working there. We should know within a year or two how well it functions, not compared to the existing station because I think we know that the digs are likely very tight workspace, but to other police stations around the province and country.

Will we ever get that assessment? I doubt it, unless there is something major wrong with it.

We will also not likely get a good assessement of its architectural value. In my opinion, that is irrelevant to the non-architectural cmmunity.It would be relevant if it was an art gallery, and we initially got some of those comments about the two rivers gallery, or if i was a AC, or a City Hall, since a major part of their function is to actually act as a community icon. A library and a convention centre would also fit into that purpose.

This is not a police state therefore a police station and a law court would not be on the top of my list of community icons.

That being said, I love what Erickson did with the courts in Vancouver, essentially hid them in what is an iconic, integrated public space tied in with the Gallery, Robson shopping street an UBC downtown.

“within the ability of taxpayers to pay”

That isnot the real measure or not the only measure. The real measure which gets the attention is the WILLINGNESS of some of the taxpyers to pay. There is quite a difference.

We have one of the highest percentage of disposable incomes in this province and likely the country based on average income, high workforce participation rates, and low cost of housing. That is a factual piece of information which can be researched an objectively measured.

Along with that, we seem to have what I believe to be one of the lowest levels of willingness to pay taxes for the things we receive from the public purse.

I wish someone would do that study or bring it to our attention if it has already been done.

We assume far too many things and base decisions of what are often wrong assumptions. THAT is the problem, not only here but elsewhere. I think it is a probelm resulting from complexity, increasing access to information, and increasing access to what others are doing.

“Case in point the old PG hotel. The city would be hard pressed to have a private developer come along and buy that”

I would have thought that what happened is now relatively visible. How it exactly happened, I cannot say for sure but it seems quite reasonable to assume that:

1. The City wanted to make the PG Hotel go away.

2. Ramada wanted to make the PG Hotel go away.

3. The province was willing to help make the PG Hotel go away.

4. Some new people in the game who played around with controlling the DBIA for a while wanted to make the PG Hotel go away.

However they may have gotten together, all those parties appear to have been working to further their own self interest, but the PG Hotel property going away connected them.

Since it was a matter of land and a matter of dealing with potential agreements with the province, one of which may be held in camera by the City and the second is provincially required to be held in camera by the City, we heard only snippets and the traditional rumours of what was actually happening. Only a few started to connect the dots before more and more of the linkages became public knowledge.

So, it now looks like the purchase was one driven by the province to help the City redevelop the downtown by, once more, building a sizeable building which would be the catalyst for turning the downtown’s woes around, just as they did with Plaza 400 and the Courthouse. We all know how well they worked. So, following on the heels of their success we may get a third attempt, all interestingly, centered on the same street.

The property purchase by the City. Oh yes, forgot about that one. Remember, the City is expected to participate in such a venture, so the property is its participation.

We just have to make sure that they do not participate by buying into the proposed retail space on the ground floor or office space for IPG or the new City Department of Contract Administration for all those properties operated by contractors instead of $100,000/year city administrators of public spaces.

Oh, justification of moving IPG to their new 7th floor wooden office? Selling the railway station to “XYZ ltd” which will be formed to do all the operations for the City of its public spaces.

BTW, we will not get to see the salaries of their higher paid emplopyees. We will just see the bottom line of the contract and will not know who is getting screwed. …. other than the taxpayer still :-)

Along with that, we seem to have what I believe to be one of the lowest levels of willingness to pay taxes for the things we receive from the public purse.
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Just spent a week in the Nanaimo area. The last visit to Commercial Street was in the late 60’s.Commercial street is 3rd ave in PG. There are shops street cafeterias, plazas, places to sit and the list goes on . Looking at the development that has Taken place over the years it indicates that the area has progressed. An area that has not always had full employment.
Looking at the downtown area why would the people of PG be reluctant to pay more taxes?

The foreshore along the bay has been developed with shops and walkways for many blocks. In PG we put all our eggs in one basket and spend 42 million on a police station that looks like a crystal palace..

Not only are we unwilling to pay but we should withhold our taxes until or city shows us how it should be managed. They installed a new concrete sidewalk along one block of Pinewood Ave. In Westwood sub. The reason why it was done because the funding was available from the Federal Government for community enhancement.
Cheers

I was recently in nanaimo, and while that’s a nice little street and area of town, it was also DEAD in terms of traffic. Locals say the sprawl is the cause – and that their downtown is “marginal”.

“Looking at the downtown area why would the people of PG be reluctant to pay more taxes?”

Before I agree to pay even more I need to see some positive results for the money that has been spent every year.

The highest percentage of disposable income only tells half the story. We have thousands of citizens who do not make in excess of 40/50000 per year (some much less) but they have to pay the same price for all services, plus, gas, house insurance, car insurance etc; etc;

Thats why they are pissed off about the increase in taxes. Increases mean one thing to people who can negotiate for higher wages, however it means a totally different thing to people who cannot negotiate, or who are locked into low income jobs, or low pension income.

Sooooo. Back off the taxes. Reduce costs, downsize, sell of some property, quit borrowing, and stop all capital projects. This is the first thing to do.

The second thing to do, is to ensure that all monies from the various cost saving plans go into infrastructure, and not spent by the City on staffing, etc; Only then will we begin to see some changes.

How long will it take the Mayor, Council, and City Administration to understand the meaning of the phrase **NO MORE TAXES** Seems to me this is a fairly easy concept to understand.

Did Auckland zoo(in New Zealand) really shoot a baby hippo because of budget constraints?

No, but they sold the state railroad and the postal system, amongst other assets…

“We are in the process of constructing a new police station that while it may be the show piece of police stations in the province” .. see what being #1 for crime cities in Canada gets you?

This is why the hippo story resurfaced some 20 years later.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1219734–they-shoot-baby-hippos-don-t-they

” … the waterfront park at Ontario Place — a summer highlight for tens of thousands of children — has met the fate of the baby hippo, as Dalton McGuinty’s government tries to convince us we can’t afford to provide this healthy, active recreation for our children for the next five years.”

“Also on the hit list — school playgrounds. Some 600 sites may soon be sold off by the cash-deprived Toronto school board.”

“Ottawa also cited fiscal necessity last March in announcing an additional $5.2 billion in spending cuts. But Canada’s finances aren’t in trouble. Indeed, IMF data — prepared before Ottawa announced the $5.2 billion in cuts — shows Canada’s net debt-to-GDP ratio is just 32 per cent — the lowest in the G7, and projected to remain the lowest through 2016.”

Finally this from a poster on tht site:

“Right-wing politicians have a default option for balancing budgets without increasing taxes: Sell off public assets while reducing and privatizing public services. Just don’t ask how many of those politicians apply the same logic to their own personal finances.”

Reading that article reminds me of the major fallacy in the Core Services Review. There is nothing in the Report that provides a comparative backgrounder of

1.what our City financial situation is

2.how that compares to other cities of comparable size in BC and perhaps a few in Ontario

3.disposable income of the people who are living here and paying for the services provided by the City, the Regional District, SD57 and Northern Health – I include those others since we also pay property tax to those organizations and I do not see anyone doing a core services review there. In other words, I am interested in the ability as well as the willingness to pay for common services.

4.Again, a comparison of #3 with other similar communities.

5.Then some indicators of how well our City Administration is doing with managing this City such as: value of infrastructure assets in place; annual operating and maintenance costs of infrastructure; whether we are keeping up with preventative maintenance or falling behind and, if so, how much would it take to keep up to date; payroll costs; contract costs.

I know that we have much of that information in various reports such as the annual report, but not all of it. And we certainly do not have comparative reports with other communities.

The reason for this review should not be to cut items for the sake of cutting. The objective of the report should be to show what it is costing this City to provide services, whether in house or contracted out; to see how well we are doing in relation to other communities for similar services.

Once that is known, we can determine how efficient and effective we are overall and function by function. After that, we can start to see where we have to focus to gain efficiencies to improve our service deliver quality and costs compared to other communities.

With that, Council and Administration should be able to decide, along with input from the community, what the next steps are.

If the Core Services Review does not include that type of contextual backgrounder, we have put the cart before the horse.

If we had a functioning Municipal Auditor’s Office, much of this backgrounder work should have already been done.