So their two favorite options are clearly sell it off or contract it out. How creative. Reducing our assets, and lowering wages will definitely improve the long term outlook of our city.

I sure hope the people of this city will have a say in selling off assets, especially the Civic Center.
If some new hotel wants a fancy convention center then let them build it themselves!

If I was stranded on a desert island with nothing to read and no toilet paper, and all I had on hand was this report, I would have to make a decision.

Hmmmm. Its off to the biffy I go.

I would be very upset if Fire Hall #4 – Hart goes down to two people. I wonder if the persons/people @ KPMG would be happy living in an area where there is minimal full time fire protection. How would they feel if their house caught fire, and when they called 911 they were told, “The two firefighters on duty are attending an accident. Hold on, though, because as soon as the on call firefighters or the volunteers get to the fire hall, they will be on their way to help – shouldn’t be more than 15 – 20 minutes”. Also, there are a number of firefighters in PG reaching retirement age, so what do you do – issue layoffs to the new hires only to see a number of vets retire within the next two years and then have a shortage of experienced firemen?

It is interesting that the study did not recommend getting rid of executive assistants – maybe they will be the on-call/volunteer firefighters.

Wow! We paid how much for this piece of crap?!?!

Agreed HAbsfan! Are we going to get our taxes lowered here in College heights for accepting a less than acceptable fire response? I personally credit the individuals at that station for saving my daughters life a few years back. I would hope city council wouldnt even consider that recomendation. This Core Review is nothing but a cut and paste of every other one KPMG has done……but at a cost much higher. Thanks Sherry.

On first glance one thing that did stick out was the price we pay for asphalt 143/tonne vs 120/tonne for the province and 110/tonne in Kelowna. It is time Columbia and Pittman’s feet are held to the fire to justify the difference.
With the additional paving done this year did the city negotiate a lower cost(economics of scale) as it did not go out to tender? Questionable negotiation skills on the city side of the table?

IMO a city owned batch plant is a non starter(see reasoning for contracting out mowing, garbage collection)

While on the subject of contracting, what if the employees doing the mowing etc formed a “company” while still on the payroll and bid against outside competitors for the work.

BTW Denaljo if you ever wondered why you received such a poor mark for your book report—-you should have discussed the content between the covers and not merely the price on the front:P

I would compare the core review to sausage making, some parts of the process are not going to be pretty.

Sparrow, just as KPMG was the lone bidder for the core review, Columbia Bit is the lone bidder on city paving projects. Makes negotiating a fair price much harder when there is no one else to turn to.

middle finger

Granted, the difference is the review is a one time event where it appears the paving contractors are screwing us year after year(without a nice meal first:)

The city was faced with a choice when receiving a single bid for the review, change the scope and repost, cancel and do an internal audit or forget the whole thing and maintain the status quo.

Right or wrong they chose to proceed with KPMP, it is water under the bridge, so let’s get on with it and try to get the most out of the 350k.

Another suggestion in the report was to make gravel available so out of town firms can bid. Here is another one, what if we paved only every second or third year, bigger contracts will attract more attention and unit price should go down.

If there was coordination with Kamloops and Kelowna on the big paving year, contractors would be looking elsewhere for work in the slow years in their local area, more competition and hopefully a better price.

If I were on a desert and had to go and all I had was the core Revoiew I would not use it . It has to much poop on ir as it is.
Cheers

That might explain why you are so full of it:)

A VERY appropriate comment middle finger. ^5

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
It is important to once more read the Disclaimer at the front of the report to date.

Preliminary Evaluation of Suggested Opportunities

•The suggested opportunities have been evaluated against assessment criteria approved by the Select Committee on Core Services Review

•This document does not constitute an audit of the Cities services and underlying sub-services, organization and sub structure

•Implementation of suggested opportunities will require the City to plan and test any changes to help make certain that the City will realize any intended outcome.

Sources of Suggested Opportunities

•Interviews with Council

•Discussion with City Staff (management and unionized)

•Union executives

•Emails and letters from the community

•On-line survey conducted by Coty Services

•Consultation workshop July 2012

•Analysis conducted by KPMG (in my opinion based on what I see to date, that is an exaggeration.
……………………………….

So far, all I see are facilitation services provided by some high priced help which has led to the compilation of data volunteered by various people at City Hall and the community as well as public information from some other communities, whether comparable or not.

What I have not seen, and due to the disclaimer clause, will not likely see, is any good analysis of various improvement options with some recommendations that clearly show the resulting benefits.

Most important of all, I have not seen any attempt at determining the state of our financial condition compared to other communities which have a midterm history of zero or negative population growth and must find ways of servicing the community to a “standard” lifestyle while maintaining infrastructure and supporting important non-for-profit volunteerism which bonds a community, especially in times of so-called hardship.

In other words, there is no context to this report so far and I do not see any coming at this late stage. Context should have been dealt with as a first priority.

Everything in our world is relative. Context provides that relationship which shows how well we are doing compared to others and how well we are doing against our own desired standard.

That being said, MyPG is referenced on several occasions as a standard we have set for ourselves. However, there is no differentiation between needs and wants. So when it comes to a decision to continue to spend money for a want in MyPG, that needs to e offset by a perceived need of some in the community based on their financial realities of having empty pockets.

Therein lies part of the problem. That is an example of an internal contextual problem which is not being discussed and given some metric to determine the magnitude of the problem and the weight to give to it.

My opinion still holds that we needed to do this. BUT, I am still feeling as I did in the early days of this process starting that we have been sold a product which, due to the high price, was expected to be a better fit for what we need.

I do not think this exercise has given us any more salient information than we already knew.

Anyone on Council that honestly feels otherwise really should not have been voted onto Council.

As far as detailed analysis of any individual item such as paving costs go, they are all specialty items and it is clear by now that KPMG does not intend to go there, not even on three or four of the key money intensive items.

KPMG simply does not have the expertise and the $350,000 or so they are getting pays only for $45,000/year scribes a couple of $150,000+/year project managers working 5-10% of the total project time and no specialized consulting fees for a quick analysis such as ParnershipBC does when they do waht they call a “Market Sounding”.

We need someone who has worked at a high level in paving contracting to provide us with that “Market Sounding” … $10 to $15,000 to a semi retired person ought to do it.

KPMG also does not have any medical expertise to separate the latest studies which suggest that fluoridation of water supplies has real potential harm from those which still suggest that it is totally harmless.

KPMG also neglected to notice that 98% of all B.C. residents (4.3 million) are not being subjected to forced water fluoridation by their municipalities and that only a meagre remaining 2% of B.C. residents (Prince George, Terrace and Ft. St. John) are still being forced to accept this chemical effluent in their tap water.

Surely KPMG takes (took) the time to make a comparison of practices in other B.C. cities into consideration when it evaluates (d) benefits, lack of benefits and unnecessary costs when it conducted it core review study?

Somehow the potential savings of between $100k to $300k annually (it is impossible to get a straight answer which includes equipment maintenance, chemical and labour costs, etc) slipped under the wire.

However, there is still time to change the core review suggestions to recognize this 65 year old failed experiment for what it really is and how potentially harmful and useless it is.

For those who wish to get there quickly, fluoridation is item #148 of the Core Review.

There is also

http://www.princegeorgesaferwater.com/

This issue will not go away until the 2% are receiving the same treatment as 98% of B.C. residents are already lucky enough to be receiving.

It’s all about human rights, equality, civil rights and caution.

lonesome sparrow hurt my feelings! Probably as much as lonesome was hurt doing grade6 over 3 times!!

I thought I would look at 148 and see waht my impressions were in order to use that as an example of the rest of the report.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

148. Shut off chemical fluoride injection system and provide drops to people who require it.

Comments in report:
1.Local group opposed to fluoridation actively soliciting Council to halt practice
2.myPG: clean water goal
3.Dental health costs on the Community have not been estimated but studies suggest continued benefits at modes costs.

Assessment criteria in report:
4.One time savings – no savings
5.Annual savings –

6.Strategic alignment – not aligned
7.Client impact – some impact
8.Recent reviews – partial or incomplete reviews
9.Other cities/leading practices – comparator information not available
10.Barriers to implementation – low
11.Timing of first benefits – < 1 year The first thing which hit my eye was proposing to provide drops to those who need it, I assume at no cost to the individuals. Why would the City begin to provide free medication? Seems to set some sort of precedent. The following comments relate to the numbers in the lists above. 2. what does “clean water” goal mean? No indiscriminate population medication additives?
3
. which studies make that suggestion? It does not mention that, from what I have read here, some studies indicate there may be negative impacts on some people’s health. Since they make these statements, they must have references to the studies. This would be a good time to include those references rather than at the end of the core review when there is no longer an opportunity to address the referenced studies. This is not best practices (to be kind to KPMG’s methodology) procedure to keep people guessing if one wishes to avoid spinning of wheels.

5. I thought I read someone’ opinion on here that the annual savings would be more than $100,000.

6. If the strategy is not aligned, what is it not aligned with? The mindset of Council, as a for instance? That is rather obvious. So we have a stubborn Council. Time to align them or whatever else needs to be aligned. There is too much of this kind of jargon in the report that ends up being meaningless dribble in the eyes of the average reader. One cannot expect meaningful input into undefined and thus meaningless words. I challenge each Council member to weed out jargon and add clarity for the average citizen of this City.

7. Some impact?? Really??? ….. I mean this is getting to be ridiculous. Negative? Positive? Significant health risks? What are they? How does one reach a conclusion of what to do? The local public health officer weighs in? That is at the least where this decision belongs. In fact, it belongs to the provincial public health authority in my opinion.

8. why are there incomplete reviews? Who dropped the ball in order to do a higher priority task? This is the problem. Too much stuff is incomplete. There are no objectives set, no evaluation of those whose duty it was to complete the task. These kind of things were covered in the Mission review but obviously are not being covered here.

9. same as 8, why is info from other cities not available? We are not on a spaceship heading away from earth. We are still part of the global community and more so part of the BC community.

That is just one item. That is pretty well enough, when added to the skimming I did of the rest, to tell me that it is not worth bothering to spend more time on this futile exercise. The base data is poor quality, that should be obvious to people who will have varied areas of expertise.

I liken this type of core review methodology to not even give us fish, but just telling us in which part of the lake we might find some fish. It does nothing to assess whether we can fish on our own, and, if we cannot, teach us how to fish.

The core review is not much more than an exercise in political science on behalf of the insiders. Total cost will be more than the mayor makes in one term and combined with the elected mayor is like doubling down on the same old same old. Pretty sad the city had to pay that kind of money to find out things a good mayor and city manger should be able to do as part of their regular duties.

On the issue of floride… kills horses so it can’t be all that good for humans.

http://farmwars.info/?p=9170

and its not good the pineal glands either…

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2012/08/28/a-fluoride-free-pineal-gland-is-more-important-than-ever/

Gus on KPMG and city tap water fluoridation:

“148. Shut off chemical fluoride injection system and provide drops to people who require it.”

This drop + tablet matter is a smoke screen. Nobody who knows about fluoride seriously suggests that people put it in their water! But, if people want to choose to use drops or tablets – they may do so! There is sufficient fluoride in toothpaste to more than satisfy a perceived need for the chemical for those who choose to go in that direction. JB pointed out that in some countries in Europe fluoridated table salt can be purchased – the regular non-fluoridated table salt is also available, so the consumer has a choice!

Since there is only ONE water line coming to a city residence in PG the consumer has NO choice – it’s fluoridated water for drinking and bathing, no matter how health conscious the consumer is and how concerned the consumer is about well documented ill effects on health, particularly on infants and children!

There is NO choice!

One hundred thousand dollars saved annually by shutting off the chemical pumps means one job saved, three hundred thousand dollars means three jobs saved!

Ask those about to lose their jobs if they would rather have fluoridated water or a job!

It’s a winning proposition! It doesn’t cost one cent!

The Canadian Cancer Society states on its website that:

“On the basis of current evidence, it appears unlikely that water fluoridation increases the risk of cancer, including osteosarcoma, in humans.”

(osteosarcoma = bone cancer).

As well:

“We will continue to watch this area of research and update our information as it becomes available.”

In other words research is still ongoing and the verdict is far from being final.

“Unlikely” is way too vague for me, personally! Before this practice of fluoridation is continued in Prince George I need to have a 100% scientifically sound verdict and assurance that water fluoridation definitely DOES NOT INCREASE THE RISK OF CANCER IN HUMANS!

Unlikely??? Not good enough, scientifically still inconclusive!

Brian SKAKUN supports fluoride!

The last time a presentation was made before council (the third one) by a concerned citizen group which asked that tap water fluoridation be halted – they ALL voted to keep it going, including mayor Dan Rogers.

Your dental hygenist and your dentist will tell you to do what after you swish your fluoride treatment around in your mouth? If you can’t remember they say “Spit it out and don’t eat or drink for an hour”. I wonder why?

You get a large dose of the harmful stuff all at once if you swallow. You get a large dose over a long period of time if you take it in by drinking fluoridated water and bathing with it daily! Why? While some of it is excreted in urine about half of it is NOT and it accumulates in the organs of the body!

The long term effect is just as bad! The hospitals are full of sick people and cancer is on the increase. Why do one third of seniors have dentures if fluoride actually prevents cavities and makes for healthy teeth?

Many dental professionals have now joined the anti-fluoridation people who urge to act with precaution and stop this practice everywhere!

Don’t prepare baby formula with fluoridated tap water!

It’s a failed experiment going back more than half a century – the medical profession hates to admit mistakes unless under extreme public pressure!

Take it out of the water already and let people have a choice to have clean water – until then all that talk about democracy, individual human rights and civil rights is empty chatter!

98% of B.C. is already free from the poison – Prince George is NOT!