Very good article Ben. The core review was nothing more than a political carrot to legitimize voting for Ms. Green to the office of Mayor. It was a total waste of tax payer’s money that could have been used to patch some of the pot holes which are destroying the vehicles of the good citizens of Prince George. It was great to see that council voted down another pipe dream of Mayor Green. I just can’t believe that Green, Stolz, Hall and Koehler, actually think it’s a good idea to have a driver of the sanitation truck get in and out of his/her vehicle all day to pick up an extra bag of garbage; if this wasn’t so sad it would be laughable. Very disappointed in Hall, I thought he was better then that and would have been a good Mayor…BUT FORGET THAT NOW!

I am embarrassed to say I voted for Hall in the last civic election. He is proving to be nothing more than a puppet for Green. Hall does not have the ability to think for himself. If councillors are this blind to follow Green, they deserve to go down with her ship. Glad Stolz is on that ship.

Mr Meisner

I wish you still had your radio talk show.

I recall when Mayor Green was on your show just before the last election, you asked her about conflict of interest and after the show Mayor Green had no option but to declare that this was in fact correct and step aside on voting on the Haldi Road rezoning.

Now that the public is a little wiser, it seems city council members are not willing to except that the public is wiser and involved.

I wonder if Mayor Green was on your show today, what kind of questions Mayor would be facing? I bet the arrogance would dissipate in the first 2 minutes.

I also thought Lynn Hall would be a future Mayor but that;s been dashed now. But I guess there’s always the School Board to go back to. One kind of figures the way the votes are now on City Council, there are two voting camps with the odd councillor voting either way. Yes, what was paid for this Core Review would have patched a lot of potholes.

IMO the fleet maintenance idea looked in the wrong direction as mentioned in yesterday’s story.

The “all in” cost for a mechanic is in the $60/hour in wages and benefits. In addition once all the overhead is factored in it would be cheaper to have vehicles serviced and repaired elsewhere.

Included in the overhead
-shop supervision and other support services
-$5 million for the 22ave yard plus ongoing upkeep ($40,000.00 to paint doors on books)heat,lights etc.
-expensive diagnostic equipment required to repair modern vehicles that needs yearly updates
-Mechanics retraining to keep up with current technology

In addition costs for a service are known in advance, for example, if a city mechanic has problems doing a job and it takes 2 more hours the city has to eat the additional costs but if done at an outside facility would still cost the same.

If the mechanic’s day is not filled with filled with gainful work the “true” hourly rate could quickly escalate to $75/hr. It is not out of reason to lose an hour a day— I’ll start right after coffee or geez only 15 minutes till quitting time too late to start today.

Then there is the matter of warranty. I don’t know how much major component rebuild work they do but the dollars can add up fast in the event of a failure. For fun let’s say they rebuilt a loader transmission and ended up with a bad part that caused an early failure. The part supplier would cover the faulty part and none of the other resulting damage. If the rebuild was done at a heavy equipment dealership and the same part failed all the damage would be covered. A complete transmission rebuild can easily exceed $20k so not exactly chump change.

Had the City approached the Fraser Institute they would of done the core review at no cost with the same result.
Cheers

Great article Ben! People want to see leadership from their elected officials , not followers or puppets, leaders should do their homework, understand the issue and have the ability to clearly articulate how they arrived at their decision. In the case of the proposed extra garbage bag
at the curbside, Councillors Hall, Stolz, Koehler and Mayor Green should have known their was relevant and important history on this with the initiation of the automated curbside garbage collection system……they failed miserably IMHO to fully understand the issue.

The whole core review exercise and results may prove to be a total waste of taxpayer money and that is unfortunate when we all know that it would have been wiser and more beneficial to spend the near 1/4 million dollars on much needed road repair. There is also the question which Gus has brought forward in a previous blog about the need to factor in and evaluate staff and councillor’s time, support services and additional city resources that were assigned and continue to be assigned to the Core Review Process. Many folks in Prince George are asking the question of ROI from the Core Review.

This was a stupid idea on so many levels, it’s hard to document them all.

Putting aside the bear and WCB issues, who would pay extra to put a bag out when they could just wait for the next week?

Lonesome sparrow could you do a cost breakdown of an independent shop and do a side by side comparison with the city shop so we can see the difference. That would only be fare.

At Council it was mentioned that in most lanes the garbage is still picked up by hand due to the constraints of the lane widths.

Vancouver has a virtual zero clearance on the lifting device – a vertical conveyor belt like contraption with a short, unarticulated arm. Works like a hot dam.

Orlando Florida has trucks with arms that have grabbing devices which can pick up two bins at the same time if they are placed side by side, or one bin if that is save all there is. Thus, in houses which are close enough together neighbours can work together to do that. In row houses and duplexes it is still easier because of dwelling adjacencies.

Imagine, combine that with larger trucks, which most communities have, and you could get the job done in 30 to 40 percent less time.

Again, I think administration is not looking for enough methods to present to Council in the first place.

One possibility is that the trucks in PG need a bit more reach to account for snow banks, can not always get right up beside the garbage can for 6 months a year.

seamutt: The only breakdown needed is the charge out rate for the shop and if the city can do the same amount of work for that much. The union contracts in dealerships allow for workers to be sent home during slow periods, can the city do this?

“Vancouver has a virtual zero clearance on the lifting device – a vertical conveyor belt like contraption with a short, unarticulated arm. Works like a hot dam.”

I observed a similar system in operation in Germany in 1981. Straight up and down chain drive with a short hook bracket. However, it required a second worker to walk along and wheel the garbage can up to it, engage it and return the garbage can after it was empty. It did have the advantage of the garbage can staying fully closed (even while upside down) until the lid opened up into the truck bin itself. No garbage flying around!

Retired 02

The Fraser Institute has done some good work.One of their studies found that the cleft on the chin of many longtime municipal workers was not natural but in fact a permanent impression left by the top of a shovel handle:0

Lonesome sparrow not much of an answer. Still waiting for the comparison.

“Included in the overhead
-shop supervision and other support services
-$5 million for the 22ave yard plus ongoing upkeep ($40,000.00 to paint doors on books)heat,lights etc.
-expensive diagnostic equipment required to repair modern vehicles that needs yearly updates
-Mechanics retraining to keep up with current technology”

So are you suggesting independent shops do not have this overhead?

Just more evidence that this core review was a waste of money and poorly done. The city should be asking for their money back.

Any overhead that an independent shop would have is reflected in their charge out rate, no need to compare it is already there in black and white. If the rate is $90/hr that is not what the mechanic makes but also covers a portion of heat, lights, buildings, tools,profit etc etc.

What we don’t have is a similar number from the City shop.

Speaking of the core review and the waste of money its turning out to be, how much money has the city wasted on their so called green fleet of vehicles.

Read the following article the green fleet may not be so green. How come we never see how well the green fleet is performing?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/10/is-the-tesla-model-s-green/#comment-1271475

Great article Ben.
The core review is turning out to be a total waste of money. Disappointing to see that some of the points are even being taken seriously by our Mayor…guess she has to justify spending $328,000 on it. Proposing the extra bag for curb pickup is ludicrous when only a short while ago, residents were being asked to keep their garbage IN CANS indoors and not put it out before the morning of the pickup because of animals getting into it. Imagine the mess if this went ahead!

It was encouraging to see that not only Skakun can think for himself, now he is being joined by Frizell, Wilbur, Everitt and Krause. Hopefully this doesn’t only apply to garbage pickup but other hot button topics in the future. Could it be that Mayor Green’s grip is starting to slip?
As others have stated, Hall sure is a disappointment…..we voted for him and sorry we did — we expected better, possibly a bit of fresh air on council but see he’s a follower, not a leader. We need more Skakuns!

Speaking of the City spending $328,000 on a core review in attempts to cut costs, does anyone know how much money the City spent on the Vancouver lawyer to defend the City’s rezoning the old Haldi Road School property to make way for a Women’s Recovery Centre? In addition to the Vancouver lawyer’s costs, since City lost the case, how much did they have to refund the Haldi Residents in court costs? Now, pending 4th and final reading for a 2nd try at pushing through this rezoning, which appears to AGAIN be contrary to the Official Community Plan, how much more money will the taxpayers be on the hook for in court costs?

Trying to fit square pegs into round holes just doesn’t work no matter how many times you try…..only costs taxpayers more money and I for one am getting fed up with this waste of time and money by our current council. I don’t think we needed a core review….we need a new council (with the exception of Skakun).

Even the Germans can get it wrong … ;-)

Here is the system I am referring to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLHjgP5idMw

To see the Orlando truck pick up two bins click on here and move to just after a minute of the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w6uIDEbNX4

notice the pliability of the plastic containers – wonder how long they last? I think one would have to work on the container design as well as the claw design to improve the two container pickup process.

Progress.

Perhaps in another 50 years we will be processing the garbage in our homes to a slurry, which will be carried by pipes to a plant which will further process it for energy.

Maybe in 50 years we will processing the garbage in our own flux capacitor’s mounted on Delorean’s. Ah, that is a good ol’ movie.

Mr. Fusion!

Con-Fusion certainly reigns, rains, reins ….

So many ways to spell the same sound … now that is confusion……. ;-)

Gus writes – Perhaps in another 50 years we will be processing the garbage in our homes to a slurry, which will be carried by pipes to a plant which will further process it for energy.

LOL I just about fell out of my chair laughing. – Like the Haldi Road people were promised by the city when amalgamation 35 years ago for water and sewer hookups…Oh they have 15 years left lol….

Victims of illusion.

I meant the Haldi folks……

Thats exactly it middle finger – no point in doing the work twice, might as well wait and run the slurry pipes while they dig in the sewer pipes. Now THATS efficiency!

Gus:”Even the Germans can get it wrong … ;-)”

Exactly, but don’t forget that this was more than 30 years ago. Prince George had never even seen such a truck and was unaware that it was an option for the manual method.

At the same time (1981) I observed that stores in Germany were obliged to keep the packaging of merchandise if the customer asked for it. One would unpack whatever it was from the carton and the store would look after the cardboard disposal.

Lonesome still waiting.

seamutt

I w-i-l-l s-p-e-a-k s-l-o-w-l-y s-o y-o-u c-a-n u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d.

R-e-r-e-a-d 11:51 a-m p-o-s-t-i-n-g i-t e-x-p-l-a-i-n-s h-o-w i-n-d-p-e-n-d-e-n-t s-h-o-p-s p-a-s-s t-h-e-i-r o-v-e-r-h-e-a-d o-n t-h-r-o-u-g-h t-h-e-i-r b-i-l-l-i-n-g p-r-o-c-e-s-s ;P

T-h-e c-i-t-y p-a-s-s-e-s t-h-e-i-r c-o-s-t-s o-n t-o t-h-e t-a-x-p-a-y-e-r.

S-t-i-l-l r-e-a-d-i-n-g ?

Seamutt wrote:

“Lonesome sparrow could you do a cost breakdown of an independent shop and do a side by side comparison with the city shop so we can see the difference. That would only be fare.”

I fail to understand why that would be fair. It presupposes that one has easy access to that information. In the case of an independent shop that is proprietary information and in the case of the City, they do not divulge that information unless one does an FOI request. Even then, the City’s true costs would be very difficult to access. Even the City would not know without considerable effort.

For instance, if they built a shop in the past, or will build one now, the cost is not allocated as a cost to doing automotive servicing. They do not pay “internl rent” for various departments who use space.

I do not know if the cost of administering the purchasing function is backcharged by the City’s purchasing agent to the department.

I suspect that project, program, internal service departments such as janatorial, human resources, purchasing, IT, building maintenance, etc. are backcharged to accounts which track various services which can be accessed by outsourcing. Thus, there are real problems with comparing apples to apples. If they come within 10%, I think they are lucky.