Aren’t The Fire Chief, City Manager, and Police Chief City Employees?
We at 250News often get criticized because it is felt that the surveys that we undertake are not accurate . We agree they are no more than a yard stick of the public's thinking. We get thousands of replies in our survey. Had we only received the number the City "polled" in its survey, (301) we would be embarrassed to post them.
Case in point, in the Mustel survey, the 301 people surveyed were asked ;
"The following are activities or services provided by the City of Prince George through tax revenues. To what extent is each a priority to you?"
Now ranked the highest is road maintenance, then snow removal, then fire services, then police services , then recreational services , and trails and parks upkeep. Then the question is asked "Increased wages for city workers". Well first and foremost there is no snow removal, no road maintenance, no police, no fire services, no recreation or no trails and parks without "workers" Those same workers are employed as police officers and firefighters . They are responsible for snow removal, road maintenance and recreation facilities. So which "employees" was the survey talking about? Was it the City Manager, City Engineer, City Mayor, they are, after all, City "employees", and to someone answering a survey why would they be different?
But wait there is more, 5% of those polled thought increasing the wages for city workers was a high priority. May I do the math for those at the "Hall" . 5% of 301 = 15 people, now that must be sufficient in the minds of those calling the shots that this is what the 70,000 odd people of the city are thinking.
Set aside any argument you might have about whether the workers ( and that should include firemen, police and indeed management) should receive a wage increase, would those people that occupy the fifth floor at city hall be content with 15 people telling them they should not get a raise, 'cause I hate to break it to them, that question would likely to produce the same result.
When the survey was set, why didn't the fifth floor at the hall ask those same 15 people if they thought that spending an additional 400,000 on management salaries fits in with their thinking? Why didn't they ask whether the citizens were in favour of increased spending in salaries from $1,267,435 to 1,807,538 to hire a Communications Director, a new Deputy Corporate Officer, and possibly one or two other communications folks? Wonder what the result of that question would be?
If you're going to talk about city employee salaries, you need to lump in everyone from the janitor to the head of the police department, and the fire chief. City Hall decided it didn't want to know the result of that question, which makes us ask, why not?
I'm Meisner and that's one man's opinion
Comments
“City Hall decided it didn’t want to know the result of that question, which makes us ask, why not?”
Same reason why consultation of the public via referendums (referenda) is often frowned upon by the white collar elite. Many at the more elevated level feel that it would be submitting to mob rule and interfering with the application of their superior wisdom.
Thanks Ben for your article. Very good reasoning and logical. For a city with only about 72000 people, we are paying in excess of 200,000 dollars a year for some positions at city hall…and for what? We pay some “employees” in excess of $120.00 per hour, to come up with skewed surveys as mentioned above, that at best, alienate those that man the shovels and launch the bureaucrats at city hall into the world of strawberry fields and fairy lands.
Bingo, Benny!
The City are being terrible hypocrites. First they tell the Union that there’s no money for new employees, then they turn around, fire some good workers, and pay new people more to do the same job, as well as wasting even more money on recruitment and hiring.
We have Councilors who are supposed to be representing the people who elected them.
For the most part they sit in the back ground and do not get involved in the issues of the day. In fact it seems that everything is left to the Administrators. That is **ok** to some extent, however at the end of the day we need our elected representatives to be involved in all major decisions in this City. Some examples where they might want to stand up and be counted.
1. Business Licenses for rental property.
2. Increase in off street, and parkade parking.
3. Storm Water Utility Initiative (Tax grab)
4. Salaries and Benefits for Management positions.
5. Sale of City property, and where the money from the sale is being spent.
6. Performing Arts Centre, the total cost, where the money will be coming from, and the real cost of operating and maintenance.
7. Community Energy System. How is it operating without Lakeland Mills. What effect has the decrease in the price of natural gas and the loss of Lakeland have on this project,. It is still viable, or is it now a money losing proposition??
There is more, however this is a good start. We need our Councilors to be involved in major issues, otherwise we have
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
If we are going to allow unelected City Administrators to make all the decisions at City Hall, then we should look at contracting out the running of City Hall to private enterprise.
Very good article Ben and excellent points Palopu . I too am wondering what is going on with our elected officials. None of the councillors are questioning or challenging the Mayor or administration on any critical decisions. Most decisions that come before council are easily passed without discussion or consideration of the impact their decision will have on the public. The majority of time they simply raise their hands in favor, why? Consequently for many in PG it is quickly becoming unaffordable to live, work and stay here. We are indeed experiencing TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
If you want to criticize our current mayor maybe you should first look in the mirror – because you voted her in.
What is interesting though is that it only takes a small percentage of votes to win the mayorâs job. If you look back at the numbers from the last election, in a situation that is pretty rare, our current mayor got elected with less than 50% of the vote. Of the 15,266 who voted 6,969 voted for the current Mayor which, because the vote was split with so many candidates, it works out to be about 46% of the vote. The fact is more people voted for someone else than voted for her.
When you factor in all the 53,000 who were actually eligible to vote, our mayor only got 13%. You could also take it a step further and factor in the total population of the city at 77,000 and the percentage of those that voted for her drops to a measly 9%.
These numbers show the problem with our current system. How crazy is our democratic system when a small minority (13% of the eligible voters or less than half of those who actually bother to vote) can put someone in a position of power to make decisions that impact all of us? Then again, perhaps we should look in the mirror and ask ourselves why we allow this to happen. A decision to stay at home and not vote was a decision to endorse her and the special interest groups that dumped a ton of money to help get her elected.
Maybe it is time to fix the system rather than complaining about the outcome. A preferential ballot, a ban on corporate and union campaign donations, and campaign spending limits would do a lot to improve the flawed system we have in place and create a truly accountable government that speaks for everyone and not just the rich and influential.
What is with the “taxation without representation” nonsense all about? We have representation, and Council are responsible for everyone of these decisions. The fact that you don’t like the decisions is clear, but it doesn’t constitute a lack of representation.
Don’t tell us you’re not happy with these decisions, tell them.
The Golden Rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. Always has been, always will be.
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