Perhaps a document that lists each and every piece of equipment including small engine staff vehicles run by city hall staff. Purchasing, who puts out all tenders and makes the decisions on these things should have that information readily available.
What vehicles/equipment we own, year and perhaps current km or hours of each piece.
I’m sure we can all recognize the newer pieces of equipment and vehicles out there. Not even 4 years old garbage trucks, sand trucks, sidewalk machine, hyrid vehicles, graders, mowers…. etc. etc. We certainly can’t need new EVERYTHING, can we?

Better have another core review. Some pencil pusher from KPMG says we can save $160,000 by changing a 10 to a 12. And city hall says what a great idea. Lets tell the public about this stroke of genius. As with everything, “it looked really good on paper”.

Does that mean that we could save another $160,000.00 if we go from 12 to 14??

Give a crappy hockey player a new hockey stick and you still have a crappy hockey player.

Just privatize snow removal already. The City has already proven its incompetence. Next year they’ll be asking for $20 Million at this rate.

Let the operators use a little common sense. I’m sure head management won’t let them tie their shoes before they get the go ahead. I’ve been to jobs were a worker comes up with a brilliant idea, only to be swept under the carpet. Two days later management comes up with the same idea.

In this case I’m sure management won’t even listen to there ideas. Wouldn’t want to lose their jobs now

NoWay: That’s true but you give a good operator an old piece of equipment and he’ll find a way to get the job done. It all comes down to how this equipment is utilised. With proper management, a much better, more efficient job could be done. Why don’t we get some of the operators to tell their stories on here, about how things could be done differently?

How about interviewing some of these people Ben?

The operators, foremen and junior managers. I’ve heard stories from some of them that need to be aired.

From the top, you only get part of the story, usually the spin. From the bottom, you get a completely different picture.

In my opinion, Sherry Green said to Bill Gaal, lets give these whiny tax payers sticker shock and come up with a wish list of every possible snow removal expense you can think of, then pad the bill again by adding 20% to increase the shock factor. Then we will release this number to the public and we’ll show them what all their complaints could cost them. Vindictive, that’s how I interpret the $6000000 price tag, and that’s how what I think of Sherry Green.

I do not claim to be a snow removal expert but I have a little common sense. If the city snow removal team has to wait till 12 Cm has accumulated and the previous 11.9 cm has now become like a rock, frozen hard packed and almost impossible to remove. Now you put a grader or loader on it to remove it in the same amount of time it would take to remove fresh 5-10 cm of snow. My common sense would tell me that it’s cheaper, less hours and a lot less in repairs and maintenance on the older equipment. I bet if there was one person on council or administration that understood equipment should be able to figure this out. Starting with Mayor Green who has shown us no common sense what so ever.

Problem is, these people you talk about interviewing are probably not going to want to become front and center because they might find themselves doing a job they despise if they make the supervisors look like idiots. I have to work with outside city workers in my day to day job, and although I hear them when they tell me how stupid some of the decisions are, and how there is so much incompetence at the top, not one of them would even think of voicing that in public. Their over inflated wages and benefit packages and retirement plans mean too much to them. And a “I have a source at city works” story does nothing to make the incompetence public.

JB has the right idea! Let the City determine to what level they want the snow removal done and then put it out to tender!

Same thing for potholes and paving projects. Garbage collection as well.

At least, then when it is privatized the City can go after the private contractors and stop demonstrating that it might be in over its head.

Who cares about Mayor Green? It is the City Manager who is in charge of operations, not Green.

Gall should have been given his walking papers with the changing of the deck chairs. His report is just one more piece of evidence.

What is Bill Gaals history with the city? Does he have heavy equipment experience? Has he ever operated equipment or was he just another bureaucrat that was placed into a position just because of seniority? Is he the right man for the job? Does anyone have any background on him. So far he does not impress me.

“Let the City determine to what level they want the snow removal done and then put it out to tender!”

They have made that determination and it is stupid.

We are now at the point where we have to even farm that decision making out to a private contractor.

Performance requirement – clear ALL the streets within 36 hours of the last snowfall. The contractor can figure out how best to do that whether to start when the snow falls or when it ends.

I almost get the feeling that Northern Citizen nailed it. “They want to complain? Fine, lets give them something to complain about”.
There is nothing wrong with the citys equipment. Keep in mind that the cities equipment is alot newer than most of the equipment used by local contractors that do snow removal now. Just to roughly estimate an example, the city loaders are early to mid 2000’s (ten years old say) and Acme’s loaders are late 70’s to early 80’s. Same with IN’s loaders, they are over 30 years old as well.
In other words, if the city contracted snow removal out it would probably get done by older equipment than what they cant manage to do it with. hmmmm.

So what is the process now? If the council agrees to new equipment do we have any say what so ever?

It has been over 2 weeks and I still have not seen a plow or grader in my area. The road is now so rough it is worst than a washboard gravel road.

At least on positive of not getting it done it slows down the yahoo speeders!

We don’t have to privatize everything.Talk to the Forman and the workers who run this equipment,they will be able to tell you the best way to get the job done.I think the labour dispute did cause a problem.If you contract the work out you may have a bigger problem than you have now.We need good paying jobs in this City and we don’t need equipment operators working for lower wages.

oldman1: “If you contract the work out you may have a bigger problem than you have now.”

That’s always the statement that gets thrown out whenever privatization is suggested. Based on that, we shouldn’t look at any alternative solutions for anything ever.

At least if we have problems with contracted service, we can get rid of them and bring someone else in. Currently, there is no incentive for the City crews to do a good job or meet any sort of service level.

2014 Gravel Road Projects

http://princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2014/2014_02_24/index.html

Looks like the Haldi area gets close to $300,000 for pulverized asphalt – claiming there will be less annual maintenance.

HUH??

The city maintains the gravel roads only 3 times a year when there is no snow and if the people are lucky enough in the winter only three times a year – except for the bus route which is about 6 times a year for the winter.

Guess the people of the Haldi area should be looking into being with regional district as you will be getting less maintenance on your roads. lol

Gus:”We are now at the point where we have to even farm that decision making out to a private contractor.”

Right you are! My eternal optimism clouded my judgment, obviously!

Gaal’s statement that the grader fleet is between 3 and 7 years old and needs to be upgraded it one of the dumbest statements I have ever read. When the city took delivery of the equipment the dealer also supplied them with something called an owners manual. If someone had cracked the cover of it they would have found a page titled “Recommended Service Intervals” Looking down the page they would have found everything from 500 hour oil change to 20,000 hour major component rebuild. By following these recommendations the equipment would offer the same degree of reliability as new almost indefinitely.

How many hours are on this equipment? A 10 yo grader with low hours would be like a 10 yo car with 20,000 on the clock.
The hour meter in the dash is not to tell the operator when the shift is over!

There is one guy in the states who has over 3 million miles on his 1966 Volvo,if he maintained it the way way the city does with their building and equipment the car would now be a pile of rust and dust instead of his daily driver.

Johnnybelt – City workers do a good job and if they don’t they could be reprimanded or replaced. Private contractors’ concern is their pocket book -check the main highways when it became privatized – conditions detoriated. Has anyone got rid of the highways department contractor?

“City workers do a good job and if they don’t they could be reprimanded or replaced.”

Everyone in an organization has a job to do.

The person who operates a plow or grader should have the knowledge and skill to operate that machine. In addition, there is the expectation that the job is done in reasonable time as well as reasonable quality.

The manager’s job is to make sure that the work is done to the expected quality and time constraints.

They each get evaluated by a superior. Those who do not perform to an agreed to expectation need to be made aware of that and given opportunities to improve to that expectation.

In my experience, managers, on average, do lousy jobs with working with the people in their department. They either do not know how to carry that function out or they are lazy and simply do not do it.

That is why they are not “reprimanded or replaced”.

Of course, I have never used that terminology. Before anything else is done one must give a person a way to improve through training, mentorship by someone who is an excellent worker, etc.

I suspect that is the main problem at City Hall, not at the worker level as much as it is at the administrator level.

It appears that Gaal and some others at City Hall are playing us for fools.

He originally stated in his report Jan 2nd that there had been no changes in how snow is removed, except for weather events, and volume of snow per storm event and residents expectations. This as a rather snide report.

Council then demanded a better explanation and he then made his report dated Jan 28th. which will be discussed on Feb. 24th meeting. This report all of a sudden admits that there were some management, union, problems such as people off on statutory holidays, and vacations during that time. In addition he notes that they had trouble getting rented equipment because of a shortage of both equipment and operators. The shortage of equipment and operators from the private sector is a result of the City not being on top of the file. It was common knowledge through out the City that this equipment was no longer available.

He then throws in the request for $6.5 million for new machinery, staff, etc; Where the hell did that come from???? What’s wrong with the present equipment??

He makes reference to phoning the Airport Authority and borrowing a grader and operator as being a positive. Duhhhh, that must have take all of twenty minutes..

There is no doubt this latest report is to let Councilors, and the public at large know that he knows best what’s good for the City, and we should keep out noses out of HIS business.

Lets see how Council handles this little missive. Will they put the motion back on the floor for a full enquiry into this problem, with input from Councilors, and from the Public, or will they turn down the request for the $6.5 million, and pretend that they accomplished something.

Does anyone doubt that we have a serious Management problem at City Hall?????

So, do you think maybe this is a scheme to steer the citizens in the direction of privatization, which seemed like a recurring theme in the kpmg core review. Get the managers, who won’t be affected by privatization, to botch the job so bad that people will want it taken out of the hands of the incompetent outside workers? PPP seemed to be a favoured option according to the core review, but city hall knows that the unions, most citizens would protest against privatizing our infrastructure maintenance. I say, privatize it, as long as the company is local to BC and outside workers are not brought in if they can be filled here. This idea of allowing foreign interests to control our infrastructure maintenance is not acceptable.

How many lies will we continue to hear?

First it was “every single piece of equipment was out” when clearly it wasn’t.

Then it was “we have every single available person working” when we later find out there is a shortage due to holidays.

Then it was “all city streets have been plowed” when in reality I could throw a dart at a map of the city and chances are the street where the dart hits hasn’t yet been done.

Now its “the snow removal has been poor because our equipment is old and broken. Give us millions for new gear if you want better snow removal.”

It simply boggles my mind how Gaal can drop the ball on snow removal and his report shows evidence of that and he still has his job.

One should not pick on the workers. They are assigned tasks to perform as per job description. It is the management which is responsible for managing and planning and for failure of proper planning.

Workers are not allowed to have a say in managing. Mismanagement is a privilege of management, meaning managers.

I understand that we are paying the City Manager $235,000 per year in salary. What does she do for this money? She sure is not reducing the cost of operating the City. As soon as Green was elected she quickly hired herself an assistant and then spent $330,000.00 on a core review. Was this consultant a contributor to her last campaign? As long as Gaal is around, we will be wasting money on his remuneration as well.
Considering the above individuals, this is where your snow removal problems start. There is also a total lack of common sense.

I haven’t read the other posts here but I have to say that asking city council for $6 million dollars to get better service after admitting that the department in charge allowed staff to go on holidays as well as staff members refusing overtime is freaking crazy stupid, IMHO.

Sorry union people but snow removal staff should not have a clause in their contract about not working overtime. If the job needs to be finished, then they have to work o/t. Plain and simple. Private business works this way. It’s what people do to keep things working and running.

Gaal should go. I thought the city manager would clue in that he is in way over his head.