Welcome to the Senate graveyard of the U.S, Constitution and Democracy

By Gerry Barker

December 30, 2019

Opinion

So, my wife keeps saying to me, “so what?” We are Canadians, eh? We can’t vote there and we can’t change it. Do I sense a little negativity here?

Digging beneath the Trump tweets how he has been treated unfairly, the Senate Majority leader announced that he is working with the legal staff in the White House advocating that he is a Trump toady who is clinging to power.

Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, wants to know the Senate ground rule before sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, says there are no rules and quips that Pelosi wants to run the Senate.

The real story is Trump is the only Republican candidate for the 2020 Presidential election. Sure, there are other declared candidates for the job but the canny Mitch McConnell knows his caucus is solid to defeat the impeachment articles due to be sent to the Senate for trial.

This is a classic Texas standoff between the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Majority Senate leader McConnell.

So, one man is holding the country hostage. He will become the undertaker of the death of democracy in America.

Three years of chaos

It has taken the Trump administration three years to negotiate NAFTA saying the North American Free Trade Agreement was the worse deal the U.S. made and he was going to scrap it.

This was a classic dilemma, who needs friends when you need enemies?

The facts about NAFTA: Canada was the U.S. major trading partner. More Canadian goods and services were sold to the U.S. than China. The President twisted the negotiation stance saying Canada, for years, was ripping off the US by buying less from the U.S. thereby creating a phony trade deficit.

The truth is that the U.S. administration enjoyed a trade surplus with Canada under the NAFTA 20-year-trade agreement.

To bolster his support with his base of followers, Trump invokes steel and aluminum tariffs on Canadian suppliers. What he failed to consider was the impact of the tariffs on the NAFTA auto trade pact, an important part of the NAFTA deal made 20-years ago. It took more than a year to remove the tariffs when U.S auto manufactures and supporting parts supply companies would be damaged by the tariffs.

The Canadian government told the Trump NAFTA negotiators that the tariff had to be removed when a new agreement was reached.

USMCA is the new hit for the Village People

Along came the USMCA, the replacement of NAFTA. In Argentina, the three leaders shook hands on agreeing to the USMCA, That photo-op failed to have the governments of all three partners approve the deal.

The delay has been the result if a number of factors, not the least was the Democrats in 2018 wining the majority in the House of Representatives when Nancy Pelosi became the new Speaker of the House and third in line if the President and Vice President are unable to perform their responsibilities.

This inserted a new element in the USMCA trade agreement. Coupled with that was the number of House resolutions including gun control, prescription drug costs, Universal healthcare, relations with allies and a long list of resolution that were stone-stalled in the Senate by the leader, Mitch McConnell, who sets the agenda for members of the Senate to debate and approve or disapprove the House resolutions.

McConnel did not put the House resolutions on the floor of the Senate for debate.

Many of the House resolutions were already enjoyed in Canada, including controlling lower cost prescriptions, universal health care for all 37 million Canadians, a constitution guaranteeing personal rights for all citizens. Meaningful support of climate control and rediction of fossil fuel emissions are important to Canadians.

Vive la difference!

On the down side was the emasculation of the auto assembly operations. For all his promise to repatriate-manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Trump, in three years in office has seen the number of manufacturing jobs diminish.

The auto giants in America were adapting to innovative assembly operations using robots and just-in-time parts delivery to meet production demands.

The Donald Trump wrecking crew

But the Trump trade policies didn’t stop there. U.S. farmers selling their products to China lost contracts due to the Trump administration’s applying tariffs to Chinese imports.

This impacted Canadian producers pf soybeans and pork sold to China resulted in terminated contracts in retaliation of the arrest of a Chinese official in Vancouver. She was the Chief Financial Officer of one of the world’s largest tel-com and cyber-associated equipment. This woman was allowed to live in a multi-million dollar mansion in Vancouver but had to wear an ankle bracelet 24/7.

The Canadian government arrested her at the request of the Trump administration on charges of breaking U.S laws concerning complicated accounting laws. That was a year ago. In response, Canada demanded the release of two Canadians held in a Chinese prison on charges of esponage.

These events are the direct result of the destruction of trust and cooperation between our two countries.

There is little evidence of using diplomatic channels to resolve differences.

All we have witnessed is the destruction of alliances with our allies in which the President on the phone, told the Turkish President that he was pulling U.S, troops out of eastern Syria. Within days, Turkish militia entered Syria and attacked the Kurdish forces that were supported by the U.S. special forces who were training and operating the command and control system of the Kurdish forces.

That phone call betrayed a loyal and trusted ally who has eliminated the Isis radical Islamic forces from Eastern Syria. Some 14,000 Kurdish soldiers were killed in that three-year elimination of Isis.

Yet this is the President who has done everything, he set out to abolish the Affordable Care Act that is covering the health care costs of 20 million Americans.

He almost made it when the Senate voted to abolish the ACA but it was defeated by one vote, by Senator John McCain. He voted no and died about a year later.

Trump crowed that he would establish a heal care system that would be cheaper and cover more people than the ACA.

It never happened.

A Texas court strips parts of the ACA

Today, a recent Texas court ruled that the denial of pre-existent coverage by insurance companies was unconstitutional. It now moves to a higher court of appeal.

Understand that the President does not care about Canada. His re-election will destroy Democracy and human rights.

Finally, take the promise made by candidate Donald Trump to the out-of =work West Virginia coal miners that he would get the their jobs back and they would produce good clean coal,

How did that work for them?

A West Virginia Democrat, U.S. Senator, Joe Minchin, is quoted that he is not sure whether to cote for impeachment when the Senate trial begins.

Meanwhile, Trump is furiously tweeting insults and lies about his performance.

The potential is that Trump will be the first President to be re-elected on the volume of incoherent tweets.

Why are the citizens still paying the legal costs of a former employee who was fired for cause?

By Gerry Barker

December 16, 2019

Opinion

The following facts support how the abuse of political power that is far too prevalent in terms of fair comment and freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights.

FACT – For the record, my wife and I are residents of the City of Guelph.

FACT – In 2016, I wrote 10 blog posts as outlining Deputy Chief Administrative Officer (DCAO) Mark Amorosi’s statement of claim in which he sued me for defamation. The posts were critical of his role in secretly concealing a total of $98,202 salary increases shared by three senior executives including Amorosi.

FACT – These increases were awarded December 10, 2015 in a closed-session of city council.

FACT – It has never been revealed whether these increases were paid retroactively for 2015 or were received throughout the year before the approval.

FACT -I was served in August 2016 with a demand to apologize to Mark Amorosi for publishing posts on guelphspeaks.ca, critical of the city administration for concealing senior staff salary increases for 2015.

FACT – The lawyer representing Mr. Amorosi, wrote the demand for an apology. The terms included that he would write it. He demanded that it had to be posted at the top of the guelphspeaks blog for 30 days. This demand was rejected.

FACT –  Amorosi’s counsel stated to my counsel that if I refused, he would recommend legal action.

FACT – On November 15 2016, Amorosi announced on the front page of the Guelph Mercury Tribune newspaper that he was suing Barker for $500,000 damages. It was based on defamation as a result of the alleged critical posts. He stated in the article that the City of Guelph was paying his legal expenses.

FACT – In January 2017, Mr. Barker requested a copy of the minutes of the Dec. 10 closed-session meeting of council, and it was denied in April with no explanation.

FACT – On February 9, 2017, Amorosi was fired for cause published in the Mercury Tribune newspaper. He left the city February 20.

FACT – In a sworn statement Amorosi testified that “he agreed to leave” when confronted with an an inadvertent release from the Information Technology department. It forwarded some 50,000 confidential emails to a third party representing a fired employee, Chief Building Inspector, Bruce Poole. Mr. Poole sued the city for $1 million for wrongful dismissal. Amorosi was in charge of that department and it formed the basis of his dismissal.

FACT – Three major news outlets, described Amorosi’s dismissal as being fired. The word ‘fired’ was also published in the Mercury Tribune article about the firing

FACT – On March 31, 2016, the 2015 provincial Sunshine List was published. The public learned of the three senior managers shared salary increases of $98,202. The province publishes the List composed of all public employees in the province earning more than $100,000 a year, not including taxable benefits.

FACT – The three recipients of these increase included the Chef Administrative Officer (CAO), Ann Pappert, who received an increase of $37,000 taking her 2015 salary to $257,000. The majority of that increase included a retroactive performance bonus of $27,000.

FACT – DCAO’s Mark Amorosi and Derrick Thomson shared the balance with Amorosi’s 2015 salary jumping 14 per cent by $209,000

FACT – Derrick Thomson received an increase of 19 per cent taking his 2015 salary to more than $207,000.

FACT – The three senior managers cost the city in 2015, $673,000 plus some $20,000 in taxable benefits.

FACT – CAO Ann Pappert resigned in April 2016. DCAO Thomson resigned in January 2016 but was rehired in May to replace Ms. Pappert who left her job May 26, 2016.

FACT – When the 2016 Sunshine List was published in March 2017, former employee Ms. Pappert was paid $263,000 for five months work in 2016.

FACT – The new CAO Derrick Thomsob, announced details of his three-year contract which included a salary of $230,000 plus $11,000 taxable benefit for using his personal car for city business.

FACT – In March 2019, Derrick Thomson “parted ways with the city” for reasons unknown today. When the 2018 Sunshine list was published, Mr. Thomson’s salary was $335,000. In just two and a half years on the job, Mr. Thomson earned $100,000 more than his stated 2016 three-year salary of $230,000.

FACT – Mayor Cam Guthrie explained that Mr. Thomson was given a $67,000 performance bonus for his work on giving away Guelph Hydro to Alectra Utilities. Guelph Hydro stated in its 2016 financial report that the city-owned power distribution utility had a total value of $228 million.

FACT –Amorosi testified that city council did not approve staff salaries. Under the CAO bylaw, it was CAO Thomson who must have approved his 2018 salary and performance bonus.

FACT – I requested a statement from the city in 2018 of the amount of public money that had been spent on Amorosi’s lawsuit and it was denied because the case was before the courts.

FACT – From a reliable source, I learned there was another closed-session meeting of council in May 2018 to discuss the status of the Amorosi lawsuit and the legal costs to May 2018. It was reported the city paid Amorosi’s legal costs of $30,000. Without reservation, knowing what my legal costs are to date, it will be much more than that figure and counting.

FACT– This is another example of the city denying and obfuscating the details that aren’t serving the public interest.

FACT – The city has never explained why it is continuing this attack on one of its citizens. One who dared to criticize an issue that according to the city’s own code of conduct, that excludes open government policies, allowing accountability and transparency of the peaple’s business?

FACT – It has cost Amorosi nothing in three years to perpetuate the city’s complicity in contnuing to finance his lawsuit that is without merit.

FACT – To date it has cost me $86,000 to defend myself. It’s not over yet.

FACT – The city administration has never cooperated or acknowledged details of that December 10, 2015 closed-session meeting of council. It approved the three senior staff increases’ increases. In that same month, in another closed-session, council approved a bylaw indemnifying any employee or elected officials by paying their legal costs if facing a legal proceeding against them.

FACT – I did not sue Mr. Amorosi, he sued me, or I didn’t fire him or, in his submission made to the judge in 2019 that he was unable to get a job because of what I had written about him in 2016.

FACT – Two independent individuals searched Amorosi’s name on the Internet. There was only one of my posts on the site but references to his dismissal from the city dominated the site.

FACT – Since August 2016, the same lawyer has represented Mr. Amotosi.

DACT – CAO Ann Pappert who left the city in May 2016 recommended the indemnification bylaw in December 2015.

SUMARY

These are facts. They represent a major attack by a city council on a private citizen for unfounded reasons.

The cost to the citizens of Guelph including me, the defendant, is being covered-up by the administration.

If you believe the proceeding facts are not true and agree with the administration that are worth very penny, you are signaling denial the right of a citizen to protest the abuse of power by controlling city council, then good luck.

Our taxes, fees and services are way out of line with comparable communities. It has been like that for the past 13 years. That’s the main reason that our costs of living in Guelph keep increasing every year. Just remember the promise made by Cam Guthrie in 2014 that he would keep the property tax annual increase equal to the rate of inflation.

That promise went out the window with his first budget for 2015 when the final rate was 3.96 per cent. The Consumer Price Index for 2014 stated the inflation rate for Canada was 1.1 per cent.

So if you are not satisfied with the way your city is being managed, with respect, you should start researching how this city has arbitrarily increased its operating cost and sourceded capital to build needed projects, such as a new central library, the South End Community Centre to name just two.

Two projects leap out that are now approved under way, The new Maintenance capus for Guelph Transit and the Parkade on Wilson Street next door to City Hall. Both these projects on the surface seem important but strikingly inclusive for staff needs.

There has been too much waste of resources, mismanagement, not to mention the millions lost including Urbacon, GMHI, environmental services, downtown, dodgy deferred taxes and development breaks to developers, to name a few emptying the city till.

If you believe that we and the city can do better then let your councillors know and demand a clean up of the administration’s policies. Press staff and council to lower operating costs. Get rid of the deals and stop the shallow spinning of action. When the city says, that within ten years it will have spent $1,7 billion on capital funded projects, lets have some specifics including estimated costs, dates to completion and the sources of revenue to pay the bills..

This administration is overdue for a diet. Waiting three years to change the cast of characters can’t come soon enough.

Please note that like most of us we are about to enjoy the holidays, guelphspeaks.ca will be on hiatus until Monday, January 7, 2020. That gives us time to say goodby to the leftovers and start the new year with good health and optimism for 2020. Enjoy!

 

 

The city budget documents are opaque and missing are the devil in the details

By Gerry Barker

December 9, 2019

Opinion

Let me start by saying that the budget reports I have read downloaded from the city website, are concise and informative.

The budget is broken into three parts. There is the capital-spending budget; the tax supported operating budget and the non-tax supported budget.

Council has approved all three budgets and the overall impact on property tax is 3.91 per cent for 2020. When the property assessments are released by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, (MPAC), the tax rate increase is adjusted in April

It is certain the rate will increase the property tax rate to probably the highest in the past 15 years.

What is lacking here are the numbers. What is the total cost of the tax-supported operating budget? It represents the largest chunk of revenue in the city budget.

While we’re at it, tell us about the status of the reserve funds, total value, how is the money invested, what are the investments types and terms, and who is responsible for managing these funds?

Are these reserves ever used to balance the city books at year-end when the Financial Information Report is completed and sent to the province?

Noting that $170,000 is being transferred to the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund, the total to $50,000. Is it possible to produce the status of all reserve funds annually with the budget approvals?

Here’s what I think the city budget reports should contain:

2019 budget- Accrual – difference 2020 Budget Comparison 2019 actual

Revenue stated first. Next comes Expenses for each budget category

Revenue

Property taxes, special levies,

Reserve Funds by amount and name income/withdrawal (attach note)

Investment income

Development fees

Building permits

Bylaw permits including parking, special events, and infractions

Provincial grants, gas tax refund, carbon tax refund, infrastructure

Federal grants including infrastructure, transit

Guelph transit – Bus passes, University students, rider passes and single payer fees

Property taxes recovered

Fines

Rentals of city property

Deposits for services

Water – potable – wastewater – Storm water

Real Estate sales

Expenses

City Staff costs:

Bonuses – Expenses full-time – part-time – casual – contract – consultants

Benefits – OMERS, other labour organizations – travel and staff expenses

City property maintenance costs

Legal and professional fees

Infrastructure – roads, sewers, water distribution systems

Police

Fire

EMS

Sleeman Centre

Hanlon Business Park

Government – council – boards

Donations – Wellness – community projects

Environmental – bike lanes and trails renewable energy maintenance

Electricity

Natural Gas

City Vehicle reports capital costs, facilities

HST costs

The Elliot

The Library

The Evergreen Senior’s Centre

Fines

Debt – Amount Servicing costs term and lender

There will be some revenue and expense category I have missed. If nothing else, adopting this makes it easy to compare and track the city operations. There would be many supporting notes to round out each category.

To be blunt, this is in the public interest and over the years there has been no rationalization of reserve fund intake and pay out. In my opinion this appears to be a method of using reserves whenever a need arises regardless of the reserve fund designation.

Moving on to the capital budget. Council has approved spending $151.6 million in 2020. The approval states it includes projects to be started or completed in 2020.

But here is the wrinkle: Council received the 10-year capital-spending forecast of “just over” $1.7 billion. That averages some $170 million projected capital spending for the next ten years.

During 2020, council will confirm that the following projects be commenced in the next ten years: The new central downtown library, The Baker district parkade and the South End Community Centre.

Two of these major projects have been promised for many years. In fact the city has already invested more than $3 million on the South End project from operating funds.

That familiar tactic, kick these projects down the road

I regret suggesting that these decision and promises are political designed to satisfy the stakeholders. They are words with little action.

Remember most of this council voted to give Guelph Hydro away when there were interested parties prepared to buy the utility. This council, save for two new councillors, are the same members who voted 10 to 3 to give away the well-run and profitable city-owned utility.

All I ask from the administration is to inform the public, in plain English, of what the city gained in approving the Guelph Hydrp

disposal, of which most of the negotiations were conducted in closed-sessions.

Hoodwinked is an understatement and most members of our council were expertly mesmerized and taken like hicks at the circus.

To the victors belong the spoils

Well, Derrick Thomson can’t complain, he walked away with a $67,000 performance bonus for his work in the Hydro giveaway. He’s now gone and his co-chair of the committee charged with disposing Guelph Hydro, Chair Jane Armstrong, was appointed by city council to represent Guelph. She was appointed to the Board of Directors of Alectra Utilities earning $25,000 a year plus travel expenses. Her five-year appointment will earn her $125,000.

I believe the city has a much more qualified senior management in place now but there remains some old habits of lying by omission and obscuring details of responsible operations.

The reports do not reveal the outcome of the Guelph Police Services request for a budget increase of $3.9 million. It did say that Guelph Transit was approved to spend $1.720,000 to increase services to the Hanson Business Park and expand community bus services and the spare bus ratio.

I agree with Coun. Dan Gibson who questioed the need for ridership data. We need to see that detailed data over a 12 month period necessary to assess the needs of Guelph public transit.

I know that there is tremendous customer impact between September and April when 22,000 students arrive.

But we have to ask: Why did the city purchase five buses last year and not have the staff to operate them? The type of buses and the operating fuel is not known. With the plan to the “greening” of public transit, one would believe that would affect the need of capital to reach that goal.

How much is this system costing the city in subsidies and what must the taxpayers pony up to keep it afloat?

The increasing costs ofsupporting those in need

These aforementioned issues reflect spending money to support a minority audience to rehabilitate drug addicts, the homeless, the mentally ill and the disaffected. They represent Canada’s walking wounded.

Guelph over the years has become a Mecca of societies’ underclass. Dealing with it has many times, ignored the problem. The University has a role to play to work with the city authorities to reduce the lawless behaviour occurring downtown.

Yes, affordable housing is a part solution. Why can’t the city leverage private developers to include affordable housing?

The staffing of trained individuals is needed to conduct appropriate rehabilitation and support is daunting. Also seeking funding for specific projects from both levels of senior governments could lead to operating successful programs to help those in need and less fortunate.

A good start would be to conduct a staff rationalization to help reduce the bulging city overhead.

 

 

The police budget deferment demonstrates council’s ignorance of how our public safety service works on our behalf 24/7

By Gerry Barker

December 2, 2019

Opinion

Coun. June Hofland, has indicated that she may ask the Police Services Board to spread out “its big budget ask” over two or three years.

The former chair of the council finance committee for three years in the Farbridge administration, Ms. Hofland was also on the Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc board of direcors. With her years of experience, she would logically understand the relationship between city council and the Police Board.

She said she intended to discuss the 10 per cent Police Budget increase of $3.9 million with the chair of the Police Board before the final vote on the city budget, is taken on December 3.

If city council were a TV sitcom, you wouldn’t need a laugh track.

But their behavior overseeing the public’s business is no laughing matter.

Its time to start dumping the administration’s garbage can

But Ms. Hofland isn’t a throwback to Gilligan’s Island; she’s just an amiable stooge for her fellow councillors, Curly, Joe and Moe.

Editor’ note: Having been sued by these same guys three years ago, I hesitate to identify them but I’m confident you can figure it out.

These three gems stated they would support Ms. Hofland’s approach to discuss the Police Budget with the chair of the Police Board. It’s called the hands-on approach.

Trouble is, that’s not permitted because the Police Services Board is an independent body, not subject to council intervention in its financial requirements or operations.

In fact, the Police Board is empowered to seek resolution of their service requirements from a province-appointed mediator to review the budget if city council reneges.

Why not talk to Police Board members, the Mayor and Coun. Billings?

So if those four councillors supported the Hofland proposal, why didn’t they talk to the Mayor and Coun. Christine Billings who are members of the Police Board?

It’s interesting to me that in August 2014, just before council was denied capital spending due to the October civic election, the Farbridge council approved spending $34 million on renovation of the downtown police HQ.

The project is scheduled for completion at the end of this month, five years later.

This capital project was to be financed with $3 million from the Police Board reserve, diverting development fees from private projects and adding to the city debt.

This decision came on the heels of being forced to spend $23 million over budget to complete the new city hall and renovation of the old city hall. It was only the tip of the iceberg that was caused by vital mismanagement of the project by city contract staff. A judgment by Justice Donald MacKenzie confirmed wrongful dismissal of the general contractor, Urbacon Buildings Gtoup.

Along came GMHI

One of the serious problems facing the Guthrie administration was the former mayor’s pet project to use Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc to make Guelph self-sufficient in terms of power generation. The plan introduced geo-thermal heating and cooling to a handful of downtown buildings, including two new high-rise condominiums.

The former Mayor was also chair of the GMHI board of directors that took control of Guelph Hydro and installed solar-generating panels on many public buildings to generate electricity. It was only the beginning of creating a district Energy plan.

None of these major projects were conducted with oversight or participation of the public. June Hofland was a member of the GMHI board of directors but never commented or spoke up about the operations.

The shoe dropped in May 2016 with a report of the financial mess GMHI was in. It was followed in July with a staff analysis that was devastating. Then came an independent, consolidated audit of GMHI by the accounting firm KPMG.

It revealed a shareholder’s liability of $66 million. This was never denied by city council.

This has been the genesis of disastrous toxic mixture of poor planning, crazy-legs fiscal management wasting public money, and, mostly done in secret.

This is the damning 14-year legacy of overtaxing property and user fees with yearly increasing by more than twice the rate of the Consumer Price Index maintained by StatCan.

It was toxic because the Mayor of the city was also the chair of GMHI with a loyal supporting cast of councillors and the city’s Chief Administrative Officer, Ann Pappert, who also doubled as Chief Executive Officer of GMHI.

Pappert knew in 2015 that she could be in trouble as two reports of the GMHI operations were a devastating indictment of a failure to manage and oversee the impact on the city’s finances.

The record shows she started her exit from the city in late 2015 by requesting the cash value of her unused sick and vacation benefits from the Human Resources Department.

And who was in charge of that department? Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Mark Amorosi.

In December 2015, council held two closed-session meeting. One was to award CAO Pappert with a $27,000 performance bonus along with an additional $10,000 for assorted benefits. DCAO Amorosi and Derrick Thomson each received increases that were part of a total $98,202 shared among the three senior managers.

The other closed-session meeting, also held in December 2015, approved an indemnification bylaw that the city would pay all legal costs of any employee and elected official who faced a legal procedure.

City council was directly involved in both these closed-sessions that was not revealed to the public until March 31, 2016. By that time Mr. Thomson had left to take a job with the town of Caledon.

Two weeks after the 2015 provincial Sunshine List was published, CAO Pappert gave notice of her resignation. She agreed to stay on until May 26, 2016, when Derrick Thomson returned in June to accept the CAO position.

These two top managers benefited further in 2016, 2018 and 2019. First in March 2017 the 2016 Sunshine List showed that Ms. Papper received $263,000 for five-month’s work.

In 2018, Mr.Thomson received a salary of $335,000 that included a performance bonus of $67,000. He “parted ways with the city in February 2019 just before the 2018 Sunshine List was published.

This is how our city council conducts our business.

The following is an outline on how to regain control of our city.

What can be done about it?

Simple answer is get involved. Get organized to challenge this council that has demonstrated it cannot manage a two-car funeral.

Council is about to start a review of changing ward boundaries. This should only be reviewed by an independent committee, appointed by the mayor elect incorporating public participation.

I believe that a major change must come to create more efficiency, fairness and is accountable to control the operations with the city staff.

Greater transparency will be achieved with an independent staff rationalization from top to bottom, including council and senior city staff.

A first step is to reduce the size of council to nine. This would involve redefining job descriptions in concert with the staff rationalization program. The rationalization should cover every employee, full and part-time and contracted workers.

An independent committee of civilians would be appointed to outline the responsibilities and communication rules. This would include streamlining procedures, rewriting the staff and elected official’s Code of Conduct. It would eliminate the Integrity Commissioner and the closed-session investigators.

The indemnification bylaw will be eliminated.

Civic Elections will include online voting. Proportional voting will not be used.

There will be a review of all bylaws and reserve funds status. This will be revealed to the public.

City communications will be revised to allow citizens to select to receive regular information online or hard copy through their electric bill.

Minutes of all council, committee and board meetings will be available within a fixed time, determined by length and content.

All council and committee votes will be recorded and distributed to citizens as part of the communications plan.

Finance and legal departments will review city advertising policies.

All pending legal cases against the city will be reviewed and the status revealed to the public, but not legal strategy or tactics..

Councillors, staff or citizens should never be threatened by anyone. This is subject to the revised Code of Conduct.

The new council will operate in public and at the convenience of all citizens.

Citizens will be respected and receive prompt replies from staff regarding their request.

Realignment of organization

Reduce to four wards with one councillor. Each representative to be paid $60,000 per year and reviewed by the CAO and designated senior staff.

Elected at large is the Mayor who will receive $180, 000 plus defined expenses.

The four full-time councillors, elected at large, would receive $100,000 plus expenses and adjusted annually using the CPI as the benchmark.

These four councillors will have direct oversight of Finance, Public Operations, Clerk’s office and Legal department, Environmental services. Specifics to come.

Now I realize that there will be severe opposition to these proposals. But unless we, the public, don’t empty the garbage can, there will be more of the same to come.

The opportunity to change only occurs every four years.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.