http://www.nsnews.com/North+Shore+candidates+from+word/5653874/story.html

North Shore candidates shy from A-word

BY TESSA HOLLOWAY, NORTH SHORE NEWS NOVEMBER 7, 2011

While civic candidates on the North Shore aren't too keen to discuss amalgamation, many are talking about integrating fire services between the three municipalities.

Photograph by: North Shore News , file photo

Amalgamation is once again a hot-button issue in this year's municipal election campaign, but the A-word is still a touchy subject for many politicians.

Instead, better integration between the North Shore's three fire departments seems to be the topic candidates actually want to talk about. With the city and district of North Vancouver already sharing recreation services, policing and other big-ticket items, many council candidates say a single fire department is the next logical step.

Several councillors and hopefuls in the two North Vancouvers say they plan to move this forward in the next term, and the newly mayor-acclaimed of West Vancouver is also taking the issue seriously.

"As mayor, I intend to move it forward aggressively. I hope that the two North Vans pick up on it," said Michael Smith, who got the job as mayor of West Vancouver when nobody challenged him.

The appetite is there at the District of North Vancouver as well, according Coun. Michael Little. He said councils have done all they can to cut costs without cutting services in-house, and joining forces is the best option left.

"The next place we need to look is more serious efforts to share services with other groups, particularly, hopefully, with the City of North Vancouver," he said.

At the city, several council hopefuls, including Guy Heywood, said much the same thing, noting the two fire chiefs are even related.

"We now have a brother act in charge of the two fire departments, so what better time?" he said.

The city and district already move their crews around the North Shore to cover for each other when one fire station is emptied due to a call, as well as coordinating on other aspects, but supporters say major savings could be achieved through combining training, procurement and management structures, which would include fewer top-level staff.

Still, Kevin Macauley, a former district of North Vancouver fire captain who's now running for council in the district, said the savings would likely be minimal.

He said there could be long-term benefit, though, in terms of efficiency and less frequent cost increases.

"You don't save a lot of money in the initial part, but over time you would be more efficient in what you have, and you would have a cost saving in how you spend the money," he said, drawing from studies he was a part of as captain. Still, he said it will be a tough process, and one that needs to be undertaken carefully and with the support of the firefighters themselves.

Candidates pointed to numerous other services that might be combined as well, from horticulture departments to snow plows.

On the topic of amalgamating municipalities, however, City of North Vancouver politicians were quick to douse that fire. Former district mayor Don Bell, who is running for council in the city this time, was among them.

There is "a fear of loss of identity, community identity, and also the fear of the potential for increased taxes," he said. 

"Where there has been amalgamations with other major Canadian cities - I'm thinking Winnipeg, Toronto, Halifax - the material I've read (says) the planned savings . . . didn't actually occur."

In the case of Montreal, several former municipalities have gone through de-amalgamation, reviving their old towns from the dead.

George Pringle, however, a candidate for North Vancouver city mayor, is pushing the issue. "We're not getting savings until we address amalgamation," he said, adding would hold a referendum on the subject.

In the district, however, amalgamation has long been the desire of council and that hasn't changed this year.

Incumbent councillor Lisa Muri is one in favour of full amalgamation, arguing the issue needed to be jointly studied.

"You would reduce two municipal managers. You're probably saving there $250,000. Then you do directors of planning, directors of engineering; all your senior management team is basically cut in half," she said, but even she acknowledged that it's a difficult sell.

Macauley was even less optimistic.

"If it hasn't happened in the last 30 years it's not going to happen now, unless there's a mandate from the province or all a sudden two municipalities wake up."

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tholloway@nsnews.com

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http://www.nsnews.com/news/Trimming+come+without+pain/5232025/story.html

Trimming fat won't come without pain

BY ELIZABETH JAMES, SPECIAL TO NORTH SHORE NEWS AUGUST 10, 2011

"(Toronto) City councillors woke up to find themselves doing the same thing as the day before and the day before that: examining a list of proposed cutbacks and then listening to a procession of interest groups explain why those cuts would be a disaster."

Marcus Gee, Globe and Mail, July 20

ARE election-poised councillors and staff in our three North Shore communities watching what is happening in the City of Toronto?

If not, perhaps they should, because the administration of stop-the-gravy-train Mayor Rob Ford is in one serious pickle; if Lower Mainland municipalities are not careful, they'll end up in the same predicament.

Faced with the need to live up to his bombastic election promises that he would cut waste without cutting services, Ford did what all good politicians do, he ordered a study. Predictably, this expensive strategy backfired.

Because, as Globe and Mail columnist Marcus Gee wrote, "City council committees have balked at making the cuts set out in a series of reports from KPMG consultants."

No kidding. And Toronto councillors are not even facing an election come November.

In brief, no-one wants to take responsibility for making the cuts Ford said would not hurt.

To understand what is really wrong with this picture, we must return to the opening quote: Councillors were "listening to a procession of interest groups explain why those cuts (suggested by KPMG) would be a disaster."

Moving westward, those interest groups are thee and me.

If we object to neverending tax increases, and want to avoid the Torontosyndrome, the effort to establish affordable priorities must be a joint exercise between taxpayers and governments.

So how about fleshing out some of the suggestions I made last week?

Let's say the North Shore had a single, nine member council: a mayor, two councillors from each of the three communities plus one elected to represent our interests to TransLink, and another to sit on the Metro board.

Each North Shore community would have specific representation, and citizen-election of the two regional positions would eliminate a mayor's need to "take off (his/her) council hat when sitting at the GVRD table," as former mayor Don Bell once said.

That's the easiest part, solved by reducing the number of North Shore seats up for grabs in the 2014 local elections. From here on, things become more difficult.

First, the new council would need only one city manager, one chief financial officer, one legal advisor - in fact, only one head of each department throughout the organization.

The next move must be to streamline non-exempt staffing - unfortunate, because this means cutting jobs.

Region-wide, there seems to be general agreement that people want taxation and spending stabilized without service cuts.

So given that salaries and benefits typically account for more than 75 per cent of municipal spending, whether or not unions plan to balk at zero per cent increases during 2012 contract negotiations, that page of the budget is the first place to look for efficiencies.

In the last census, the combined North Shore population was approaching 185,000. It seems to make sense, therefore, to examine per-capita staffing levels in well-run, similarly sized communities - in or outside B.C. - and to model the new staff contingent along similar lines.

Amalgamation or no, attrition by voluntary job-sharing, by normal retirement or via persuasive early-retirement packages is by far the preferred way to reduce unaffordable staffing levels, so that demographic trends and a transition period of three years can soften the blow.

That said, this phase will not be without upsetting decent people who are guilty of nothing more than voting to support their unions' demands for generous salary-benefit packages.

The next topic on the dartboard is that of council policies and bylaws.

General rule: If a bylaw cannot be enforced, or if the dubious wisdom of evolving staffs and councils cannot decide on appropriate wording, erase it from the books and agendas.

Specifically, District of North Vancouver residents cannot afford to waste any more money on decades-long discussions and staff reports about tree bylaws - especially when council's July decision was to boot its vote on the subject down the road to beyond the November election.

Next: How about our councils commission an auditor to examine the hidden costs - legal or otherwise - that arise when arbitrators overturn official council policies covering employer-employee agreements?

rimco@shaw.ca

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