The posting below was taken from Aware-Simcoe which has become the local watchdog in Simcoe County for accountable government.
By Kate Harries AWARE Simcoe January 5 2011
The new crew at Simcoe
County Council was elected to bring change – and today, with their
first examination of a $355 million budget that includes a 2 per cent
increase to the tax levy, they served notice that they’re eager to
settle down to the task.
But they were firmly told by Chief
Administrative Officer Mark Aitken that while they can tweak, there’s no
room for substantial change and they can put their sharpened pencils
away.
“This budget is based on the service-level provisions that
have been instructed by council and it is what it is, in terms of what’s
in there,” Aitken said.
Of course, those instructions came from the last council – and
this is a new council that has a mandate from an awakened and
dissatisfied electorate.
It’s not only the newbies who got the
message from the voters. One of the returning councillors, Severn Deputy
Mayor Judith Cox, didn’t mince her words. The people she talked to
during the campaign want transparency and accountability, she said.
“They’re
demanding more than ever before,” she added, and rightfully so. Cox
told of residents who are in tough financial straits, “people in our
neighbourhood who are walking away from their homes.”
Cox said she’s
been directed by a motion from Severn council to obtain a costing of
county leaflets and radio ads. She said she had many complaints from
taxpayers about the fact that the county would sponsor the weather on a
local radio station.
The glossy brochures issued by the county
before the election were a concern raised by AWARE Simcoe because they
served no obvious communications purpose other than to say that
incumbent councillors have been doing a great job. And there was
speculation as to whether there was a link between the county’s ads on
104.1 The Dock and a vitriolic attack on AWARE Simcoe last October by
104.1 news director Brian Wicks.
Gerry Marshall, the newly elected
mayor of Penetanguishene, demanded options on savings in the county’s
draft budget. “I can easily see $4 million in savings,” he said.
That’s
not how it works, Aitken replied. The CAO told Marshall that there’s a
difference between the county’s budgeting process and “perhaps what you
may be accustomed to at a local level. This is not a budget where staff
and directors bring forward a wish list” he said, with councillors
taking out their pencils to make cuts and “going away feeling they’ve
saved $300 for the taxpayers.”
Aitken explained: “This is based on a
process where by the time the budget gets to council” senior staff have
“taken millions of dollars and significant numbers of FTEs (full-time
equivalent staff) out of the budget to present something that is
reasonable to county council.”
(Each percentage point change in the budget amounts to $1 million.)
Aitken
got testy when questioned by Innisfil Mayor Barb Baguley on the
communications budget, especially when she hearkened back to the last
council’s $200,000 public relations splurge (in 2009, the year of Site
41) and wondered what the residual benefits have been.
“Tremendous,”
he said. The expenditure “was a major spike in public relations
assistance to the corporate communications department to try and educate
not only the county councillors but the communications staff on how
they deal with large complex media communications issues,” Aitken said.
He
claimed “there was a lot of misinformation” leading to a groundswell of
public opinion against the county. “There was a black eye being put on
this corporation that wasn’t justified.”
Sorry, but the black eye was completely justified.
Senior
staff and a small clique of councillors led by then warden Tony Guergis
took decisions without consulting council and engaged in a
disinformation campaign that culminated in the racist and false news
release alleging that First Nations people wearing bandanas had
threatened county staff. It remains deeply shaming to Simcoe County
taxpayers with direct knowledge of the First Nations people involved
that no apology was ever issued and that the staff responsible for the
release, including communications department head Allan Greenwood,
remain in positions of authority.
Fortunately, most of the
councillors responsible for that campaign have been defeated. That’s a
reality Aitken appears not to have come to terms with. In fact, he
lectured the new council on his expectation that no one break rank on
county decisions.
“Once county council has a direction, then it’s
imperative that county council stands together on that direction,” he
said, deploring that fact that “regardless of the votes (on Site 41)
people were standing outside of the corporation and saying things that
were different to what was directed by county council.”
This shouldn’t be happening in any business, he said.
Maybe
so. But county council is not a business. It is a democratic
institution and we the people are thankful for those councillors who
have the courage to stand outside and speak the truth.
Hopefully,
Aitken heard the warning from Bradford West Gwillimbury Deputy Mayor Rob
Keffer who – during a presentation today by Corporate Services Manager
Rick Newlove – raised the matter of a purchase of a new transfer station
in West Gwillimbury. The budget includes $1 million for the site and
$500,000 for a “contaminant attenuation zone.”
Keffer said he hoped
that this item would come to the corporate services committee and county
council before any action is taken.
Newlove replied that staff would definitely come to county council before any land purchase of that nature proceeds.
Keffer
said his concern was that in the last term of council there was “a
specific case” where a vote was not taken by county council and yet
because it was passed in the budget it was deemed to have been okayed by
council. He suggested that there be clarification in the county’s
procedural bylaw to ensure that no large item can proceed merely on the
basis of a line item in the budget.
Newlove replied: “I don’t know
what your specifics are. I’d be glad to meet with you after to discuss
the specifics you are referring to.”
Hmmm. Newlove must have been the
only person in the council chamber not to have picked up on Keffer’s
reference to the “final” approval of the Site 41 project that had been
buried in the 2009 budget and never was the subject of formal debate and
decision by county council.
Tiny Deputy Mayor George Lawrence
spotted another interesting couple of lines in the environmental
services budget. “Miscellaneous Income includes $1.6M in revenue from
the sale of Environmental land holdings that are no longer required.”
Newlove
indicated that one of the properties is Site 41. Environmental Services
Director Rob McCullough said two other properties are involved. “It’s
an estimate of what will happen later in the year.” He provided no other
information.
It should be noted that last year Lawrence ensured that
there are covenants on the Site 41 site to ensure that it not be used
for waste management. If it’s to be used for agriculture as stated in a
county resolution – it’s not worth $1.6 million. So what’s the plan?
Stay tuned.
Gord McKay, the new mayor of Midland, asked how the
process outlined by Aitken provides for councillors to inject their own
priorities – for instance, if the current council decides it can only
sell a one per cent increase to the public, “how would that get into
this process?”
Later.
Much later.
Try next year.
Council
will have the opportunity to put its own stamp on county expenditures by
setting new strategic directions, Aitken said. “The budget is based on
what the last council indicated they would like to see, what they
perceived is a necessity.” The new council will have a chance to set its
own strategic direction in the spring, to be implemented in the 2012
budget.
Bradford West Gwillimbury Mayor Doug White said the 17
returning members of council had said little during the debate because
they’re the ones that set the direction for the 2011 budget. “I urge my
colleagues to give the process a chance. “
County Warden Cal
Patterson, the mayor of Wasaga Beach, said he was one of those who
insisted on zero increase budgets when first elected to county council,
but the price had to be paid later with 4 and 5 per cent increases to
play catch-up. “I can tell you this is a good budget,” he said. “Two per
cent is quite an achievement in itself.”
But for Dan McLean,
Springwater’s new deputy mayor (who ran on a zero budget increase in his
municipality), a two per cent increase is not acceptable. It’s really a
three per cent increase in county spending, he pointed out, offset by a
projected one per cent increase in assessment for this year. The budget offers room for cutbacks, he said.
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