Tag: Politics

The Premier Year

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.
I keep on saying I am generally non-partisan. I say that, because in 20+ years of voting, I have probably voted for most parties at least once. Maybe instead of saying non-partisan, I should say ” omni-partisan”. In the same way most omnivores will eat vegetables, meat, fruit, whatever, I am more than willing to taste any candidate, and see if I like them. 
I have very partisan friends who will always support their particular party of choice, often the same one their parents supported, and much like some vegans, they are doing so out of principle, not a real understanding of what it means or what the other food groups might have to offer. That is one way to go through your political life (or your dinner… is this metaphor getting a little thread-bare?), but I just don’t know what those people do when their party does something really stupid (like make Glen Clarke leader) or offers them a less-than-appetizing candidate (like Bill Vander Zalm). 
All of this is preamble to me saying I think Christy Clark is, so far, a terrible Premier. This is not a partisan attack, it is a judgement on her ability based on watching her operate for the last year. 
The latest example is a 5-minute YouTube video she has released, like an early Christmas gift to Adrian Dix and Grandpa Cummins, and embedded here for your viewing pleasure:

First off, it is billed as a “Conversation”, but much like this Government’s conversations on everything from the HST to the Gateway Project, this is really her telling us what she has to say (with quick edits between talking points). At least it is a source of some mild amusement. 
My first chuckle was at 0:27, when she started on about building public trust. I’m not sure paying hush money court costs to convicted felons builds a lot of trust. Especially when they seem to have taken the fall so the Premier can avoid testifying about her knowledge and the role of her brother in one of the largest cases of defrauding the Taxpayers ever perpetrated in this Province. Building public trust would be holding an independent investigation of the Basi and Virk cases, and to have the results of that investigation released to the public. 
The hilarity ensues at 0:45 when she proclaims a Municipal Auditor will assure the people of British Columbia are getting good value for their Municipal Tax dollar. This from the leader of the Government whose own Auditor last month called the accounting of the Gateway Project unsupportable, and has repeated chastised this very Government for not following appropriate accounting principles in their management of everything from BC Hydro to Provincial Corrections… Only to be ignored by this very Premier?

1:20 Here comes the Jobs Plan. Love that jobs plan. Equal parts selling off University eats to the highest overseas bidder (instead of making it easier for British Columbians to get the education they need to compete in the 21st Century global economy), and “cutting red tape” for mining companies, so we can compete with Chile and China on the global race to the bottom of mining environmental practices. 

2:00 sticking to our fiscal plan (hmmm…. How’s that deficit, Christy?) will somehow… Magically….create jobs. Kind of the Underpants Gnome model of fiscal planning. 

2:16 Small business is not the biggest employer in British Columbia. Christy Clark should know, because she is. The BC Public Service is the largest employer in the province by far. 

2:33 “when I talk about families…um…I think people get it”. Did that make anyone else cringe?

2:44 Random mom & baby shot? Oh! Now I get it! families! She sure looks understandin’ there. 

3:07 Nicotine cessation!?! Now I don’t get it anymore…

3:11 “We dealt with the HST, for example…” You have got to be kidding! The people of the province dealt with the HST! You lied about it, broke your leadership campaign promises about it, lost the referendum, and now are both dragging your feet getting rid of it, and using it as the catch-all excuse for your lack of financial prudence.  When it comes to the HST, you were the one that got dealt. 

3:54 Those tough challenges have “brought people together”? Like Barry Penner, and Iain Black? Or more like the 30% of BC voters who still support the Liberal Government? 

I’ve said it before, the Lady just lacks gravitas. She is so heavy on the aw-shucks folksy (note the paucity of the letter “g” at the end of words: she is “workin’ at”, “talkin’ to”, and “tryin’ to”) that it belies her corporate collar and big-ass pearls. Pressing your fingers together in front of you to emphasize vapid platitudes does not make them into kernels of great wisdom. 

But mostly, she says nothing. She is good at listing concerns, but where is her plan? Where is the Water Act update, delayed for three years now? Where is the plan to fix the governance of BC Hydro, TransLink, and BC Ferries? Where is your energy plan? How about the ongoing dispute with Teachers? Where are you, Ms. Clark, on anything that matters?

If you were really listening to British Columbians, you would be doing what the majority want right now: calling an election. 

On Kyoto – the Accord, not the Block.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

At this point no one is surprised, but somehow, the lack of surprise makes the disappointment stronger. After nine years of avoidance, denial, accusation, obfuscation and stupidity, Canada has finally taken the plunge. We walked away from an international agreement because we want to keep profiteering from our own irresponsibility, but don’t want to pay the toll for doing so. So much for being an honest broker; so much for solemn commitments to our international partners

To all the countries that took serious effortsto deal with greenhouse gasses? Suckers! To those who were exempted from reductions because your per capita output was a minuscule percentage of Canada’s? Get Bent! To those low-lying countries that will become inhabitable due to our insatiable need to burn gas thirst for freedom of choice? Cry me a freaking river. This is Harper’s Canada now, so you can all suck eggs.

But hey! They said it was impossible, because of the Liberals’ lack of action. Let’s not mention that the Kyoto Protocol was ratified in 2002, and Harper took office in 2006. Today is 2011. The goals set out for Kyoto have until 2020 to be met. Yeah, the Liberals were asses for sitting on their hands for four years, but you had one more year than the Liberals did, Harper, and we are still 9 years from 2020. Time to stop blaming them for your failure.

Kent is an embarrassment, but he was sent to Durban to be an embarrassment, so I guess he did his job. He whinged that Canada only produces 2% of the world’s GHG, so countries like China and India need to take the lead. Of course, China and India were signatories in Kyoto, and would now be developing reasonable targets for reductions if the agreement had survived Copenhagen and Durban. Telling the truth was not Kent’s game plan, though. He showed up with a plan to roadblock the whole thing, then took his ball and went home. Blocked the other guys at the party from talking the girl, then broke up with her by text message after he got home. Jerk.

The fact Canada, with 0.5% of the worlds population produces 2% of the GHG isn’t his problem. The fact we are #6 in the world overall in total emmissions though we are the #10 economy in the world is not relevant. That we are in the top 10 per capita emmitters in the world per capita is a non-issue. Somehow, Greenhouse gasses are everyone else’s problem.

Tearing up international agreements and punitively punishing the worlds poorest countries? It isn’t Harper’s fault: it is China’s, or Africa’s, or Obama’s or Chretien’s, or David Suzuki’s for getting us in this mess in the first place. or so I understand from watching Sun News.

Fuck.

This is, without a doubt, the most shameful point in Canada’s formerly-proud history as an international leader in common sense and good governance.

Place holder post while I get some things done

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

It seems I am slacking on the posting, so we’ll do a quick catch-up.

I am actually trying to put a post out regularly at my other Blog, seeing as how we had a short but reportable vacation the weekend before last, and it was travel blogging that got me into this entire blog thing in the first place.

The big news around these bits is, of course, the Election. On the 19th, I hung out at City Hall with the 10th to the Fraser brain trust, and it was fun to watch the results come in while a couple fo them tweeted, and we all shared general hilarity at the absurdity of our own presumed predictive skills (although the room was remarkably bereft of beer). When the advance poll came in, only 1,400 or so votes, and the Mayor had a lead of 66% to James Crosty’s 29%, I did a bit of mental math and said: “It’s over”. I’ve taken just enough statistics to be dangerous, and recognized that, assuming there wasn’t something wildly skewing the data, a 30-point lead from 10% of the votes is statistically significant. Even the early results from Council were pretty close to the end result. It was only the School board numbers that shifted towards the end, with Mortensen and Goring trading spaces “on the bubble” for most of the night.

Overall, I am satisfied with the results. I am happy Mayor Wright will get one more term, and hope he will bow out gracefully and pass the torch in three years. I am ecstatic that Jonathan Cote and Jaimie McEvoy got so many votes, and have solidified themselves as the real leaders of this Council Chamber. Of the “Old Guard”: Betty, Lorrie and Bill are all hard workers with their hearts in the right place, even if I disagree with where their heads are sometimes! I think Chuck will add some vigor to the board, will always be good for a quote, and will be able to develop the City’s relationships with senior governments (especially after the upcoming Provincial election).

On the School Board, I am equally happy to have two new and very bright lights (Dave and Jonina) leading the polls. After having a few conversations with her, I am sure Mary Ann Mortensen will more than make up for the sparks created by Lori Watt; they may not be sharing the same space on the political spectrum, but they seem to share similar approaches to a political discussion.

So enough with the politics, back to the peaceful and orderly operation of the City. Master Transportation Plan anyone?

Oh, and back to the subject of beer at City Council meetings. Let me solemnly declare I am for it. A keg in the lobby, sell $4 drafts, much better than watching on TV at home. That is the kind of revenue-generating activity I can get behind.

It’s all over but the voting

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

I was tossed up about doing “endorsements” this election. There are three kinds of people who read this blog: one third people who agree with me (and therefore are probably going to vote for the same people as me anyway), one third who hate me (and who will probably not be voting for anyone I support anyway), and my Mom (who can’t vote in New West). So I don’t think anyone’s political fate is in my hands. That said, in my work with several not-for-profits, I need to work with whomever is elected, so I don’t want to step on too many toes here. There are a couple of candidates I support strongly and publicly, so I may as well explain why.

The funny part with Municipal elections is that you can vote for many people, but you probably shouldn’t. If you fill the top of your ballot with people you like, then just fill the bottom with random names to fill space, you may actually push one of those random people over the top, potentially pushing one of your favourites out of a seat. So the best strategy is to pick the candidates you like, only vote for them, and keep the rest of your ballot blank. I suspect I will only be voting for 4 or 5 councillors, and maybe 5 school trustees. Most of my picks will remain between me and the ballot box, with these exceptions:

Jonathan Cote is, to me, the model of an excellent City Councillor. I have served on a committee that he chairs, and he has a remarkable ability to make a committee work. He keeps the conversation flowing while staying on track, lets everyone be heard, and then very effrctively condenses the mood of the committee into simple and actionable ideas and items. There is an art and a skill to running a meeting, and he is a skilled artist at it. He has also been one of the easiest Councillors to approach and have an in-depth discussion with over any of a range of topics.

I also had the opportunity to go door-knocking with Jonathan this election, and was astonished to hear his breadth of knowledge of topics that people raised. He also demonstrated that he actually listened to people. At times an issue would come up at one door, and he would say “yes, I agree, the City should look at that”, and it sounds to the cynic like political platitude to get a vote. However, 10 minutes and 4 doors later, we would be walking on the sidewalk and Jonathan would raise that topic, and say “that point they raised back there, is actually a complicated subject, it isn’t black and white…” or “I wonder how Calgary is so successful at managing that issue…”, showing that he had been thinking about the issue in the back of his mind since we left the door- and was already considering how to move forward with it. He didn’t just listen he heard, and he stored the memory.

Jonathan is smart, dedicated, and hardworking, He has demonstrated a genuine desire to learn the craft of running a City (taking time from his already-crazy life to take Graduate courses at SFU in Urban Planning). He has a positive vision for the future of the City, and he cares about getting there so he can raise his young family in the best City possible. I’m also pretty invested in New West, and I want someone who is thinking long-term running the place. I wish I could vote for Jonathan twice.

When I first met Jaimie McEvoy through the NWEP, I wasn’t sure what to think. I remember voting for him last election because of his environmental cred, but didn’t know much more about him. Since he was elected, though, I have interacted with him a lot, and have been pleasantly surprised by his knowledge of the City, his ideas about public policy, and his passion about all three pillars of sustainability. He provided a ton of useful advice during the UBE consultations, and that was where he first demonstrated to me his political savvy. During this election, he is one of the few candidates I have seen take task with another candidate (one he was not even running against!) when he felt the other was not being truthful. He didn’t call him out during the debate, but he approached him after with very few of us in earshot and tore a strip off the candidate in a quiet voice. He was respectful, but spoke with a real passion about honesty. It is inspirational to hear him speak about social justice issues in the City, especially the Living Wage policy. I even read his book, and the guy can actually write!

Jaimie is progressive, passionate, and actually cares about building community, and I am proud to support him.

Here are the reasons I am supporting Wayne Wright for Mayor.

The best answer is I look at the City now compared to how it was in the year 2000, and I can’t help but admit it is a much friendlier, cleaner, safer, and more prosperous community. The growth has been reasonable and generally positive; there are more businesses opening up; and there are areas of Sapperton, Downtown, and 12th Street that are vastly different places now than 9 years ago… all changes in the positive direction. Of course there are both external and internal reasons for these changes, but ultimately, Wayne has been the guy steering the ship, and I like the route the ship is on.

This does not mean I agree with every move he has made, or every position he holds. I think WTE is the wrong direction to go for our City and for our region, and I think he will need to be a strong voice in the City against moving in that direction. When the UBE issue first arose, I thought his initial reaction of surprise at how concerned his citizens were about the project was disappointing, as were his complaints that no-one had done anything about Front Street Traffic for 10 years (not noting that he was the one who probably should have been doing something). That said, now that the NFPR is all but dead, the moves the City is making to return the waterfront to space useable by the citizens of New Westminster (as opposed to the victim of short-term patchwork solutions to other City’s bad planning) is a positive step, and indeed visionary.

In my experience, Wayne has been accessible, honest, and respectful with his dealings with the residents, with developers, and with our regional partners. He is a consensus-builder who is respected by his council partners, by the City staff, and by his regional partners, and that is important if we want to get things done. Also, when push comes to shove, he has demonstrated that he is not unwilling to challenge the “regional consensus”, and will take our regional partners to task if the people of New Westminster tell him that is what we want. In the end, these are the characteristics of a good Mayor.

If I had any criticism of his campaign, it is that the whole affair seemed too passive. He spoke very well at the All Candidates events I have seen, but I would have liked to have seen him take a more aggressive approach towards some of the criticism sent towards him and his council partners. I think most of the criticism of him has been disingenuous or just plain inaccurate, and I kind of which he had taken that on a little stronger. Perhaps he felt it more important to stay above the muck and keep on the positive, so he ran on a record to be proud of and his ability to work with others. I am just afraid his low-key campaign coupled with the very aggressive, populist campaign he is up against will result in an election very similar to Langley Township on 2008. And we all know how well that turned out.

Which brings us to the subject of James Crosty.

I consider James a friend, and think that his heart is in the right place. He has worked hard for many years to build community in New Westminster, and his contributions to this City deserve respect. When his Astroturf organization was collecting signatures at the Quayside Festival, I signed the petition, but I put a note beside my signature: “I want you to run, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to vote for you!” I told him personally that he was going to have to earn my vote.

Unfortunately, he has not done that. He has had a few gaffes in the campaign, and I don’t want to go there, because those happen to those brave enough to take risks. My problem is more in the lack of concrete ideas about ways to improve the City, and the few ideas I did hear were, IMHO, bonkers (McBride tunnel?!). Even more than that, the tone of the discussion from his side was a negative one. From the beginning, he has been combative and vocally critical of the present Mayor and administration, suggesting everything from gross mismanagement to fiscal dishonesty, with very little evidence or demonstration of alternatives. His promotion company has been Tweeting a constant stream of criticism of the Mayor that got pretty tired pretty early. Then, when anyone suggests the James might be negative, his ideas might be off the mark, or presents countering evidence to one of his claims, instead of addressing the criticism honestly and openly, he has tended to deal with these things with an attitude I have heard described as “passive-aggressive”. Having challenged him a few times myself, I know where that description comes from.

His listening exercises (Citizen Chats) were a good idea, but I saw little evidence that he learned anything at those meetings. His latest ads list a series of issues for each neighbourhood, but no solutions, no context to them, and they were mostly things that he raised early in the campaign. James and I talked transportation several times, but I don’t think he understood what I was saying, or just couldn’t address it in the scope of his campaign. In the end, I did not see, during the campaign, an example of someone with the ability to develop workable solutions, make council work effectively, get the best out of City Staff, or to protect the City’s interests amongst regional partners while finding consensus with them.

So I hope Wayne is re-elected this time, because I like the path we are on, and I’m not convinced a change at this time is needed. I hope James keeps playing his important role in the community. I also hope he spends the next three years reviewing what went right and wrong in his campaign, and continues to engage in real two-way dialogue with some of the innovative thinkers in this City (we have a lot of them!). From that will come a set of compelling ideas for moving the City forward, the foundation for building consensus, and a platform of positive changes.

Then in 2014, James can give Chuck Puchmayr a real challenge for the Mayor’s chair. Boy, will that be a fun race to watch!

Back on the Campaign Trail…

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I was away for a few days, and in the days of modern social media and election madness, you skip out for a few days to catch a movie or go on a vacation, you miss a lot!

I think this article is interesting. As a purveyor of local social media (although my twitterability is hampered by my inability to say anything in under 600 words, never mind 140 characters), I am curious to see how the Candidates in this years’ elections have taken to social media, and I really wonder if it matters.

I see the three “stars” of using social media this year are Jonina Campbell, Dave Phelan, and (of course) James Crosty. All three of them are challengers, so they face the tougher task of making their names familiar – and I think they have all succeeded.

James Crosty, especially, has personally (and through his business, STC Creatives) –correction, apparently STC creatives is not a business owned by Mr. Crosty, been tweeting, Facebooking, and constantly updating his web presence through the campaign (and for months in advance, setting a solid foundation for what was coming). Even people I know who dislike his message, and are critical of the slightly…uh…irregular website layout and editing options that seem to have been made are admitting that he has been successful at putting his message out on all media available to him.

The second question is more compelling to me – what does it really mean for a Municipal Election in New West? For those of us connected to the on-line world of New Westminster, it seems obvious that a good write-up on 10th to the Fraser is Gold. But then when I talk to people at the Curling club, or people in the service industries I interact with, or random neighbours, I’m amazed that many don’t know who 10th to the Fraser are! (hopefully, If I keep linking to 10th to the Fraser, some magic Google algorithm will be triggered and more people will find out, as it really is the City’s best net presence by far).

I suspect the solid base of New Westminster old-schoolers who keep Bob Osterman and Lorrie Williams and Betty McIntosh re-elected just are not looking on-line for their election information (That said, Betty is turning out to be a prolific and excellent Tweeter!). I suspect as the high rises go up and fill out, as the population swells from 60,000 to 80,000 people, and as more of those people are on-line collecting more of their information form new media and social networks than ads in the Leader and Record, the on-line presence will matter. I’m not sure we are there yet.

So all this on-line debate might be a bunch of ado about very little. When I think of effective campaigning in a small town like New Westminster, I think of Jonathan Cote blowing out his knee and wearing through a pair of shoes to knock on 3000+ doors in the City and actually meet people one-on one and asking them for their vote personally. That way he can listen to people, not just talk at them. This is also why I think James Crosty will win and lose votes based on his “Citizen Chats” more than on his website presence, misspellings and malapropisms and all…

That said, what is with all of these recent, completely anonymous web sites cropping up to support one position or another? Some random group claiming to be local Liberals have a place for extended press releases, but don’t seem to have much to say, with two long posts in September, then stunning silence. There is some group called “Royal City Air” who seem to hate incinerators and curb bulges equally. There is a one-page web presence called “Quayside Chat” which offers and exchange of ideas, but other than a single veiled anti-Crosty tirade, and has no links or comments or anything that would constitute “exchange” of ideas. As Ms. Myers points out in he follow-up blog post, too much of the social media is just plain anti-social.

The transportation Election?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I don’t think anyone other than TransLink wasted more bits of information or wrote more column-inches of text on the UBE process than I did. For those with short memories, the issue to me was very clear: why waste >$150 million on an overpass to take traffic pressure off of Coquitlam at the expense of putting more traffic pressure on New Westminster and serious disruption of the lives of hundreds of Sapperton residents. Simply put: it just wasn’t on. The people spoke, the City and TransLink listened.

Now, for some bizarre reason, one of the candidates for Mayor wants to re-open the issue. I can’t believe I have to write this post.

During this election, there are many candidates complaining about traffic, even the current Chair of the Traffic Committee outlined a long list of traffic woes in the City, suggesting somebody has to do something (without acknowledging that for the last 3 years, that somebody was him). Lots of complaints, not too many ideas. The only thing worse than no ideas are really bad ideas.

So desperate for new ideas are we that the biggest cheer at the Queens Park Residents Association All-Candidates gaggle ‘ n’ weep went to outsider Mayoral Candidate Francois Nantel, for suggesting his first priority as Mayor would be to remove the offending sidewalk bulge at 6th and Royal so he can beat the queue when trying to turn up the hill. This was, unfortunately, an example of how common sense is usually wrong.

The prospective mayor apparently didn’t realize that bulge serves at least three purposes:

1) It makes the crossing of Royal Ave easier for pedestrians. It is a high-traffic street and it is very wide (4 travel lanes, 2 parking lanes, plus a significant island/boulevard). Pedestrians crossing that street, especially those with mobility issues, need a lot of time to cross that much space. By shortening their distance, we make it safer and more comfortable for pedestrians, and it allows us to shorten the amount of time the red light is lit for the crossing traffic, allowing more traffic to flow through the intersection.

2) It narrows the road with a safe obstacle, which serves to slow traffic so it runs closer to the speed limit. Wide, open roads equal fast speeds. By introducing highly visible narrowing of the road, the perception of speed increases, ,and traffic slows down. This is why you fell comfortable going 50kmh over the speed limit coming down the hill from Gaglardi Way (a road with a 60km/h speed limit built for 100km/h), yet rarely find yourself speeding through the Deas tunnel. Royal is wide and open and looks like it can accommodate 80km/h traffic, but has a speed limit of 50km/h. The bump helps keep the traffic down to 70km/h.

3) The bump stops rat runners. Those people who get off of arterial routes like Royal and bomb through Queens Park and the Brow of the hill and the west End, using our neighbourhood streets to commute through. When traffic is backed up on Royal, they are looking for any escape route. If they can pass a line of 8 cars and turn right up 6th, they will take the next opportunity to turn left: Queens, Third, Fourth, any street to get them back to Stewardson. If they have to wait until the line of cars in front of them has cleared the intersection, they are way more likely to just go straight through and remain on the arterial route.

So sorry you have to wait an extra 30 seconds to turn up 6th in rush hour, Francois, but rest assured, there are good reasons for it. Thanks for pointing out one of the difficulties of designing traffic systems: everyone hates when their access to open road space is fettered, and everyone hates when everyone else’s access to road space close to where they live is unfettered.

Even fraught with all of those details, this idea is pretty minor compared to the Grand Plan 4 McBride outlined by Mayoral Challenger James Crosty. According to an expansive profile in the Record today,

“he’s already working with some Burnaby councillors who want discussions about the Stormont connector reopened and wants to talk to Coquitlam about the United Boulevard extension.”

I remember James as an early proponent of the “T-option” for the UBE, one that the people of Sapperton would simply not accept, was more expensive that the other options, and was of questionable value for “getting traffic moving” as it included a set of lights and 90-degree turn on a major truck route. Mostly, TransLink could not convince the people of New Westminster that adding more lanes to our border without addressing the traffic needs of New Westminster was not something New Westminster was going to accept. Despite all of the boo-birds saying it was a done deal and that the current Council had signed secret deals, etc.; in the end, Council listened to the people, took a principled stand, and stood up against the pressure form the senior and neighbouring governments. The death of the UBE was a major success for this Council.

I cannot fathom why Crosty wants to bring the UBE back now. He was at some of the consultation meetings; according to his own selective memory, he led the charge against the UBE (a dubious claim; His role was once described to me by a Sapperton friend as “waiting around to see which way the crowd was going, then rushing to the front just when we arrived, to provide the illusion he was leading all the way”). However, suggesting we open that can of worms, and topping it with opening a bigger can of Stormont Connector worms, suggests to me he did not learn from the UBE consultation process at all.

??
?

reference: this is a copy and paste from Citizen Chat, Volume 1, Issue 1. Which may contian an unreferenced image from TransLink.

? ?? Mr. Crosty’s campaign newspaper has, as the centre piece of his Transportation Policy, this statement:

“People will always seek the fastest way from Point A to Point B. I would resolve to focus on the replacement of the Patullo [sic] Bridge. This would connect with a proposed covered thoroughfare which is currently McBride Avenue [sic]. The newly enclosed highway will emerge at the new Stormont Connector, taking vehicles straight into Burnaby and access to Hhy. #1.”

OK, first off, I agree with the first statement; In fact that is what I have been saying all along. The problem is, people want to solve the infrastructure capacity and livability problem of 400,000 vehicles per day passing through New Westminster right now by making New West the fastest point between points A and B. How does that not just make more people use New West as a drive-thru?

The natural corollary is that people will avoid the slowest route between Points A and B. With the South Fraser Perimeter Road and the Highway 1 Expansion: doesn’t that mean we can avoid increasing to our traffic woes just by being the only route without a freeway?

I’ve heard Mr. Crosty suggest the Cut’n’Cover McBride Avenue Boulevard idea before, and he has never been able to answer several questions for me. Primarily, who is currently lining up to spend the > $1 Billion it would cost to build a 2-km long, 4- or 6-lane covered roadway through a fully built-up community? Cut ‘n’ Cover often sounds cheap ‘n’ easy, but it is very far from that. Engineering a 5-m-deep trench over 2km is a major feat, involving the moving a freaky amount of fill, managing significant groundwater flow, and moving 100 years worth of sewer, water, gas, and communication utility infrastructure. Remember, this will need to be at least three times as wide as the Canada Line project on Cambie, with much more significant safety and escape structures, allowing that there will be cars in it and not sealed trains. Just expropriating enough land to build a couple of interchanges at 6th and/or 10th would be horrendously expensive. The idea boggles the mind. And just like Cassiar and Deas Tunnels, no placarded trucks would be allowed, so it would be of dubious value as a Truck Route.

McBride is part of the Major Road Network so I guess it would be up to TransLink to build and operate it, except of course, TransLink couldn’t scrape together enough money to build the order-of-magnitude less expensive UBE. I think TransLink has bigger regional priorities than relieving traffic on McBride Blvd right now.

Then there is the question of what the problem is this tunnel is meant to solve. The Billion Dollar Tunnel will connect the non-existent Stormont Connector to an unknown, potentially tolled, Pattullo bridge. I’m glad Mr. Crosty is talking to Burnaby Council Candidates, because I just don’t see Mayor Corrigan ploughing down a hundred homes and a kilometre of forest, disrupting the lives of thousands of East Burnaby residents, just to relieve New Westminster of a little traffic. Corrigan went nuts over the Hwy 1 Expansion and voted against funding the Evergreen… I don’t imagine his is willing to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars required to make it easier for Surreyites to get to Highway 1. But hey, maybe I’m being negative.

If we accept that transportation (with it’s ugly little brother traffic) is the biggest issue in the Election. I think Jonathan Cote (who actually understands the municipal role in sustainable transportation planning) and Chuck Puchmayr (who provided the most logical answer to transportation questions at the recent all-candidates event) have made the strongest cases for election.

Time to stop tolling the poor

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Just to prove I am an equal-opportunity critic, I want to relate a conversation I had with Bill Harper, Incumbent and Candidate for Council. Bill is from the other end of the political spectrum than James Crosty and John Ashdown, in that old-fashioned Labour/Left v. Business/Right way of looking at politics.

At the Queens Park Residents Association all-candidates slap ‘n’ giggle, Harper came out strongly against tolling any future the Pattullo bridge replacement. Although he only had 30 seconds to talk on the topic, the argument (if you afford me the right to paraphrase) is that tolls take us towards a regime where only the rich can use a bridge, and the poor are excluded from using it.

In the glad-handing session after the debate, I commented to Bill that we are going to have to agree to disagree on the tolls issue, and to his credit, he looked me right in the eye and said “Why?” In the ensuing discussion, Bill linked tolls on the bridge to the Smart Meter program and the introduction of water meters. His opposition stems from the ideological point that pay-as-you-go benefits the rich and is punitive to the poor: “That is BC Liberal Policy, and I don’t agree”.

I strongly disagree with Bill on this point.

One of the first principles of responsible resource management is that the user pays for the amount of that resource they use. A fisherman who removes 10 tonnes of salmon from the Fraser River cannot pay the same licensing fee for that resource extraction as a person catching a single salmon. A company logging 500 Hectares of forest cannot pay the same stumpage fee as a company logging a single hectare.

This goes the same for resources that we are delivered through our utility systems. Persons should be (and are) charged for electricity use per Kw/h. It is not only fundamentally fair, it encourages responsible use of the resource, provides economic incentive to taking measures to reduce use, it is the first step in managing the resource responsibly. The same goes for our water and garbage utilities: it angers me to no end that I pay the same to toss away my once-every-month-half-full garbage bin as the guy next door who overloads his bin every week: the City pays per tonne to pick up and get rid of the stuff, they should be charging us per tonne to remove it. I am subsidizing the guy who is being wasteful with a limited resource.

Municipal water may be the worst example of this. As a region, we spend more than $200 Million every year to collect, treat, and pump almost 400 Million cubic metres of water to customers who, in the summer months, use almost half of that water to keep their lawns green. There is no built-in incentive to reduce this usage unless the use is metered, and with our population expanding, the capital cost of expanding our system is going to push those costs up. The fundamental question of fairness is why are the poor living on small lots or in apartments subsidizing the expansive green lawns of the rich?

Now, in the old-school socialist mindset, everything I wrote above is bullocks, because the poor have the same right to water and electricity as the rich, and if we treat it like a commodity, they will have to go without. The problem is, the cost of providing that utility will mean they have to go without unless we get a handle on the cost of providing it!

If we are going to build a socially, economic, and environmentally sustainable community, the first step is to get a handle on our resource use. Fundamentally, that will need to rely on pay-as-you-go for utilities like water, electricity, and solid waste. I would throw transportation infrastructure into that pile.

If we are concerned about the cost of access being too high for the poorest in society, then we need to develop programs to see that they are provided reasonable access at affordable rates. Frankly, the street homeless don’t care how a utility charges landowners for their water. If there are working poor and pensioners who are finding themselves in a difficult position paying their water bill, we need programs to help with that (such as the City’s existing program to provide utility rate discounts to seniors living alone). What will not help these people is basing their annual water bill on their neighbour’s decision to keep their 1-acre of grass out front mossy green during the hottest summer drought.

The Tragedy of the Commons is not a solution to affordability.

Back to Bridges

One point of tolling the bridge is to bring the cost of using one piece of infrastructure into line with the cost using the alternatives. I pay a toll every time I get on a Skytrain. I pay an extra toll every time I take a bus over a bridge (as that represents a Zone Change, with the attached surcharge). If TransLink is going to be given the task of managing the region’s transportation system, bridges, major road networks, and transit, then the toll to use that service should be equal. I need to pay $3.75 to ride one station from Columbia Street to King George, I don’t see why drivers should pay less to go that distance because they can afford a car.

However, the more pressing reason to have this discussion in New Westminster is Transportation Demand Management. We learned from the Golden Ears Bridge that people will drive a long way to avoid a toll, even irrationally far, because we undervalue their time and the cost of the gas in our tanks (even as we complain about the price – the cognitive dissonance of the common driver is amazing – and I put myself in that same category when I am driving!). When the New Gordon Campbell Port Mann Bridge costs $4 to cross, and the Pattullo is free: a higher proportion of people are going to take the cheap route around, and New Westminster’s traffic will worsen, creating more incentive to erode our land base with more lanes choked with traffic, and keeping the unsustainable cycle going.

I’ll blog more about the #1 issue in New Westminster (according to most Council candidates) in a few days

Pledging to stop Property Taxes – apparently easier than stopping them.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

This story made me laugh. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is asking Mayoral and Council Candidates to commit to not increasing property taxes at a rate higher than inflation without either a referendum (yeah, there’s a fiscal plan), or Council pay cuts.

Not surprisingly, few incumbents are signing it, because they know the reality of municipal budgeting, and how tax increases are being forced upon them by agents well beyond their control, like aging infrastructure and senior government downloading. They understand that “no new taxes” is a silly pledge to make, as costs are rising, and the demands for services and amenities only goes up.

I especially laughed because of the guy behind the campaign: new CTF campaign manager BC Director, Jordan Bateman.

If that name is familiar, he not only worked on several BC Liberal campaigns for Provincial Lord of the Sith, Darth Colemen. He was also, until very recently, a Municipal Councillor for the Township of Langley!

So is this a simple case of another BC Liberal insider telling people to “do as I say, not as I do”? How depressingly predicatble.

Reading the “pledge” that the CTF wants candidates to sign, there is little doubt of where they stand:

“I will not vote to raise property taxes beyond the provincial rate of inflation (unless I get approval from taxpayers in a referendum)—and will diligently try to get increases lower than that”

“I will support the introduction of a Taxpayer Protection Bylaw… that financially punishes any mayor and council for raising taxes above the rate of inflation with a one?year, 15% pay cut.”

A few years before asking future Councillors to make this pledge, here is what Councillor Bateman said during his 2008 campaign for re-election when asked if he would support tax increases :

“I am committed to keeping taxes as low as possible. But we also owe it to Langley’s children to build the infrastructure that will keep them safe and healthy and to improve public safety….we must balance both the present and future needs of the Township.”

To me, that sounds like a much more nuanced and realistic approach to municipal taxation, and one that is similar to Wayne Wright’s comments at the Queens Park Residents Association meeting: (I paraphrase):“It’s easy to cut taxes, just tell me what services you want cut!”

However, Councillor Bateman’s comments were in the heat of the campaign. Let’s judge him instead on his actual record as one of Langley’s most popular City Councillors:

2008: he voted for a 5.0% Property Tax increase (more than twice the annual inflation rate for BC of 2.1%).

2009: he voted for (and vociferously supported over some vocal opposition from the new Mayor) a 5% increase (significantly more than the BC inflation rate of 0.0% in that recession year).

2010: he supported a 4.95% increase, (more than twice the annual inflation rate of 1.3%).

2011: just before jumping ship to join the paid staff of the CTF, Bateman voted for another 3.95% tax increase.

(Data on inflation rates is available here)

No problem, he couldn’t keep within the CTF guidelines because of extenuating circumstances – 4 years of extenuating circumstances, apparently – so did he face the punishment of the taxpayers for not managing the City’s finances more responsibly, and volunteer a 15% pay cut as suggested by the CTF? You know the question is rhetorical. The sad reality is that he voted for a 55% increase in Council members’ pay in 2009.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not arguing that taxes are too high or too low, or that councillors get too much pay or not enough. I am just pointing out the hypocrisy of the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation’s entire “pledge or hedge” program.

Elections and Taxes and Salaries – Correction?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

So, enjoying the election so far?

It has become slightly less comfortable for me since writing this post last week. I am fairly non-partisan, in that I vote for candidates, not parties. No sooner do you post a blog looking deeper at the facts being provided by some candidates, and the suggestion of bias comes out.

As an aside, this blog has a market saturation of about 0.01% of eligible voters in New West (my Mom lives in the Kootenays, otherwise it might be 0.011%), so I can’t imagine my criticism is something a candidate should be all that worried about. Secondly, I call myself non-partisan, I never said I wasn’t biased. I work for a city, when someone drags out the “Lazy Muni Employee” trope, I respond. I even declared my bias at the beginning of that post. Notably, I have provided financial and/or logistical help to three council candidates and one mayoral candidate so far this election, and as things stand, it looks like I will vote for about half of those 4. I even have biases within my own biases! Democracy is great.

Back to the topic in question: both of the Candidates I mentioned have taken me to task for the article I linked to above, as I took them to task for (to Quote Mr. Crosty’s campaign literature):

“…over 78% of out taxes are used to pay wages, benefits, and consulting fees”

(and, by implication, our City Staff is lazy, overpaid, and bankrupting the taxpayers of the City).

Demonstrating that, as I previously claimed, I am not a genius at financial statements, one of the Candidates provided me a link to this report prepared by the City which provides the info much more clearly (and, I assume, more accurately,) than my post on the subject. It was pointed out to me that I should look at I should look at Page 8 of the report, where one can find the line:

”…the City’s major cost is salaries and benefits, representing approximately 78% of the total general operating budget.”

I have to admit, this number is way better than the numbers I tried to parse out of the Annual Financial Statements, and it is stated so eloquently, so I guess I owe the Candidates an apology.

Sort of.

Problem is, 78% of the General Operating Budget is not the same thing as 78% of Taxes. Not even close.

The 78% for 2010 number comes from $60M in salaries paid out of the General Operating Fund of $77M. But the General Operating Fund is the money used for day-to-day operations of the City (See Appendix 1 of the Report). The fund from which they pay for office supplies, insurance, incidentals, and yes, salaries. It is not the fund used for Capital Works for the City (like building the Pier Park, or replacing a boiler or City Hall, or sidewalk repairs). Nor does it include any of the Utility operations or capital: the water pipes, sewers, and trash collection that is so much of what the City does.

Things also not included in the General Operating Fund budget: buying and maintaining the vehicle fleet, painting yellow lines on roads, Fire and Police equipment, the Master Transportation Plan, Christmas Lighting, Rail Crossing upgrades, paving projects, the Mercer Stadium Track replacement, street light or street sign upgrades, and the list goes on…

The budget for all of these “Capital costs” was about $65 Million in 2010. And much of that is paid with your taxes.

Then there are utility operations: Electrical, Sewer, Water, and Solid Waste. These are operated on a strict fee-for-service basis: so those who get the service are those who pay for it, and all the money paid for them goes right back into operating the utility. If memory serves me right, this is a strict requirement in the Local Government Act. Utilities cannot be used as cash cows to fund other programs. The only relationship this has to your taxes is that some money is transferred from the Utilities to the General Operating Fund in order to pay the salaries of the people who operate and maintain those utilities but are otherwise paid out of the General Operating Fund.

Interesting to consider that if we reduced salaries, we would need to reduce the General Operation Fund by the same amount of money. If we reduced salaries from $60M to $45M (a 25% cut, sure to cause chaos in any organization), then we would have to also reduce the General Operating Fund by $15M, so the statistic provided by the Candidates would then say “72% goes to taxes!”: not much of an improvement for decimating your City services.

Sorry guys, I stand by my original post as being a much more accurate picture of the relationship of taxes and salaries than “78% of our taxes go to salaries”.

On Elections, Taxes, and Wages

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Now I may be biased, seeing as how I work for a City, but I don’t work for New Westminster, so I am going to barge ahead with that potential bias exposed (sound like a declared conflict-of-interest?). There are currently at least two candidates in New Westminster who are talking taxes in a big way, and it seems they both think that City Workers get paid too much. Fair opinion, but are they arguing facts?

John Ashdown, sometimes referred to as the “Mayor of 12th Street”, is well known as both a community-builder and a fiscal conservative. His website includes the following quote:

”Do you know that 78% of your tax dollar ends up in to City Wages and Salaries?

Mayoral Candidate James Crosty was recently quoted by the Douglas College student paper making a very similar statement:

“80 per cent of every tax dollar that’s generated goes towards paying salaries in the city.”

His promotional newspaper is a little more conservative, downgrading that number to 78.08%. But the message is clear: the City pays so much of your taxes to the wages of City workers that they can hardly afford anything else form the 20% of the money that is left!

This first raised the question to me: is that high? I mean it sounds high, but I wonder if it really is compared to other cities, like Richmond, where I work. I asked these questions to Mr. Crosty at last night’s all-candidates mixer, and he suggested I make the comparison between New West and Richmond (presumably, a better-managed City in his opinion). However, before we compare the facts, let’s find out of they are facts.

Luckily, the City’s 2010 budget is available on-line for anyone to read. Now, I’m no financial expert. Tables of geochemical data generally make much more sense to me that tables with dollar signs on them, but we should be able to parse out the info here without too much trouble.

If we look at the amount of tax revenue generated in 2010, we get the nice, round number of $54,569,975 (page 10 of the .pdf, which is page 2 of the financial statements, first number, second column). So 80% of that is $43,655,980.

Now, if you scroll way, down to page 41 of the .pdf, you get a list of all salaries paid in 2010, notably excluding police: $40,430,379. That is about 74%. Close enough for politics.

Hopefully looking at these same financial statements, you see all the problems with this rough estimate. The $54 Million number only represents about a third of City revenue. The City’s annual revenue is actually more than $165 Million, when you include transfers from other governments, utility charges, and other revenue sources. If you want to be simplistic and call all of these “taxes”, then the $40 Million salary figure above only represents 24% of the money the City takes in.

In fact, a better count for the wages paid out is available on page 27 of the .pdf: including Police services, the City paid $64,034,085 in wages and salaries, or 117% of the tax revenue they take in!

Another way to look at it is to flip to page 48 of the .pdf. At the end of a long list of all the businesses to whom the City paid money for goods or services in 2010 is a grand total of $102,540,586.

Perhaps one of the candidates making the statements above can explain to me how a City that is took in $165 Million in revenue can spend 62% of that revenue on payments to suppliers of goods and services, and still spend 80% on staff salaries? Because I’m clearly not a financial genius, and I may have a bias here.

Finally, let’s compare New Westminster with Richmond.

New West collected $54M in property taxes in 2010, which represents 32% of their $165M in revenues. They pay $64M wages (including cops), and another $7M in contracted services, for a total of $71M. That total represents 43% of their revenue. So 43 cents of every tax dollar goes to wages and consultant fees.

Compare this to Richmond’s annual financial report. Note that Richmond collected $156M in Property Taxes, which is 41% of their $379M in revenue. In the same year, they paid wages to $116M and $49M in contracted services for a total of $165M. That represents 43% of their total revenue. Exactly the same as New West.