Letter - Graham Hadfield

DNV's hobbits have little vision

BY GRAHAM HADFIELD, NORTH SHORE NEWS FEBRUARY 6, 2013

Dear Editor:

District of North Vancouver councillors, can't see out of their own burrows, correction, borough.

Coun. Roger Bassam at least got one thing right: "the need for one municipal government on the North Shore."

The latest decision by the district not to fund a 50-metre pool jointly with the city clearly demonstrates this. Coun. Alan Nixon was the one lone voice of intelligence and common sense on council to question as nonsensical the funding of a 25-metre pool at the William Griffin Recreation Centre while the city funds a 25-metre pool at Harry Jerome two kilometres away.

You do not have to be an aquatic user residing on the North Shore to be angered by the district's decision. All tax-paying residents should be livid. Should the district's protection of its petty fiefdom triumph over simple common sense and economics? Or should we build a facility that would benefit the greater good of all residents on the North Shore irrespective of where they live, district or city, and cater to all user groups at a cheaper cost for us as taxpayers?

The reason and need for a 50-metre pool can be taken even further. Ron Andrews Recreation Centre on district land, although not slated for replacement, does have a limited lifespan, like all structures. With a 50-metre pool its replacement will not be necessary. Two for one or even three for one; lets do the math on that.

The only thing holding back a no-brainer solution is the location, basically being on the wrong side of the municipal street. The mindset of district council is reflected in comments like that of Coun. Lisa Muri: "I cannot recall us being asked for a contribution for a facility that's not within our municipality."

Coun. Bassam you hit the nail on the head: Yes, we do indeed need only one municipal government on the North Shore - and decisions like this will be easy.

Graham Hadfield North Vancouver

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Shaw TV - The Rush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1bVsvrsgMg&feature=youtu.be&t=6s

Mussatto hates amalgamation because the District is not left wing and dense enough.

He informs us that talks are ongoing about different models of North Shore policing.

Update

The City has a paper hidden in secret on some kind of joint North Shore Fire Services.

Letter NSN Dorothy Chala

Let's keep pushing for a vote on amalgamation

BY DOROTHY CHALA, NORTH SHORE NEWS JANUARY 30, 2013

Dear Editor:

I was happy to see the "A word" on the front page of the North Shore News.

Mayor Darrell Mussatto's comments on why it wouldn't be a good idea seem pretty lame. 

Surely operating just one municipal hall, and all the salaries that go along with it, would save money to start with. Obviously the mayors do not want to lose their jobs, but the taxpayers are tired of paying such huge taxes each year, and usually always with an increase.

Let's keep some pressure on the governments in North and West Vancouver to at least put it to a vote. I'm sure the residents of the North Shore would welcome it.

Dorothy Chala North Vancouver

© Copyright (c) North Shore News

http://www.nsnews.com/business/keep+pushing+vote+amalgamation/7892435/story.html#ixzz2VTfoplQA

Biz community quizzes NV mayors

Amalgamation remains a hot topic

BY BRENT RICHTER, NORTH SHORE NEWS JANUARY 27, 2013

MAYORS Richard Walton and Darrell Mussatto listen to questions from the business community at a North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce luncheon meeting moderated by Mike Watson on Thursday.

Photograph by: NEWS photo , Mike Wakefield

IT was a fine luncheon until someone had to go and utter the "A-word."

The perennial amalgamation question came up for a captivated crowd of North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce members who leaned forward in their seats as the two North Vancouver mayors explained why the municipalities ought, or ought never, become one.

City Mayor Darrell Mussatto and district Mayor Richard Walton were guests of a chamber luncheon Thursday, to take questions from the business community.

The larger, yet less cash-flush district is perceived to have the most to gain from a hypothetical union, from the perspective of district council and taxpayers, Walton said.

 "I think, in the last 50 years, it's almost automatic with the district," Walton said. "I've never worked with a councilor who didn't support amalgamation."

The assertion drew laughs from the crowd when it was suggested city Coun. Don Bell, formerly the mayor of DNV, was a sleeper agent sent to bring about amalgamation from within the city.

But, Mussatto cautioned, while the thought of amalgamations of like-municipalities may "feel good," they rarely, if ever, result in the cost savings the local governments were hoping to see.

"The evidence is pretty clear if you do any research that if you do it for financial reasons, you're not going to save any money," he said.

Mussatto pointed to the 1996 amalgamation of Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford as an example. Post-amalgamation, the city piled on millions more in debt in the ensuing years.

The reason, he stated, is that amalgamations come with nasty growing pains, as taxpayers in neither municipality are eager to see their services go down to match their neighbours' service levels, so servicing and costs go up for both former neighbours.

Differences in delivery of services between private sector and unionized city staff that have evolved in two local governments are also notoriously difficult to marry together, he added, citing garbage collection for multi-family residences and business as an example.

Instead, Mussatto suggested regional governance and financing for services like water, sewer and land use planning, exactly as Metro Vancouver operates, as a much better model.

Roughly half of those in attendance applauded. As for the notion of regional policing, it would likely come at the expense of local priority setting, Mussatto said, but added it would be West Vancouver that would stand to benefit most as its policing infrastructure and costs could be absorbed by a single North Shore police force, but would not lose any noticeable level of service.

While there appears to be no sign of a budge on the amalgamation issue, the two mayors were "joined at the hip" according to moderator Mike Watson on some other broader issues including philosophy on development and attraction of business to their respective jurisdictions.

In his opening remarks, Walton quoted from an American urban studies academic who found that cities that prosper today are ones that can attract the 20 to 40 demographic, which sadly, the district has been failing to do.

But hopefully, Walton said, the seeds of a more prosperous district lie in its new official community plan, which calls for denser, walkable urban centres, which tend to be more attractive and affordable for that demographic.

The city meanwhile is also trying to make itself equally desirable for businesses and a mix of younger residents, Mussatto said. While the development proposal for the Safeway site has been stalled and sent back to another public hearing, it is the type of development he would like to see in the city's core.

brichter@nsnews.com

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http://www.nsnews.com/news/community+quizzes+mayors/7878882/story.html#ixzz2VTZTnI9g

NSN Editorial

Dead in the water

 

 

NORTH SHORE NEWS DECEMBER 16, 2012

 

 

IF there was ever hard evidence that the North Shore suffers from an excess of North Vancouvers, it came to light this week when the district decided not to go in with the city on a new Olympic-sized swimming pool.

The City of North Vancouver, in its ongoing struggle to redesign Harry Jerome Recreation Centre, has concluded that installing the North Shore's first 50-metre pool would be an important improvement. 

Indeed, a full-sized facility could be transformative, creating a training facility for budding athletes and a draw for major events. But the plan isn't one the city can afford on its own.

With the district planning to rebuild its 25-metre pool at William Griffin, roughly two kilometers away, the solution seemed obvious: Why not go in on the project together, and create one great facility in place of two mediocre ones?

The move would have been a no-brainer had it been under the purview of a single council. But it wasn't. Because Harry Jerome lies on the other side of the municipal boundary - roughly five blocks past it - the district balked. No way was it going to help with a project on the far side of that arbitrary line.

Instead, it will go ahead with its half-sized pool a four-minute drive from Harry Jerome, leaving both municipalities with inferior facilities. The decision denies the community a valuable asset and likely saves taxpayers nothing.

In the face of this outcome, one wonders if our pools are the only thing that should be amalgamated.

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http://www.nsnews.com/news/Dead+water/7706284/story.html#ixzz2VTVmzR9Z

Amalgamate North Shore fire services to save millions: report

District of North Vancouver in-camera report suggests savings of $3.6M a year

BY JAMES WELDON, NORTH SHORE NEWS FEBRUARY 13, 2012

 STORY

Overlapping administration among North Shore fire services could be streamlined to save approximately $3.6 million a year according to an unreleased report commissioned by the District of North Vancouver.

Photograph by: North Shore News , file

NORTH Shore taxpayers could save $3.6 million a year if the community's three fire departments merged, according to a report commissioned recently by the District of North Vancouver.

The study, completed within the past two years, according to the district, concluded that the savings would come "primarily from reductions in management positions, overtime, capital costs for trucks and consolidation of specialty or support services." 

Right now, West Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver each has its own independent service, complete with fire chief, administrative staff and so on. The apparent redundancies have long been a contentious issue in all three municipalities but, until now, none of the three has studied the potential savings in detail.

Last year, the district spent $16 million running its fire department, or about 14 per cent of its overall operating budget. The city spent $7.8 million, or about 14 per cent, and West Vancouver spent $12.5 million, or about 16 per cent.

Given the significant differences in population and land area, it's extremely unlikely the financial benefits of a merger - if any - would be split evenly three ways. Rather, "any savings would have to be shared based on an agreed-upon formula," said district spokeswoman Jeanine Bratina, in a statement.

How the report's authors reached the $3.6-million figure is unclear; the document has not been made public, and the district has refused to release a copy to media. It would only confirm the findings, and claimed that the document had been reviewed by the chief administrative officers of all three communities. Even the report's title, authorship and cost - and even page count -remain under wraps. Pressed, Bratina refused to say why the municipality was not divulging that information.

It doesn't appear that much is going to change as a result of the report's contents, however, according to the district.

"A preliminary review suggests that many of the recommendations need to be tested and considered from a governance, labour relations and implementation cost perspective," said Bratina. "At this point, there is not unanimous consent amongst the three North Shore municipalities to consider fire services consolidation."

The district commissioned the report in the wake of a 2010 fire services review by Dugal Smith and Associates that evaluated collaboration among the departments. That earlier report, sponsored by all three municipalities, concluded that the services were already co-operating in some ways, but that there were major barriers to significant change.

West Vancouver's chief administrative officer Grant McRadu, in a report to council last year, concluded that the predicted annual cost savings from that co-operation - about $513,000 - were "likely a long-term rather than a short-term possibility."

In her comments this week, Bratina suggested the financial benefit has been limited so far. "It has been recognized that the cost savings are marginal in the context of the over $35 million dollars, or approximately $205 per resident, that is spent annually on the North Shore for fire services," she said.

Nonetheless, without agreement on amalgamation among the municipalities, "the focus remains on achieving improvements in service and cost reductions through increased co-operation and coordination between the three fire departments," said Bratina.

Reached for comment Friday, City of North Vancouver Fire Chief Barrie Penman, questioned the value of a report commissioned by just one municipality. He had not seen the document, he said, but nor had his department been consulted in any way in its creation.

"A single municipality doing an amalgamation report to me is bit different," he said. "You need a partner to dance."

The North Shore's three fire services were already working well together on an number of fronts, he said. "We train together, we recruit together ,we respond together. . . . It's working."

No one at the District of West Vancouver could be reached for comment Friday, according to a spokeswoman. The idea of amalgamation has not been without its supporters there in the past.

Coun. Michael Smith, now mayor of West Vancouver, said at the time of McRadu's 2011 report that: "If we had one central command, one chief and one bureaucracy for the North Shore, all the firefighters would be trained under the same training department. It makes so much sense that nobody can speak against it."

jweldon@nsnews.com

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http://www.nsnews.com/news/Amalgamate+North+Shore+fire+services+save+millions+report/6140857/story.html#ixzz2VTMVxLLp

Letter NSN Joan Peters

Do the report on amalgamation

BY JOAN PETERS, NORTH SHORE NEWS FEBRUARY 10, 2012

Dear Editor:

There is growing interest in the possible amalgamation of the City and District of North Vancouver. 

City Mayor Darrell Mussatto has said he will not discuss it. An elected official has a responsibility far beyond self interest. In my opinion, the moment Mussatto refused to discuss amalgamation he put himself in serious conflict of interest.

As mayor it is his duty to address this legitimate public concern with an honest, unbiased, all-encompassing public report on all the pros and cons of such a move from the standpoint of both municipalities. 

Only then can we the citizens/taxpayers decide what we believe to be best for our way of life and expectations for our area. 

With open discussions, clear information, publicity, hundreds of questions and answers and much thinking we could be ready by the next civic election, 2014, to put this issue to rest by referendum.

Joan Peters

North Vancouver

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http://www.nsnews.com/news/report+amalgamation/6131707/story.html#ixzz2VTTGmbOv

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

© Copyright (c) North Shore News

Georgia Straight article

North Vancouver amalgamation would solve a regional problem

by CHARLIE SMITH on MAY 24, 2009 at 3:44 PM

The District of North Vancouver has gotten a raw deal because of the way municipal boundaries were drawn many years ago.

The nearby City of North Vancouver includes the Lonsdale  business strip as well as Lonsdale Quay.  The city  can rely on businesses to cover part of its tax base, which means homeowners aren't the only geese being plucked at tax time.

The district, on the other hand, doesn't have a central business district. There are shopping areas in Deep Cove, Edgemont Village, and Lynn Valley. But for municipal tax collectors, none of these compare with Metrotown in Burnaby or the Number 3 Road strip in Richmond or even Kerrisdale in Vancouver.

The District of North Vancouver  has a strategy to address this. The Lower Lynn Concept Plan could turn this part of the district into a North Shore equivalent of Kerrisdale--a neighbourhood with lots of residents, lots of jobs, and yes, some office development.

But Metro Vancouver's draft regional growth strategy could undermine these objectives, according to a staff report going to the district council tomorrow (May 25)  night. Metro Vancouver wants to encourage office development in urban centres, and not in quaint Lynn Valley.

Lynn Valley is close to a regional bus hub, Phibbs Exchange, but it's nowhere near any rapid-transit lines.

It's going to be interesting to see how this situation develops. In the past, the City of Surrey and the City of Richmond sometimes played the role of regional rogues, going against the wishes of regional district planners.

Will the District of North Van under its suave and ecologically inclined mayor, Richard Walton, take over this role in the future by pushing ahead with incentives for office development in Lynn Valley?

When he was first elected mayor, Walton spoke favourably about amalgamating the District of North Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver. Perhaps if Metro Vancouver put pressure on the provincial government to force amalgamation, district politicians wouldn't have such a big financial incentive to turn Lynn Valley into a major commercial centre.

Of course, Premier Gordon Campbell could easily force an amalgamation through provincial legislation. The two municipal governments already share the cost of arts and cultural grants, recreation, the fire department, and the RCMP.

It's far too early to suggest that  amalgamation will ever occur. But  it could address the  regional district's  potential concerns about two municipal governments in North Vancouver each trying to boost their tax bases by stimulating office and retail development in separate areas.