MLA Michelle Stilwell Not OUR Representative!!

   As many of you will remember, British Columbia held a provincial election last May. The BC Liberals 'pulling it out of the fire' was quite a surprise to most people but the pragmatic amongst us believed that the public must see something in the Liberals that would make them better representatives for us. After all, isn't that the basis of the democratic system, the one that millions have given their lives to defend over the years.
   Sadly, I am here to tell you that our rookie MLA, Michelle Stilwell, is failing at the very heart of this concept. I don't remember exactly where it started to go wrong but we haven't had a representative government for a very long time. Instead of taking our viewpoint to Victoria and voting for their constituents, MLAs now accept our salarys, spend our expenses to get to and stay in Victoria and then they vote the way their party tells them to. Then they again spend our expenses returning to their riding to tell us how this is all going to be. What the hell kind of democracy is that?!?
    I thought that I would 'get ahead of the curve' by contacting Ms. Stilwell via Twitter during the election campaign to have her explain to me, and the rest of the 'Twitterverse', what her approach was going to be if she was fortunate enough to be graced with/garner the majority of our votes.
  After only meeting at the Legislature for 36 days in the past year and half, the government set themselves an ambitious calendar for the spring session. One issue that I had personally spent a lot of time on over the past 4 years was that of local government elections' rule reform. After Ms. Stilwell was elected, I resolved that I would make this a test of her commitment to democracy. To that end, I had sent her the following email (14 05 08) referencing 'unanswered' pre-election Tweets to let her know exactly how and why one of her constituents felt:

 Dear Ms. Stilwell,

May 3/13 Tweet to @stilwell2013:
Wut specific experience do u have that makes u my best choice for MLA?

May 7/13 Tweet to @stilwell2013:
U didn't respond 2 prev tweet-so, given there r basicaly 0 free votes in legis, how exactly would u be my "champion"?!

May 10/13 Tweet to @stilwell2013:
Since u don't answr tweets when u need my vote, wonder wut u be like if u were my MLA and I neded ur help?!?

As it has now been 7 weeks since I sent you additional facts on the term-of-office extension for local politicians issue, I am disappointed (but sadly not surprised) that you have chosen not to continue the discussion.

So, this is how that precious and fragile thing called democracy (the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life / the key to democracy is the right to state your opinion, and to have it heard – to place your ideas in the public discourse, for review, discussion, and development / "government by the people"), a concept that hundreds of our fathers/mothers and sons/daughters and tens of thousands of our grandfathers have given their lives for, is supposed to work! The people you promised to represent to the best of your ability present a concern to you as his/her MLA. You look into it, gathering your own set of information and then you enter into a frank and open discussion with the constituent. Through this reasoned process, you jointly arrive at an agreed upon set of facts. This process may well be going on in parallel with a number of constituents, representing various viewpoints on this issue. After careful consideration, you then arrive at a position as to how you are going to vote when the actual legislation is brought forward. It appears that we are stuck at the very beginning in as much as you have chosen not to engage in a discussion of the relevant information. This is very disappointing but, unfortunately, not surprising, given your lack of engagement when I sent out the Tweets during the election campaign asking you to explain your approach to the current take on democracy.
   Now, back to the current issue. You have provided nothing to counter the information regarding support (or lack thereof) for increasing local government politicians' terms-of-office from 3 to 4 years which I have researched and provided to you so it appears that you are prepared to vote for this legislation despite the obvious lack of broad support put forward by the government and that the most important element in the democratic system, the public, has not been mentioned at all. Other deficiencies: taking into account only the support of a group which is clearly in a conflict of interest and direct disregard and contravention of the public's majority voice.
   It is deeply troubling to me that, as my representative in the government, you would take such a cavalier approach to such an important issue.

Sincerely,
Hans J. Larsen
Lantzville, B. C.

I live in Lantzville, BC, CANADA and this keeps me busy!!

Of course, even though she continues to cash yours and my paycheque and have us pay for her to attend the Legislature and provide her with a 'Constituency' Office and staff, I received no reply from her! And the Liberal government, in spite of the overwhelming public input favouring the 'status quo', made the change from 3-year to 4-year terms for local government officials. Also, in spite of overwhelming public support for implementing campaign finance limits, the Liberal government chose to 'stand pat'.

Here is a link to a Times-Colonist newspaper Opinion piece by the Executive Director of IntegrityBC in which he criticizes the Liberal government's record on public consultation, i.e., asking the public for their opinion and then listening to the majority. Of course, if you don't ask your constituents for their opinion, you won't know what they want you to do when you get to Victoria!


http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/columnists/dermod-travis-liberals-stint-on-public-consultation-1.1119064

How would you rate our very own Parksville-Qualicum MLA on the six principles put forward by the former B.C. Auditor-General?

Have you been 'lucky' enough to receive regular mail-outs (email or otherwise) from Ms. Stilwell? In response to one this summer that was just pure government propaganda, I sent her the following email (14 10 17): 

Michelle,

   If you were actually prepared to participate in discussions and listen to what your constituents had to say on specific issues and to then back that up with your vote in Victoria, I might be interested in receiving unsolicited communications from you/your office. However, absent the ability to influence/moderate your actions on my behalf, I do not see any value in receiving propaganda (telling me how it's going to be) from your government. Therefore, please remove me from your mailing list.

Sincerely,

Hans J. Larsen

Lantzville, B.C.


I should point out that I referred to it as "your ('her') government" since that is the way she refers to it in her missives. Clearly, she doesn't realize that it is actually 'our' government and she is simply our representative in it.

Perspectives on Lantzville/Nanaimo Water Deal Machinations

Well, by now Lantzvillagers should know that, at their regular meeting on Sept. 8th, Lantzville council, with only Councillors Mostad and Haime dissenting, voted to accept the modified agreement with Nanaimo for them to provide us with bulk water. What you may NOT know, is exactly how it happened! Do you remember those 'Community Update's that we receive from the District on a regular basis'? Well, the District had been telling us that the draft water agreement continues to be discussed with Nanaimo and, before any agreement would be signed for the provision of bulk water to Lantzville, there would be extensive, public consultation in the form of information circulars and meetings.

At their regular council meeting on Sept. 8th, before any of that consultation had occurred, Lantzville council decided to add the water agreement to the Agenda (meaning that no one who had been checking the District website to see what would be on that Agenda would have had any idea that the water agreement would be dealt with). However, given that the meeting was a 'full-house', it appears that a limited group of individuals were told in advance what would be transpiring at that meeting. As if all this wasn't bad/undemocratic enough, earlier in the summer, Lantzville council had negotiated some changes to the draft water agreement with Nanaimo, one of which took away the requirement that the residents of Lantzville would get a vote on whether or not to accept the water deal. Now I can already hear their bleating - 'since there was no capital expense involved, the water deal didn't have to go to a referendum vote'. Well, I can only see two things wrong with that assertion, the first being that there will be a significant expenditure to construct the actual connection to Nanaimo's water system and the second is that, even if it wasn't legally required, given the massive impact bulk water would have on our community, a vote was ethically and morally necessary.
In the recent Community Update specifically on the water agreement, Council says that the reason they signed the agreement without the promised public consultation was that it gives them the opportunity to obtain bulk water from Nanaimo but that is NOT an answer to the question posed! I would ask why they were in so much of a hurry to sign the agreement that they took the very undemocratic approach detailed in the preamble above. Did they have any specific reason to believe that the agreement would not be there next week, next month or next year, after the promised round of public consultations were completed? For my money, I believe that they were motivated by councillor Haime's remarks back on Nov. 28/11 that "there will be no change in service in the District over the next 3 years and everyone she's talked to wants stagnation for the next 3 years" and they desperately wanted to prove her wrong, sadly at Lantzville's expense!

Following are links to local media stories (just click on the ones of interest to you) about the water situation in Lantzville, the water agreement with Nanaimo and Letters to the Editor on same, as well as comments that I posted to the sources' website. Note that the Nanaimo Daily News does not routinely provide the ability for people to comment on their on-line articles:

Lantzville residents raise concerns over water deal with city

Lantzville should source its own water (Letters to Editor)

Lantzville's water issues misunderstood (Letter to Editor)

Lantzville councillor suggests sending water deal to referendum


   Lantzville Council would do well to listen to what the residents have told them in the Citizen Satisfaction Survey on water. Of those on wells who responded, only 13% [24] say they are dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with the quality and only 12% [22] say they are dissatisfied/very dissatisfied with the quantity of their water.
added 14 10 24 - Not meaning to ignore the feelings of those ~880 homes currently on the community water system, consider carefully the following results (also from the Citizen Satisfaction Survey): when asked if they supported an expansion of their water system, 28% [75] said 'YES', 39% [106] said 'NO' and 33% [88] said 'MAYBE' and/or offered feedback/comments. Also, of those on wells who were asked the same question (presumably to be able to supply water to their properties), 27% [39] said 'YES', 32% [47] said 'NO' and 35% [51] said 'MAYBE' and/or offered additional clarifying comments. While the District could have done an extensive 'water survey' to fully define the 'problem', they have chosen not to. Given the above data, at the present time there is no overwhelming evidence to support bringing bulk water to Lantzville!!!
   Under the Haime administration, all taxpayers of Lantzville have already contributed $200,000 to the City of Nanaimo just for the 'opportunity' to discuss emergency water with them plus ~$80,000 over 9 years to the City's Port Theatre just to be able to continue to talk water, with another request expected any day. Then there is the $78,000 those on the water system have also paid for an emergency water connection, which has yet to be used 7 years later. So, we have already paid dearly to the City without a drop of water actually having been delivered.
   Let's not forget that it was Lantzville council who brought in the requirement that the minimum size of property created without BOTH municipal sewer and water services would be 1 ha (2.47 acres), a requirement which 'motivates' vacant landowners to look favourably on the need for municipal sewer and water services.
   Given all of this, I think that a frank and open discussion surrounding the whole issue of water in Lantzville is long overdue and I would support that. This would also include the impacts of having more water than the current residents require, including facilitating large developments. We need to openly discuss how much development we are willing to accept and whether development is really "going to pay for itself", without fear of being labelled 'backwards' if we opt for low growth. Unfortunately, when there is power and money involved, that type of thing seldom happens!

Water deal with Lantzville waits on Nanaimo city council vote



Nanaimo councillors approve water deal with Nanaimo


Lantzville getting bargain on Nanaimo's water (Letter to Editor) 

Water deal should be put to vote in Lantzville (Letter to Editor)

Interesting that this letter was written at a time when the draft agreement between Lantzville and Nanaimo already contained a requirement that the agreement subject to a positive vote by Lantzville residents before it could be enacted (a clause that was later be asked to have removed by Lantzville council and agreed to by Nanaimo council).

Drinking water found by Foothills developer

Deal is still on after developer locates water

Lantzville considers options on water

We already know how the large landowners, the media and council came together to 'convince' us that we needed sewers ("literally a cesspool") and now its happening again on water. There are far less expensive ways of dealing with geographically limited boron/salt water contamination than piping water from 30 km away.
If the majority of Lantzville residents do not want major development, why should their wishes not be respected - each of us has the same voting power as a single large landowner?! We should be allowed to live in peace in our 'backwater' without being made to feel stupid. We will be fine without this added infrastructure but the developers will not. Also, one of the biggest myths concerning development is that it pays for itself - which is very seldom true. The off-site costs and the disruption caused by the construction are significant and the taxes typically fall short. In the 9 months between now and the local elections, let your voice be heard, loud and often.


Motion on water referendum fails

Councillor offers up water option 

Enlist technology in making water available (Letter to Editor)

Lantzville council has yet to ratify agreement that will see water sharing with Nanaimo 

Lantzville residents seek the truth on water deal (Letter to Editor) 

Lantzville councillor calls for referendum

Town's water wars continue

Lantzville water vote called premature

Lantzville residents can't be complacent (Letter to Editor)

 City Log: Water-sharing agreement comes before council

Council approves changes to water agreement

As you can see, the Nanaimo Daily News left out the most important change requested by Lantzville council, and now approved by the City of Nanaimo, that being the removal of the requirement for there to be a vote by residents of Lantzville on the water deal. Interestingly enough, the Nanaimo Bulletin didn't mention it in their piece either. Strange that neither paper could see the importance of such a significant change!

Lantzville council votes to sign water deal with Nanaimo

We were promised public consultation via meetings and information mail-outs and we didn't even get the chance to speak to this major, major issue for our community at that fateful council meeting. Shame, shame, shame!! I guess we should have known the 'fix was in' when Lantzville council took the decision out of the hands of those who would be paying for it and put it in their own - several of whom will now stand to benefit from their decision. Many questions will remain unanswered - how much will Lantzville water users be paying for water usage (more or less than currently?). Are we now going to be required to waste as much water as Nanaimo does since we are required to adopt their water conservation regime? We have had an emergency water connection for years (which cost us $280,000) and have never had to draw a single drop). The vast majority of Lantzvillagers [on wells - added 14 10 13] were satisfied or more than satisfied with their quantity and quality of community-water so this has to be all about development. Mark my words, this is the end of Lantzville, folks! How long do you think that the province is going to allow us to play at governing ourselves when our sewage is treated in Nanaimo and now our water comes from Nanaimo? 

Public meeting set to discuss Lantzville water deal

Isn't that just wonderful - except for the fact that we were promised meetings BEFORE council would even consider accepting the water agreement. I suppose that we had to know council was going to approve the agreement no matter what the majority of Lantzville residents thought when they lobbied the city of Nanaimo to remove the requirement of approval by the residents of Lantzville. In my more than 20 years of watching local politicians do everything they could to keep the voters out of the process, but never could I have imagined that Lantzville council would be the one to stoop to a new low - leaving the water agreement off the Agenda and then adding it just prior to dealing with it.
Also, it certainly didn't take long for the developers to swoop in. Almost before the ink was dry on the water agreement, the District was signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the new owners of the Lantzville Foothills regarding development on their lands.
Really - what is there for us to discuss?!

Lantzville signs water agreement

Rather than his service with the tiny Lantzville Improvement District almost 30 years ago, I strongly suspect that Bob Colclough's ownership of a 5-acre piece of property adjacent to the Lantzville Foothills Estate's (Lone Pine) properties and his ownership of a company that does "land, community and economic development" consulting did more to inform his position of not seeing any reason not to sign the water agreement. The people of Lantzville, who have consistently said that they are satisfied with their water quantity and quality, might beg to differ. Sadly for democracy, now they won't even have that opportunity they were promised by council!

Lantzville's dry spell is over

Water agreement seems a bit leaky (Letter to Editor)

Lantzville Council Size 2014 Referendum

As a result of calls from the Editor of the 'new' Lantzville Log (who we now know to have been former Mayor, Colin Haime) for residents to weigh in on the question of the size of Lantzville Council (currently a Mayor and 6 councillors), I submitted the following:

   Having spent a fair bit of time researching and thinking about this issue, I support reducing our council to 5 members. Let me share with you why.
   On the aspect of representation, it is the quality of the members, not the number that is important - more bodies does not necessarily mean better representation! On the aspect of quorum, 57 5-member B.C. municipalities are still able to function. On the issue of fostering diversity of opinion, I note the previous Council had 3 accountants, two of whom who were co-habiting!
   Population alone is a very poor indicator of government workload. Other factors such as the no. of permanent employees, the amount of annual expenses and the length of pipes+roads also should be considered. The Town of Qualicum Beach (6.5 x our # perm. employees, 4.5 x our expenses, 2 x the km. of pipes+roads, 2.5 x our population) has had 5 members for the past 71 years, and have provided capable oversight.
   Lantzville spent $927,000 on Administration in 2012, on total expenses of 2.6 M$ - 2 councillors plus expenses costs $24,000/yr at current levels. We need to look at all ways to save money and council should not be immune to that.
     Back in 2011, former councillor Negrave introduced a motion to have a referendum to reduce council size - it failed due to lack of a seconder - in other words, no one on that Council wanted to even discuss the pros and cons. Why would council, who works for and is paid by the taxpayers, not want to give the residents the opportunity to determine the size of that council? We didn't have a say on the original council size so it is entirely appropriate that we have our say now 10+ years on. And if it should increase voter turnout, how is that bad?!
   Send all council members an email sharing your opinion in this election year.

Interestingly, they published the piece, as submitted, except for the second sentence in the first paragraph and the last sentence in the entire piece?!
[UPDATE 14 11 18] We now know that, according to the preliminary results, the residents of Lantzville have voted 59% in favour of reducing our council size from 7 to 5. Even though returning councillor David Scott recently tried to use the very same Qualicum Beach as a reason to reject reducing our council size, the residents of that community actually voted 70% in favour of keeping their council size at the same level (5) that they have had for the past 71 years. Part of his argument was that Qualicum Beach had been paying their 4 councillors as if they were doing the work of six (I would assume based on some impression of time commitment) so that Lantzville wouldn't save any money by reducing our council size but, as one can clearly see from the above information, we don't have nearly the same workload as them so there is no reason to expect that we would have to similarly increase the pay of our 4 councillors. I think both communities got it right!

How Long Must We, The 'People', Continue To Suffer?!?

I have commented before on the significant failings of our justice system on this blog. Sadly, things are not getting any better, innocent people are still being killed and the perpetrators are being treated like the victims by the legal (it isn't justice) system. In response to the following article in the Peace Arch News on Oct. 25/12 http://www.peacearchnews.com/news/175820191.html, I wrote the following Letter to the Editor:

Dear Editor,

RE: Hit-and-run killer sentenced to two years (less a day, actually), Oct. 25/12

   What an absolutely pathetic and totally inadequate sentence! Two sets of concurrent sentences meaning that Kyle Brandon Danyliuk serves one amount of time each for multiple offences. Also, there is no mention of him being held responsible for driving with no Driver's License [he's never had one] (and therefore, no insurance either). Assuming that Justice Michael Hicks is right about Danyliuk "having learned his lesson already", and therefore, does not need further deterrence, what does this laughable sentence do to deter another young punk from doing something equally heinous to some other innocent person(s) and family?!
   No wonder our court system is 'plugged' when the sentences they do hand down (after considerable resources are  expended [in this case, up to 35 officers and 3 courts sessions] and lots of paper shuffling) do not dissuade anyone from breaking the law and then it begins all over again. As 'Justice' Hicks has amply demonstrated with this ruling, everyone seem to be just "going through the motions" and we all pay the price. The 'People', including Marilyn Laursen's family, asked for 4 years; he is sentenced to 24 months (less a day), possibly out in 8 months, exactly what his lawyer had sought - the revolving door continues. Also, what about holding the girlfriend and mother of his child, Carleigh Merritt, responsible for aiding him by filing a false stolen auto report and failing to turn him into the police after she found out what he had done.
   Haven't we had enough - Shirley Bond, the Attorney-General of B.C., must instruct the Crown to appeal this sentence!?! The RCMP (35 officers at one time) and courts (3 separate hearings) invested significant resources and for what?! We need to have a victim surcharge in place to make the guilty pay some of the costs of bringing them to 'justice'!


I have to ask - how many of you really believe that either the government or the legal system has taken any action to correct these severe failings within the system? Witness the outcome of this similarly tragic case which was dealt with about 2 months after the incident commented on above: http://www.peacearchnews.com/news/185065161.html You can see that the comments still favour the perpetrator and there is very little being done to hold the guilty accountable (Ms. Warren will probably be out in less than a year). If this repeated 'wheel-spinning' at the expense of dozens of innocent families bothers you as much as it does me, I implore you to call/email your MLA/MP, the Premier and the Attorney-General and tell them that this is just not acceptable and has to change!

Raises, Raises Everywhere (At Least For Politicians)!!!

It all seems to have begun with the District of Lantzville giving themselves big raises (44% for the Mayor, 37% for Councillors over 3 years, plus conferences) early last year, followed by Abbotsford (9.1% for the Mayor, 7.2% for Councillors, plus stipends and conferences), Nanaimo (24% for the Mayor, 11% for Councillors over 3 years), Parksville (17% for the Mayor, 18% for Councillors+COLA [cost of living allowance]), Port Coquitlam [2010] (27% for the Mayor, 42% for Councillors), Prince George (0% for the Mayor, 29.5% for Councillors), Revelstoke (27% for the Mayor, 27% for Councillors) and most likely others (they just don't seem to be able to help themselves!). It must be nice to be in a position to give yourselves a significant raise on a salary of which a third is tax free, especially when most working people are lucky to be getting 'cost-of-living' increases (~3%/yr). To shed some more light on this subject, here is a piece I wrote and submitted to the Nanaimo Daily News, which they almost published as submitted (they just don't seem to be able to help themselves either, usually making both meaningless, small changes and/or omitting significant phrases/sentences). For example, they edited out the phrase about "realizing that any one of them doesn't actually have to do anything". I guess they just weren't ready to accept the sad truth of that statement:

Dear Editor,
Re: Raise in pay for city council gets the O.K., Daily News, Sept. 20/11

Well, that certainly didn't take long - from Staff Report to voting themselves (sorry, the next Council) a 24% increase over 3 years in less than a week! This all based on wanting to achieve the median remuneration from a list (which doesn't appear in the report) of 12 'comparables'. The problem is that they aren't even comparable in population, with an 84% spread! One would think that the well-paid bureaucrats at Nanaimo City Hall would be able to come up with a better plan than basing such an important decision on population alone. If they really felt this was the best route, at the very least the list should have taken into account other important 'attributes' of a municipality, e.g., the size of their annual budget, the number of full-time employees, etc. Another option that was given short shrift by staff was to form a committee of residents who actually work to earn the money to pay those salaries and have them do some fact-finding and then make recommendations. It would have made eminent sense to actually look at what Council members do (realizing that any one of them doesn't actually have to do anything) to get paid. Interview them, have them fill out a survey - how many hours in meetings, how many issues did they resolve, etc. Remember that Council members need no academic qualifications or specific experience - all you need to do is convince about 25% of the registered voters that 'you're their guy' and voila, the money starts rolling in. The well-qualified and regularly appraised teacher's of B. C. are fighting to see their first raise above cost-of-living in about 8 years based on 'comparables' to other provinces that have them well behind - so why should this work for politicians but not teacher's?

While some of the jurisdictions actually did consider forming a committee of local residents, each found interesting justifications as to why they weren't going to go that route - would have difficulty finding a 'representative' group, not enough time to implement given the 'specialized' nature of the task, committee would probably make the same recommendation as staff, and (reading between the lines) they might decide to cut our salaries, etc.
Finally, even the math-challenged can see that, under this system, every time one Council on the list gives themselves (sorry, I mean the next Council) a raise, they all immediately qualify for another one and round and round it goes!

For details specifically on the Council raises in Lantzville, have a look at my recent piece, http://vigilantz.blogspot.com/2011/05/lantzville-administration-too-big-and.html

Lantzville Administration - Too 'Big and Rich' For Its Residents?!?

TO BEGIN, A QUESTION?
Why does Mayor Haime present the 5-Year Financial Plan and not the Director of FINANCial Services or the Deputy Director of FINANCial Services, both highly paid individuals who could probably use the practice of speaking to and interacting with the Public?

The saga of Council remuneration has been long and tortuous, including several 'fits and starts'. I understand that setting your own salary, especially in the public realm, is not an easy undertaking and that is why I have always supported using a logical, well-defined, fact-based process.

There were at least 3 remuneration committees in Lantzville during the past 18 years or so who took on the task of considering the workload of the Improvement District Trustees and making recommendations to them on what they should be paid and have reimbursed as expenses. Since, I, myself, was Chair of one of those committees, I know that some effort went into determining exactly what the Trustees did, how much time their duties took and what that was worth to the community. So, now we have progressed? to where the Councillors themselves will determine what they should be paid. They will sometimes arrange it so that any changes won't apply to them, only the next council, but I would ask you to take a guess at how many of them will be running in the next municipal election in order to 'see their agenda fulfilled'.

Now for the story so far - District of Lantzville council, after initially 'taking charge' and resolving, at their Regular Meeting on Mar. 12/07, to strike a 'Task Force' of residents to review current Mayor and Councillor remuneration and reimbursements and then make recommendations to Council, then rescinded that motion at their May 28th Regular Meeting. The reason given for this about-turn was that staff were having difficulty selecting community members to serve on said 'Task Force' and staff felt that Lantzville residents may not possess the specialized knowledge/experience required to perform the job. Some in our community have suggested that the real reason behind this 'change of horses' is that some members of Council were worried that a Citizen's Committee would actually end up recommending a pay CUT!

So, there you have it! Based on a recommendation from staff, the sole basis for deciding what our local politicians are to be paid is what other politicians in municipalities with 'similar' populations are being paid. While the increases then under consideration, 36% for the Mayor and 26% for each Councillor (followed by 'cost-of-living'), which were to be given second and third reading at the Nov. 12th Regular Council Meeting, are based entirely on the average remuneration for municipalities in the 2600-5000 population range ($17,656 for the Mayor, $8,969 for the Councillors), the actual range of 'indemnities' goes from $8000 for the 2762-peopled Village of Cumberland to $35,626 for the 4963-peopled Town of Osoyoos. This, by itself, should convince any thinking person that population averages alone don't nearly tell the whole story. All of the others below this amount on the list could argue that they too deserve a raise up to the 'average'. As I wrote in the initial installment of this piece, every time averages are used to determine a pay raise, the average increases and then everyone else thinks they're due for a raise, as well, and round and round it goes, driving up the cost to the taxpayers. A committee should have been struck, perhaps by random selection from the tax roles, and they should have developed 'metrics' for the position of Mayor and Councillor (meetings attended, emails/phone calls handled, files handled, issues resolved, etc.) and that should have been used as a basis for recommending the remuneration package. There also needs to be some recognition of the possibility that some of our representatives might be tempted to take advantage of the system and actually do very little.

Staff also cited as further justification for these increases the demands "of establishing Lantzville as a new municipality". Surely, even if these increases had been implemented then (a full 4 years after Lantzville's incorporation), it would be hard to convince anyone that much work relating to this item remained to be done. At the November meeting, the motion to accept the staff recommendation failed on a tie vote (with Mayor Haime, Councillors Haime and Parkhurst voting 'in favour').

From the above discussion, I think you can see that Council originally balked over concern at the 'optics' of giving themselves increases of 36% for the Mayor and 26% for Councillors but came back 'strong' a couple of years later (Feb. 22/10) and gave the Mayor 44% and the rest of Council 37% over 3 years, presumably to make up for the 'paltry' cost-of-living raises they had received in the meantime! During the discussion over these raises, the Chartered Accountant-laden Council made the comment that "the increase goes over 3 years so it is less than a 2% increase since we incorporated in 2003". While I am no accountant, I do operate a pretty mean calculator and I get the increase to be 4% per year for the Mayor up to 2010 and 3.6% per year for Councillors, also up to 2010. If we project that to when the raises will have taken full effect, it becomes 5.8% per year for the Mayor and 5.3% per year for Councillors, quite a discrepancy from 2%!

So here, after much work and many hours of effort in order to find, understand, authenticate and format, is a spreadsheet summarizing Council and senior staff remuneration and expenses since Lantzville's incorporation as a municipality in 2003, where those numbers are available (you can scroll 'up' and 'down', 'left' and 'right' in order to view the entire table:


Although it is indicated on the spreadsheet, it is important enough to be worth repeating that fully one third of Council salaries are tax-free, giving them an approximate 15-25% 'boost' on that amount. Also, money that Council spends on convention/conference attendance is, for some reason, not included with their expenses. This amounted to an additional $17,469 in 2009 and $12,577 in 2010.
It is also worth repeating that, Councillor Negrave tried to give back his raise in 2010 but others on Council expressed concern about how this would look so he seems to have agreed to now take the full salary. Whether or not he then donates the annual salary 'bump' to a worthy charity or cause, I don't know.

I have also tried to sort out the 'benefits' associated specifically with the salaries of Council and senior staff in the above table but, with the limited information available to the public, it is just not possible. What I can tell you, based on information in Schedule C fromo the District's annual Financial Statements, is that the total 'wages, salaries and benefits' cost in 2010 was $820,016 ($772,718 in 2009) and the total cost for 'training, travel and conferences' for 2010 was $56,970 ($57,180 in 2009). If we add these 2 numbers together, we get $876,986 for 2010 ($829,898 in 2009), which represents the total District Council and staff costs, except for 'Consulting' costs (assumed to be for Pam Shaw, Graham Savage, etc.), which were $16,212 in 2010 ($50,595 in 2009). It is not clear where Council and staff 'expenses' are accounted for 'Other'?).

Unless you've been living under a rock, most people living in the Nanaimo area now know that Gerry Berry, until fairly recently the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of the City of Nanaimo was, in 2007, the 11th highest paid local government official in the province (in absolute terms) at $219,017/yr. The 'odour' of him 'retiring' two years later and collecting an almost half million dollar 'severance' package is a whole other topic of discussion! Since Nanaimo had a population of ~81,500 people at the time, this works out to be approx. $2.70 per resident/yr. (~$7.80 per household/yr.).

After receiving a steady series of increases, culminating in a 6.5% raise from $115,694 in 2009 to $123,216.57 in 2010 and, with an estimated population of only 3750 residents, Twyla Graff, the CAO of the District of Lantzville, is now being compensated to the tune of $32.90 per resident/yr. (~$92.00 per household/yr.). As well, the administrative budget alone of the then Lantzville Improvement District, now the District of Lantzville has increased from $193,167 to $819,116 since incorporation in 2003. Can anybody think of a really good reason why this should be or have any thoughts on what appears to be a very generous pay package for the 'Captain' of the 'good ship Lantzville'. If so, please let me know at vigilantz@hotmail.com!

I had hoped to be able to provide you with comparisons to our senior staff salaries for communities 'similar' to Lantzville but, after trying repeatedly for more than 3 weeks to have Jedha Holmes, Deputy Director of Financial Services devote a little time to helping me obtain that publicly mandated information through civicinfo.bc.ca, I am down the time it took to compose and reply to the several emails involved but I am certainly no further ahead. It is a matter of the District office investing about 10 minutes to help a resident of Lantzville obtain information which is legislated to be out in the public realm or me spending many hours navigating through 22 different community's websites looking for that information. I still plan on publishing those comparisons as soon as time to gather them permits so be sure to check back here every now and then.

Does Lantzville REALLY Need 7 Council Members?!?

A group of interested and concerned Lantzville residents have taken it upon themselves to spend the time and effort to research key characteristics/indicators of other 'comparable' municipal councils in B.C. in an effort to develop a comparison with the situation here in Lantzville. Here is a summary of the information gathered:


 Based on this information, Jack deJong sent an email to the Mayor and Council asking them to put forth and support a motion to have a referendum to reduce the size of our council from 7 members to 5 (they are the only ones who can do this). [Even if the motion is passed at least 6 months before the next local government election (Nov. '14), and the referendum question is approved by the residents of Lantzville, the change would not actually take place until the following election, currently scheduled for 2017 - a long time to wait!]. Here, from the Minutes of the meeting at which they received Mr. Dejong's correspondence (July 11/11), is what their response was:

Mayor Haime commented that:
· Recently Council received correspondence from Jack de Jong requesting that Council consider reducing its size to 5 members in order to reduce administration costs. Mayor Haime advised that he would bring this request forward to Council for consideration. Members of Council commented as follows:
- When the District incorporated there was discussion and community input received that the preference was for a 7 member Council.
- It is not a good idea to have a 5 member Council because then the quorum is reduced to 3 people and it is not advisable to have 3 people making decisions for an entire community

Contrary to what the Mayor is reported as saying above, it was councillor Negrave who brought forward the motion at the next Regular Council meeting on July 25/11. As a fairly involved member of the community since 1991, I remember the Restructure Committee (of which now councillor Haime, councillor Dempsey and councillor Crayston were members) discussing the number of Council members but I don't recall any "community input" being solicited on this issue. The referendum question we were asked to vote on was, "(a)re you in favour of the incorporation of Lantzville as a municipality. Yes or No?" - no mention of structure (Town, District, etc.) or council size. As late as a couple of weeks before the actual vote, the information put out by the Restructure Committee still spoke of "a mayor and 4 or 6 other councillors" in their mail-out to residents.
As far as the meeting goes, here is their record of what happened:

MOVED Councillor Negrave that Council direct staff to draft a referendum question for the General Election to be held November 19th, 2011, asking if the size of Council should be reduced from 7 to 5 members (4 councillors and 1 mayor).

THE MOTION FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECONDER

When a motion is seconded, all it means is that it provides the opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of the issue at-hand and contemplate further action/follow-up. So, in this particular case and, even though Mr. DeJong had provided specific numbers supporting his contention that our Council is too big, no one, other than Councillor Negrave, was even prepared to discuss it! You will also note that Councillor Negrave's motion asked for the question to be put to the voters of Lantzville this November but Council apparently doesn't trust us to make the right decision.

C-109-11 MOVED Councillor Negrave, SECONDED Councillor Bratkowski that Council direct staff to prepare a report regarding the pros and cons of reducing the size of Council from 7 to 5 members (4
councillors and 1 mayor).

CARRIED

By only supporting the motion to ask Staff to prepare a report, they virtually ensured that nothing will now happen on this issue until at least 2014. Update 140214 - to date, no such report has been presented by the District's staff to Council.
I would be remiss if I didn't point out here that there are 60 municipalities in B. C. (out of about 158) who currently have 5 member Councils [including nearby Qualicum Beach with 6.5 x # permanent employees, 4.5 x the expenses and 2.5 times the population] and who seem to be getting by, even in the face of the quorum issue raised by our Council. Certainly the issue of a 3 member quorum is no more 'controversial'/problematic than having two Council votes come from the same household (such as is the case with Denise and Colin Haime). I think with a little planning, lack of a quorum (3 present with a 5 member council) can easily be made a non-event.

Couple this with the big percentage raise (43.5% for Mayor; 36.5% for Councillors over 3 years) they gave themselves early last year (see my Bog article http://vigilantz.blogspot.com/2011/11/raises-raises-everywhere-at-least-for.html) and you can see that things are indeed 'rosy' for the current Lantzville Council.