posting
08-25-2006, 08:01 AM
City staff blunder and politicians are not amused!
By John Alexander
If staff failed to show up for work at City Hall on the morning of Wednesday August 23, you could understand why.
Senior staff limped out of the previous night’s Council meeting looking like the walking wounded after more than four hours of taking one of the worst beatings in recent memory.
Following are three examples of staff reports that failed to impress their political bosses and raised both their eyebrows and their ire.
A recommendation that Council approve a $ 240,000 contract for ex Winnipeg mayor (now urban guru) Glen Murray to carry out a study on how the downtown should be developed to take advantage of new and old cultural assets.
A take it or leave it recommendation to go ahead with the Grand Theatre renovation at a cost of more than $ 17 million (up from the original $ 6 million estimate.)
A recommendation from a joint city staff/police/ Queen’s committee to close Aberdeen Street to traffic and suspend the noise bylaw during Queen’s Homecoming celebrations on Saturday September 16.Councillor (and mayoralty hopeful) Rick Downes lost no time in seeing a plot in Commission Cynthia Beach’s desire to hire consultant Glen Murray without any apparent thought for the city’s mandatory tendering process for projects over $ 50,000.
Downes noted that the group called Imagine Kingston was involved in the project and smelled a rat, charging that the whole thing looked to him like Mayor Harvey Rosen’s re-election campaign. Shouted down by a visibly angry Rosen, Downes reluctantly withdrew his accusation of a Rosen link but held his ground in questioning whether the study was needed and how the contract was being let.
Imagine Kingston, the one-day think tank put together and financed earlier in the summer by businessman Walter Fenlon to explore new ideas for advancing Kingston’s interests, seems to have riled Downes because he, as councilor for the downtown district, didn’t get an invitation. (Ditto for the rest of Council by the way. Fenlon apparently thought non elected leaders in the community might have an idea or two about how to improve the city.)
In any case, a majority of Council voted
Beleagured Commissioner Cynthia Beach made a strong point in saying the plan was to avoid the mistakes of previous councils that ploughed ahead with development with no plan for how cultural assets should be promoted and enhanced in partnership with private development. With investors interested in the downtown as a result of the new sports and entertainment centre, now is the time to get it right, said Beach. But the merits of the proposal got lost in the name calling and apparent disregard for tendering requirements.
Then came the Grand Theatre renovations, whose spiraling costs have become a lightning rod for those concerned about a rash of civic development after decades of inaction and a worry that City staff might not have the ability to manage this scope and pace.
Council, faced with abandoning the renovation project, failing to do what is needed and expected by donors and taxpayers, or swallowing the $ 17 million plus price tag, chose to dig into their reserves and proceed to finish what they’ve started.
CAO Laubenstein assured Council that the lack of staff competence that caused the original error in estimating costs has been fixed and from here on the required expertise and scrutiny will be provided.
Councillors could be excused for looking somewhat doubtful, however, given that the west end Multiplex Community Centre has also now come in significantly over budget.
While the reason provided is that metal costs have skyrocketed since the original estimates, insiders in the construction business say this is so much hooey and blame staff incompetence for underestimating the bottom line.
Last but not least came the Queen’s Homecoming issue.
Now close to midnight, exhausted councilors showed little mercy for the staff recommendation that would close Aberdeen street and suspend the noise bylaw.
How, councilors asked, could the City oppose a street party while at the same time lift the noise bylaw?
Even Councillor Floyd Patterson, normally the voice of reason and common sense, lost his cool, expressing his outrage that as councilor for the Queen’s area and chair of a committee on the Homecoming issue, he had been left out of the process that led to the staff recommendation.
City staff had joined forces with the police and Queen’s officials but left the politicians standing on the sidelines.
In the end, the majority voted to let the police close Aberdeen street to vehicular traffic for safety reasons but the noise bylaw would stay in force.
And they left no doubt that on this and several other matters, staff had come up short and their political bosses were not amused.
By John Alexander
If staff failed to show up for work at City Hall on the morning of Wednesday August 23, you could understand why.
Senior staff limped out of the previous night’s Council meeting looking like the walking wounded after more than four hours of taking one of the worst beatings in recent memory.
Following are three examples of staff reports that failed to impress their political bosses and raised both their eyebrows and their ire.
A recommendation that Council approve a $ 240,000 contract for ex Winnipeg mayor (now urban guru) Glen Murray to carry out a study on how the downtown should be developed to take advantage of new and old cultural assets.
A take it or leave it recommendation to go ahead with the Grand Theatre renovation at a cost of more than $ 17 million (up from the original $ 6 million estimate.)
A recommendation from a joint city staff/police/ Queen’s committee to close Aberdeen Street to traffic and suspend the noise bylaw during Queen’s Homecoming celebrations on Saturday September 16.Councillor (and mayoralty hopeful) Rick Downes lost no time in seeing a plot in Commission Cynthia Beach’s desire to hire consultant Glen Murray without any apparent thought for the city’s mandatory tendering process for projects over $ 50,000.
Downes noted that the group called Imagine Kingston was involved in the project and smelled a rat, charging that the whole thing looked to him like Mayor Harvey Rosen’s re-election campaign. Shouted down by a visibly angry Rosen, Downes reluctantly withdrew his accusation of a Rosen link but held his ground in questioning whether the study was needed and how the contract was being let.
Imagine Kingston, the one-day think tank put together and financed earlier in the summer by businessman Walter Fenlon to explore new ideas for advancing Kingston’s interests, seems to have riled Downes because he, as councilor for the downtown district, didn’t get an invitation. (Ditto for the rest of Council by the way. Fenlon apparently thought non elected leaders in the community might have an idea or two about how to improve the city.)
In any case, a majority of Council voted
Beleagured Commissioner Cynthia Beach made a strong point in saying the plan was to avoid the mistakes of previous councils that ploughed ahead with development with no plan for how cultural assets should be promoted and enhanced in partnership with private development. With investors interested in the downtown as a result of the new sports and entertainment centre, now is the time to get it right, said Beach. But the merits of the proposal got lost in the name calling and apparent disregard for tendering requirements.
Then came the Grand Theatre renovations, whose spiraling costs have become a lightning rod for those concerned about a rash of civic development after decades of inaction and a worry that City staff might not have the ability to manage this scope and pace.
Council, faced with abandoning the renovation project, failing to do what is needed and expected by donors and taxpayers, or swallowing the $ 17 million plus price tag, chose to dig into their reserves and proceed to finish what they’ve started.
CAO Laubenstein assured Council that the lack of staff competence that caused the original error in estimating costs has been fixed and from here on the required expertise and scrutiny will be provided.
Councillors could be excused for looking somewhat doubtful, however, given that the west end Multiplex Community Centre has also now come in significantly over budget.
While the reason provided is that metal costs have skyrocketed since the original estimates, insiders in the construction business say this is so much hooey and blame staff incompetence for underestimating the bottom line.
Last but not least came the Queen’s Homecoming issue.
Now close to midnight, exhausted councilors showed little mercy for the staff recommendation that would close Aberdeen street and suspend the noise bylaw.
How, councilors asked, could the City oppose a street party while at the same time lift the noise bylaw?
Even Councillor Floyd Patterson, normally the voice of reason and common sense, lost his cool, expressing his outrage that as councilor for the Queen’s area and chair of a committee on the Homecoming issue, he had been left out of the process that led to the staff recommendation.
City staff had joined forces with the police and Queen’s officials but left the politicians standing on the sidelines.
In the end, the majority voted to let the police close Aberdeen street to vehicular traffic for safety reasons but the noise bylaw would stay in force.
And they left no doubt that on this and several other matters, staff had come up short and their political bosses were not amused.