Letter To Nanaimo City Council

Follows is an email I sent to Nanaimo Mayor and Council expressing my concern that the alarming rise in the jobless rate in Nanaimo, coupled with the unbridled spending by city staff, is a formula for financial disaster, sooner or later. Perhaps sooner.

Good Day Mayor Ruttan and Council;

 

I make the following comments in all sincerity as someone who cares deeply not only for my community, but the community I will be leaving to my children and grandchildren, as I am sure do you all.

 

What (other than pure optimism) makes any of you so certain there is no compelling reasons to reign in the amount of money city staff keeps taking out of the pockets of the average taxpayer in Nanaimo? I realize that it is actually staff that makes these decisions, and the average taxpaying ‘dupe’ thinks their council actually controls spending, but they do not.

 

For example, should council actually be so bold as to insist that staff present a budget that would reflect zero tax increases, you will be presented with a list of ‘choices’ which are politically unpopular, so of course, no real cutting is made. Or the red herring that is always thrown out by staff and those on council complicit in the scheme is “ which one of YOUR services do you want to see cut?”.

 

How come, city staff and council are not able to DEMONSTRATE to the tax paying public that we are in fact getting ANY bang for the buck with the decision to build another ivory tower for the burgeoning bureaucracy in Nanaimo? Why, if this is such a great idea, must council hide behind this veil of secrecy surrounding this decision to spend $15 million on a very questionable expenditure? Will your decisions (shepherded by staff) not withstand the public scrutiny it demands? To think that the average taxpayer is going to be forced to go through the FOI hoops just to see, what should be readily transparent, is quite distasteful.

 

We are living in a community that now has 16% unemployment for the second month running, and NO ONE can tell you why we have twice the national and provincial average for jobless people. We have also for many years had the dubious honor of having among the highest rates of welfare recipients of any BC community. We are having to rely on charitable programs just to see our kids are getting fed in school, as their parents can’t do it at home, food banks and breakfast and lunch programs are all realities that this city council and city staff seem to be absolutely blind to.

 

You may well say: ‘ we aren’t blind to such things, we support the 7-10 club and other agencies’, true enough you do throw a few pennies into the plate for the hungry, but then open the purses wide to build yet another monument to government excess fuelled by unbridled egos with incredible senses of entitlement and arrogance.

 

You have had the opportunity to greatly reduce the property tax increase citizens are facing by scaling back the cost of the Annex upgrade (you have not proven necessary to the public) to the $4 – $6 million it would cost to upgrade thus saving the taxpayer $9 million in tax increases, or put the whole thing on a shelf for five years and revisit the issue to see if it really is needed.

 

I realize that the little kings with their kingdoms at city hall, are absolutely gung-ho to blow off $15 million so they can sit in fancy, shiny new digs where they can tower over city hall, which of course is their rightful place in the community.

 

But consider the possibility, that the unemployment rate in Nanaimo will NOT be turned around from the staggering 16% rate and those unemployed will have no choice but to move and seek employment elsewhere, remember Nanaimo’s jobless rate is TWICE the provincial average, so it is not exactly rocket science to figure sooner or later people will be forced to move to areas of greater job opportunity. What kind of a hole would an exodus of 4,000 put in your financial planning?

 

When that happens, what makes council so certain, there will not be the need to reduce our civil service, simply because the demand created during our 10 year boom cycle has simply dried up and blown away. In fact what proof is there it shouldn’t be reduced right now? Don’t expect any recommendations in that area to come from a staff directed internal review.

 

Anecdotally, my own son, daugher-in-law and granddaughter, had to move from Nanaimo to Victoria to find suitable employment and now are planning on moving once again to Alberta where the prospects are even brighter. That is just the reality of the modern mid-island economy. If you aren’t retired, with a bag of money, or work for government your prospects here are pretty bleak.

 

I want desperately to see this community survive and thrive, not for my generation (I too have suckled the teat of prosperity during my life) but for those to come. The only opportunity that Nanaimo currently holds out is working for the government in one form or another, and we all know that governments at all levels have no money of their own. The small businesses in Nanaimo, with few exceptions, are truly struggling and many are a hair’s breadth away from closing their doors. As are many ‘working’ families, who are one pay cheque away from financial ruin. This is not just doom and gloom, it is harsh reality seldom faced until it is too late.

 

I want very much to think the elected civic officials are sound managers of the cities affairs, worthy of the public trust who gladly make their decisions open and transparent so that the community may place it’s faith and trust in their decisions. Sadly, that has not proven to be the case with this council. The even sadder reality, is that a change of council, will not change anything as Nanaimo like most of Canada is ruled by the unelected civil employees first, who simply lead those elected here and there, to an fro as you lead a steer with a ring through it’s nose. Any with a farm boy background knows why the reference was to a steer and not a bull.

 

On a personal level, my personality is likely a cross between Polly Anna and Don Quixote and on the one hand I am always trying to see the positive in all things, while at the same time I am compelled to joust with windmills. Realizing of course, that in reality, those in the windmills receiving this note, will simply, smile and nod and then continue on as they always have.

 

In closing, I compel those on city council and city staff to take a sombre, sober, serious second look at how you are planning on spending another 15 million tax dollars, remembering of course that the pool from which you plan to finance our failing infrastructure ($12 million annual shortfall), multi million dollar water plant, etc. etc., is not ever expanding, and in fact in the harsh light of day would appear to be shrinking daily before our eyes.

 

Eight percent unemployed in Nanaimo in January of this year, exploded to 16% in March, when 4000 more people came into the unemployment line and holding at 16.3% for April, with no realistic prospect on the horizon to provide those jobs. And no one seems to be taking it seriously. Just stick our heads in the sand and keep on taxing and spending, spending and taxing as if there were no tomorrow.

 

Perhaps, our generation who has never seen any real adversity simply can’t face reality, and so we keep going about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and nothing will change until we hit the ice berg. I hope there is still enough left in city coffers to spring for a lifeboat!