Monthly Archives: August 2012

Finances, Municipal

What a Concept

Leave a comment

Councillor Braun dared to suggested that before the City spends $300 million to solve a problem, the City take the time to make sure it was a problem that required a solution.

To avoid having  the City find itself with the true problem still needing to be addressed, having squandered $300 million and years of time ‘solving a problem’ that did not require a solution.

And the mayors’ reactions? Mayor Peary……ahem….Banman: “My tendency is to focus on solutions rather than spending valuable time and resources re-examining the problem“.

Apparently Mayor Banman has caught the SPEND, SPEND, SPEND fever that infected prior mayors and councils, where the important thing is to be spending large amounts of taxpayer funds and whether it is being spent on infrastructure that is needed and will benefit the citizens of Abbotsford/Mission doesn’t matter. After all, it isn’t his money, so why should he make the effort required to spend it wisely and on needed infrastructure?

Similarly Mayor Adlem “At the end of the day, we have a water issue that we need to address.” From Mayor Adlem’s words it seems that, since the issue is clearly some kind of water issue spending $$millions, hundreds of millions$$ of tax payer dollars addressing a water issue, any water issue is the important point. Mayor Adlem also apparently sees no need to ensure that taxpayer funds are being spent on infrastructure that is needed and will benefit the citizens of Mission/Abbotsford.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Henry David Thoreau

It is clear from the Mayors comments pooh-poohing the suggestion that, before spending $300 million on a water issue, they make sure all those millions of dollars will be spent on the issue/problem that actually needs to be addressed, that Councillor Braun had no choice but to bring his concerns to the attention of those who will be stuck paying the tab, if – in the well established traditions of local politicians – the dollars are spent pointlessly.

This was an issue that engaged voters and the number of votes Councillor Braun and Councillor Ross (the only prior council member to oppose the Stave Lake proposal) got and the 75% NO vote to Stave Lake make it clear voters, the people who pay for Council’s profligate spending, did (do) not agree with the City’s conclusion and contention that a new water source was needed.

One could argue the top mandate Councillor Braun was given in the election was to ensure taxpayer’s monies were spent wisely and only as needed on appropriate and necessary issues – especially the water issue.

Therefore Councillor Braun’s actions are clearly in line with the duty of care due those who voted for him and the duty of care he owes all citizens of Abbotsford as a City Councillor.

Meaning those who, as Mayor Adlem’s puts it,  “…stepped a bit out of line” are the mayors and councillors who are ignoring the voters and rushing to spend $$millions$$ regardless of whether the money is spent unnecessarily upgrading water sources more than adequate for decades to come, rather than on the issue that truly needs addressing.

As to the cost of performing a review to determine what (if any) issues our water delivery system has that require addressing and what the timeline for addressing the issue(s) is (are), I have no idea where the figure of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for the cost of the review comes from. Perhaps that is the going cost for a report that is written to support the City’s desired course of action; however, the review called for is to be a review of the facts, and what actions the facts indicate are required.

Under these circumstances a review should not be that costly……..well assuming adequately competent and frugal management by the City; which admittedly is a rather large assumption based on how the City conducts its business affairs and the City’s past management performance.

If cost is the only issue I (and I am sure Councillor Braun and others) can think of several ways to structure a review that would ensure that $300 million is not spent where no expenditure is needed, that adds no additional costs for the City.

I do wonder why Mayor Banman considers the cost, even if City was to somehow run the cost to several hundred thousand dollars, to be the deciding factor for whether or not you do or do not undertake the  review?

It seems to me an excellent business decision to invest the cost of a review when there is more than reasonable doubt as to what the necessary, wise and prudent fiscal behaviour is with respect to our water delivery system.

Much wiser and far more fiscally prudent than being in a rush to waste $300 million on a non-problem.

Beware of the man who knows the answers before he understands the question. Anonymous

Municipal

Solving City Council Problem

Leave a comment

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. Aldous Huxley

Henry Braun’s suggestion that Abbotsford City Council adopt a policy of gathering ALL the facts, examining all these facts to determine what the issue/problem truly is and then basing Council’s actions and decisions on what the issue/problem was revealed to be……… is so contrary to the way Abbotsford’s City Council approaches issues and problems one has to wonder if Mr Braun’s approach stands any chance of being adopted by Council?

Council has consistently chosen to decide what they want to do, ignoring any and all evidence that does not support their desired course of action, commissioning reports to support Council’s intentions and hiring PR to develop a plan to Sell, Sell, Sell Council’s desired course of action to voters.

Mr Braun’s proposed approach abounds with common sense, perception and savvy – all behaviours Council has demonstrated aversion to employing; standing in marked contrast to Council’s commandment: Thou shalt not look in dusty corners where unknown answers hide.

So, is this a matter of distribution?  of supply?.

It is imperative that, in addressing this issue, we remember there is a major difference in the delivery of the Utility Services Water and Electricity.

There is currently no way to economically store and then distribute large amounts of electricity, while water is easily stored for later distribution.

That is why an electrical utility such as BC Hydro has to have the capacity to meet peak demand as it is occurring. BC Hydro’s ability to generate electricity overnight while people sleep and there is little demand, is of no importance because BC Hydro has no way to store the electricity and deliver it later to meet peak demand.

It is why southern Ontario is dotted with water towers. During scorching summer weather with its peak water demand, the water stored in the towers is used to meet peak demand for water and then refilled overnight (when demand is low but the supply remains fully accessible) to meet the next day’s demand.

The ability of water to be efficiently and economically stored was reflected in the report from experts after the ‘crisis’ of high water demand as a result of abnormally hot weather.

I had the opportunity to read this report where the experts stated that the problem was not with the water sources the City had, but with poor planning and design with the City’s reservoir which cannot be refilled overnight because the intake system is incapable of processing water to refill the reservoir quickly enough.

In light of this the experts recommendation that Abbotsford 1) build a second reservoir with intake capacity that would permit refilling the reservoir in a portion of the off peak hours available and 2) when the new reservoir is on line the old reservoir’s intake system be renovated to be capable of refilling in a timely manner and brought back on line.

As to redundancy, others experts hired to evaluate whether Council should fully upgrade the capacity of the Norrish Creek water system to the levels planned when Norrish Creek was originally developed had an interesting comment on redundancy.

Noting that the recommended full upgrade would mean the existing pipeline lacked the capacity to carry the total amount of water available, it was suggested that council consider building another pipeline which would permit all the water available after upgrade to be available for use. That not only would the second pipeline increase the water available from the upgrade, but it would reduce the stress on the original pipeline increasing lifespan and decreasing the probability of a leak or failure. And pointing out that having a second pipeline from Norrish Creek would provide protection of supply in the form of redundancy.

This leads to the conclusion that the water problem Abbotsford has is not supply but distribution; concurring with Mr Braun’s judgment that it is distribution, not supply, that the City needs to address.

Suggesting that Mr Braun is also correct in advocating a change from the current Council policy of deciding what course of action to undertake, finding or creating evidence to support the desired course of action and using a high pressure, ‘the sky is falling’ sales campaign to scare voters into accepting the need for Council’s desired actions; to a policy of gathering all the facts, analyzing the facts and setting out a course of action (or non-action) based on what the facts and analysis of the facts reveal.

Business, Federal, The Economy

No Customers = No Business

Leave a comment

It likely bodes ill for the future of print media that often the biggest laugh is not found of the comic pages but among what passes for ‘news’ or ‘reporting’ these days.

Take for example this recent  ‘news report’ from the business pages of The Province:

Rogers Communications Inc. had a weaker quarterly profit and flat revenue due to competition in its wireless and cable divisions, but the Toronto company said Tuesday it has started to see the benefits of cost cutting, including 650 jobs this year. Rogers said its second-quarter net income declined 2.4 per cent to $400 million, or 75 cents per share, off from $410 million a year ago, or 74 cents per share.

One hopes that even at a time when getting government subsidies, government bailouts, favourable labour laws, market protection, restrictions on competition etc is what passes for good management at Canadian businesses, even Rogers competitors would not waste resources to lure Rogers customers away from Rogers when Rogers is doing such a magnificent job of driving Rogers customers to other providers.

Given the fact that managing at Canadian wireless and cable companies is based on maintaining government policies that allow them to charge customers usury rate levels exceeding those paid by customers elsewhere in the world, it is an extremely remote possibility that Rogers fellow beneficiaries of largesse from the federal Conservative government are capable of actual competition and raiding Rogers for customers.

Aside: Yes, it would be very beneficial to Canadians if the federal Conservative Party were to realize/remember that they have a duty of care to all Canadians, not just the bank account of the Conservative Party and Canadian Businesses filling those coffers. But then if Prime Minister Harper were to deny Banks in Canada the right/ability to bleed Canadians to cover excessive salaries and the hundreds of millions of dollars lost through bad management, Harper would not be able to run around the world lecturing world leaders on how wonderful a leader he is and the solidness of Canadian Banks because he is such a magnificent leader.

In this case, the lack of ability of Rogers fellow corporations in the wireless and cable business is a benefit to shareholders as it prevents them wasting resources on uneccessary expenditures.

Competent management would tell you that when dealing with Rogers in terms of customers one need to follow the axiom from The Art of War – “When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, stay out of his way.”

Although in the case of Rogers it would be more appropriate to apply Woodrow Wilson’s  “Never … murder a man who is committing suicide” .

No competitor could be anywhere near as successful at getting Rogers Customers to switch to another provider as Rogers itself. Rogers might well want to consider that the time to act to retain customers is before Rogers drives them to change to another, any other, provider. Requiring customers to speak to ‘Retention’ after Rogers treatment of customers drives them into changing providers is adding salt to the wound – not to mention pointless.

Rogers customer problem is not that it ticks some customers off and they change providers. That happens to some degree with all providers.

Rogers problem is threefold.

First that their behaviour drives customers to the point of anger that “I don’t care if it costs $1500.00, its worth twice that not to have to deal with those @@%&###”

Secondly that while other providers may have customers switch to another provider, those customers will (and have) returned to the provider they dropped. Rogers provokes customers to the point that “I will never, NEVER, deal with Rogers again” with the customers sticking to their vow to never deal with Rogers again.

Thirdly, when people make enquires of others as to what provider to use the growing pool of Never, Ever Rogers ex-customers  is telling them just that: “Never, Ever Rogers” and providing them with horror stories of the way Rogers treats those it allows to give Rogers their hard earned cash, nickel and dimeing them to death and them *BLEEPing* all over them.

The question Rogers must answer is whether they have the ability to change their policies of customer alienation before they reach the tipping point where they cannot stop their customer base from continuing to erode. Which would see Rogers continually shrinking as customers go ABR (Anywhere But Rogers) until the ABR customers service Rogers into the corporate dustbin.