Minority, how can it work?

[cowman]

Linda: Don't ask me how I know...but yep, you lost the election...you are gone from any committee involvement!
Lets face it the guy you lost to is the chairman of the ag service board?
Also the 4 members at large were handpicked by the ag fieldman...believe me I know...one of them is a relative.

[cowman]

Agricultural Fieldmen usually try to get farmer reps appointed that are forward thinking and willing to network with the other farmers in the community. In my area one of the farmer reps has been there for years and is a cousin of the chairman. He is an excellent rep. not afraid to speak up and put in his two cents worth so nobody questions it.

One other one seems to take his entire family whenever he can, the kids, and he has a bunch of them, are homeschooled so packing them up and taking them isn't a problem.

The parcel the county wanted to take would have been the Municipal Reserve land which amounts to 10% of the parcel being subdivided after the first parcel out. Some municipalities take cash in lieu, but those with significant growth take the land because of the future need for parks, schools etc.

Cowman there is a resolution coming up at the ASB Convention regarding a subsidy for fertilizer. Our ASB is voting against it, their reason being that grain is overproduced so giving a subsidy only encourages further production !!! I am waiting to hear the tongue lashing they get from the grain growing municipalities across the province. If I get a chance to speak to the ASB before the resolution session I am going to tell them they are NUTS !!!

[cowman]

Sorry for posting so much on this topic but another issue that has come to my attention is the recent decision by our Planning Commission to ignore legal advice on the need for a water study to be done prior to allowing six parcels out of a quarter.
This is consistent with the requirements of the Water Act, and during the MPC meeting they had the county's lawyer on the speaker phone advising that they require a study prior to approving the application.
One member of the planning commission said there was lots of water in the area and they didn't need a study so the rest of them raised their hand to approve the application.
If at anytime in the future existing water users can prove that they do not have ample water the entire liability rests with the members of the planning commission not the county due to the fact that they ignored a legal opinion !!!

cowman I don't think that your county has a monopoly on questionable decision making !!! Mind you, for the most part I am pleased with the direction our new council has gone. They have cancelled road projects that the previous council had debentured, paid off all the debt and are slowly restoring the services that the previous council had cut, but ignoring legislation and legal advice is a fairly serious blunder in my view.

[cowman]

So I have to ask, who makes up your planning commission? Council members or any public members at large? After the least election here they got rid of the appointed members and went with all 7 councillors. Not sure of the reason but I suspect it had something to do with the ex-councillor who sat on the planning board being involved in the decision making of granting the "hamlet" of Hidden Springs, which he was involved in? Haven't got the inside dope on that whole deal yet, but I suspect they didn't know he was involved in something he had direct influence on!
Red Deer County has a lawyer who attends every council meeting and MPC meeting. The day when much can be done without legal advice is pretty much over?
Being a municipal councillor has become a very complex job and one you really need to be on top of. The days of old farmer Brown glad handing the yokels and making decisions however he felt that day, are also pretty well over? I know there are still some who don't have a clue but there are some who are better informed and trying to do a better job. It's a tough business.

[cowman]

The planning commission here is made up of three members of council and two members at large, one of whom is a loose cannon and his wife is the taxation clerk of the county.
The new council has several oil patch guys that think money grows on trees, and also a small time developer who is taking advantage of everything he learns in the system to develop his own property.
Another council member has a small recreational river front property that he is trying to turn into a retreat type of development so he is attending every tourism conference he can find.
Of the council that was elected in 2004, four of them have never served on council or the planning commission previously. One was a councillor back years ago and is a fence sitter if ever there was one, he goes with the flow because he cannot stand anything confrontational even when it comes to turning down development when it makes no sense to approve it.

The other two members of council have been there for two terms.

I have always felt that members of the public on the planning commission and the agricultural service board are valuable and certainly should bring common sense into the equation if council doesn't have any !!

This council doesn't seem to feel the need to adhere to their own land use by-law and it will get them into trouble one of these days when they end up in court. Recently they had a Subdivision and Development Appeal Board hearing, made a decision that the appellants didn't like so they sought leave to appeal and won. The judge ordered the county to re-hear the appeal because they had not provided proper reasons for their decision. The Administrator doesn't have a clue about planning and he is the secretary to the SDAB. The Chair of the SDAB is a new counicllor and his idea of running a hearing is to crack jokes throughout, making foolish comments about the entire process.
One of these days that will come back to haunt them, any public hearing should be run with enough formality to ensure that everyone gets a fair unbiased opportunity to be heard.
The courts don't care whether the council or board members are inexperienced or not they expect proceedings to be run in an appropriate manner.
I have attended council meetings all across the province and many reeves run excellent meetings, however, some of the meetings I have attended have no concept of orderly conduct. Council members speak out whenever the urge hits them, no attempt to be recognized by the chair etc.
The best intentions by elected officials can get off track if there is no structure to council meetings, committee meetings etc. As you say cowman things have progressed from the old days when council meetings were just an informal get together to decide which road to gravel.

[cakadu]

Isn't it mandatory to disclose any dealings that you might be in conflict over? Or perhaps I'm just thinking that ethically you would want to disclose anything. Many councils and organizations have you sign that you aren't in conflict and you have to disclose anything that could even be perceived as a potential conflict. Are municipal councils any different?

[cakadu]

You must declare a conflict of interest if any matter you are voting on could result in personal or financial gain for yourself, your spouse, your children, your inlaws or your business partners but this does not include gains made by siblings for some reason.

Any councillor must vote on all matters before council unless they have a conflict of interest ( peciunary interest) if they do not vote the Minister can remove them from council under a specific section of the Municipal Government Act.

For instance, voting on paving a road that goes by a councillors house is not considered pecuniary interest, but if the councillor happens to encourage and vote on changing road priorities and putting the paved road past their home ahead of other roads that have been on the list for a significant amount of time that may be considered acting in pecuniary interest.

Councillors that USE the system to learn how to develop land and then commence to do so aren't in pecuniary interest but they are fairly stupid !!!

I bent over backwards when I was on council to ensure that I didn't ask for any road work other than routine grading and gravelling to be done adjacent to land I own.
On one occasion Public Works asked me if they could take my fence down and put in a culvert to divert water that was running across the road.
I agreed, and didn't ask any compensation other than to have the section of fence replaced.
One neighbour accused me of ordering the county to build me a new fence....I told him to go to hell !!!!
Councillors are often the target of unfair accusations and many of them are reluctant to defent themselves because they may not get re-elected.
Councillors families also are the brunt of criticism and often it is one of the reasons that good councillors choose not to run a second term.
There is a fine line to walk when you are an elected official and I feel that for the most part municipal councillors remain the most honest because they are closer to the people and that keeps them on the straight and narrow.

[cowman]

Without a doubt it is a tough job and quite often you're "damned if you do...amd damned if you don't"! I would think as in all walks of life you run into professional whiners who never give it a rest?
I might not agree with some of the decisions council makes but I don't think I've ever questioned their committment to trying to do their job.
I do find they tend to rely on the CAO maybe a bit too much and in reality he basically runs the show and they go along with whatever he decides? Which is maybe how it should be to a certain extent....thats why they pay him the big bucks? I think the current CAO of Red Deer county is doing a fairly good job...better than the one before him and definitely better than the convicted thief before that!
This whole conflict thing is interesting? When is an employee in conflict? The Operations manager in a privatized systom like RD county has a whole lot of power and descretion on what gets done? He definitely has an "in" with county council? Do you think it is a conflict that he is also a councillor for the town of Sylvan Lake? Do you think there is a conflict when the main brushing contractor is a cousin to the contract co-ordinator?
Do you think it is fair when the Operations manager changes the rules so a grading contractor is limited on how many areas he can bid on? When he has a personality conflict with the grader contractor?
In a privatized system like the one in RD county do you think it makes sense that the operations department does quality control on itself? That they check how well they have done their job? Not much chance they are going to say hey we really screwed this up, now is there? So they report they did some excellent work, the CAO tells council hey they did excellent work, council tells the residents the roads are fine and the job was done properly! And Linda drives on a road where you have to wait for the other guy to drive across, because the road has caved away at the culverts! But don't worry because with quality control you know it was done right! LOL

[cowman]

If there is a preceived bias in the way contracts are awarded then the contractor should ask for an audience with council.

Most municipalities allow the Public works foreman to decide on who he wants to deal with in the smaller contracts under a certain amount. Everything else has to come to council. eg: anything that goes to tender.

[cowman]

The Public Works manager went in to Council and said he didn't want to have to deal with one or two guys who might sew up all the grader contracts and thus be in an almost monopoly situation? They ,like good trained seals, agreed to limit the number of graders that one contractor owns to 3...again his recommendation! The only grader contractor who had more than 3 (6) was this guy who the manager doesn't like! This grader contractor has been very vocal in pointing out the operations manager is an idiot who has no clue about road maitenance! Which is very true. He also complains that his graders sit because the money budgeted for road grading is being syphoned off to fix the many screwups and mistakes done by the operations staff! Township road 370 would be a classic example(Lindas nightmare)and it is just one of several! Now the rumor I am hearing is he is working behind the scenes to get council to take the whole tender process away from individual grader contracts and roll it into the general contractor for operations! In this case Alberta Highways. If he swings that he will only have to deal with one big contractor for every maitenance operation in the county. And let me tell you those boys know how to work the system to the max!

[cowman]

One more thing: It is interesting that 3 councillors did not accept the land use deal against 4 who did?
The three cited concerns about developement issues and the focus on one area at the expense of everyone else! They also expressed concerns about "First Parcel Out"! This concern was not elaborated on in the paper but I would sure like to hear what the problem is, as this was basically hashed out and what was proposed was leave it alone? And at least two of these councillors now holding up the process were very much in the "leave it alone"camp?
So now I'm wondering: Is the planner trying to do an end run around what the public clearly told him regarding first parcel out? He definitely was against it! Both myself and another old boy had a heated exchange with him at a public meeting at Pine lake last year over the issue and our councillor got up and supported us on it!
Not sure about all the details of this but sure as hell intend to find out! It is frustrating when the county staff has an agenda and tries to bull it through no matter what the majority of the public says? I have seen this happen too often.

[cowman]

cowman, welcome to the real world of politics. How do you think that Deputy Ministers and ADM's advise their ministers ? What the public wants has very little to do with it I can assure you.
The only thing they area concerned with is to get things rammed through after a 'targetted consultation' which is a joke.

Case in point the proposed integrated land management initiative.
There will be 200 people from across the province invited to a Land Use conference to discuss the proposed integration of land use policies.
Who do you think is going to pick the 200 people !!!!!

[cowman]

I would give my eye teeth to be in attendance at that conference but you can bet that the attendees will be handpicked for their willingness to go along with what has already been predecided by a smaller committee made up of mainly beaurocrats !!!

[cowman]

Well all I can say is if that is how politics works it is a pretty sad situation? When the will of the people is ignored because some hired beurocrat has an agenda!
In one of the local papers there was a story of the chip seal and paving contract for 2006 in RD county. At a cost of $2.4 million which came to 7% over what was budgetted....three months ago! When the operations manager was asked how come such a big increase and how come only one company bid on it...his answer "signs of the times"! What he didn't mention was because he's screwed so many companies around no one would bid on it...and forgot to mention the fact that the company that did bid was actually "owed one" after one of his screwups two years before!
In a totally hilarious farce the councillor speaking to the paper said" This is a company we have done business with before and we find them totally reliable and their work top notch"!!!
Three months ago at a townhall meeting when I asked her about a real mess on a new paved road she tried to blame the contractor and said they would be going after him for shoddy work? Guess what? This is the same contractor!
At this same meeting when I said it wasn't the contractor at fault but the operations manager for trucking in river silt for the base the reeve quickly stepped in and said we couldn't talk about this because they might be suing the contractor!
....and you might wonder why a ratepayer would question these people?

[cowman]

all construction costs have increased so they might be correct on that point cowman.
Our only source of gravel here comes from surface material leases along the North Saskatchewan River, we have no inland gravel source.