Minority, how can it work?

[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.

[cowman]

Well I personally doubt it? Not all that difficult to know things were going up?
One councillor expressed concern that only one company bid on a $2.4 million contract? Maybe he should know what the contract actually says instead of going with what the operation manager tells him? And maybe he should find out why so few contractors want to deal with Red Deer county?
I once asked my own councillor if she realized what a complete dud this manager was and she candidly admitted that he was, but they kept him around until he was going to retire in one year! Said it has got so hard to fire anybody that it was easier that way!
Never talked about why they hired this knucklehead in the first place... in a big hurry because of a hastily concieved "privatization plan" designed to take the heat off council because they had allowed the CAO to steal $3.5 million!
This is how Red Deer county operates. Everyday putting out fires for all its past mistakes! Covering up the waste and screw ups of the past! The money is rolling in so fast that they can't spend it and in a lot of cases that has saved their bacon! If the payola ever stops I suspect we will be bankrupt!