City Council, Staff Just Pathetic: BENN
Staff’s decisions on the Welcoming Centre continue to confound good governance.
After the royal fiasco of deciding where to locate the proposed Welcoming Centre, all of which occurred behind closed doors, staff and council made a total mess of communicating the decision to the public.
Unwilling to learn from its recent poor performance, staff recently recommended that the city sole-source the construction of the concrete pad, with integrated infrastructure to BLT Construction. Sole-source on the basis that BLT is the only company capable of taking on what is a routine construction project.
Council decided to cover its behind on this decision, given the accurate perception that everything about the Welcoming Centre is a political hot potato. Council invoked the farce known as the Advance Contract Award Notice, which gives all interested parties two weeks to submit a statement of qualifications. That tactic backfired, as three local contractors provided sufficient information to demonstrate they could dig trenches, install sanitary-sewer lines, a water supply and power connections to the site, along with pouring concrete as a routine part of their business. How could staff not have known this?
This is not a one off.
Staff’s submission of incomplete reports to council is standard operating procedure. Incomplete as in reports that are filled with boiler plate and a recommendation. What is missing is the analysis of why the recommended course of action is superior to the alternatives. The parts that, if presented, would give council sufficient information to make an informed decision.
Staff’s public presentations to council are often replete with a long list of benefits, but short on the risks and negative elements of the plan … withholding or diminishing disclosures that would provide council with the information they need to make an informed decision.
Anyone care to cite where in the staff’s public presentation to council on the electric bus fleet acquisition that the existing Hydro Ottawa infrastructure was insufficient to power the recharging centres? Anyone care to cite where in staff’s public presentation to council that Hydro Ottawa could not provide an estimate of when or how it would take to upgrade that part of the city grid? Anyone care to cite where in staff’s public presentation to council that the plan was to purchase two natural gas generators to meet the needs? No end of superlatives about how this billion-dollar program would save the planet. Nary a word about what city staff and many on council consider to be a dirty fossil fuel generating system. To be fair, I understand that these issues might have been buried somewhere deep in the boiler plate intensive staff report that was submitted to council. The failure to highlight this obvious shortcoming of the plan is consistent with the standard operating procedure of not providing council with sufficient information to make an informed decision.
I can’t overlook the failure to advise council about the decision to override the failure to meet the technical requirements of the Trillium Line expansion. Failed twice, not just once. Staff didn’t think that this might be important for council to know, to make an informed decision. When challenged by two members of council, staff refused to answer the question, citing confidentiality clauses.
Anyone care to recall the LRT judicial report regarding the egregious malfeasance of withholding information for council?
Lansdowne 2.0 is a wonder of financial wizardry. Capital costs materially under-estimated. Operating projections materially over-estimated. Somewhere between ignoring and dismissing the objective views of an external consulting firm and the city auditor general. Again, not providing council with sufficient insights to allow them to make an informed decision.
This is all just standard operating procedure down at city hall.
Which brings me to the real issue. Staff has, for an extended stretch, viewed council as nothing more than a rubber stamp. There is a clear pattern of disrespect for council and its obligation to provide oversight of staff decisions. Council either doesn’t recognize this or isn’t sufficiently bothered by the lack of respect. Neither reason is a ringing endorsement for council.
Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.
For You:
Do Your Job, Councillors: PATTON
City Hall Bereft Of Original Ideas: BENN
Building A Strong Canada In A New World
Lansdowne Is A Fiscal Quagmire: MENARD
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Mr Benn Nothing new here. Staff, have to my knowledge, and experience, since the 1990’s run the city in this fashion and most council members either do not have sufficient education, insight or energy to pose a challenge or even ask suitable questions, requiring proper, well rounded answers. The issue is and has been HOW TO CHANGE the culture?
Perhaps a review of HR practices needs to be undertaken by the City AG or a comprehensive management audit that would be done the usual accountancy firms but rather by evaluators and experts skilled in public sector management along with auditors from public sector organization (the FED OAG?). How does the HR department set and keep standards of hiring to ensure senior management has the right combination of skills and expertise to achieve the city’s strategic objectives? How does the City Manager ensure that City operation capacity aligns with the City’s Strategic goals? How does the City incorporate the rich knowledge existing in the City to make mission aligned decisions ? What per centage of staff are hired from Councillors’ offices or are Councillors themselves. Did they compete in open competitions? What training is provided to staff? Are there executive training programs available? What room do staff have to innovate and learn from error? Are staff risk adverse? If so, why? How does the City ensure that manager’s have the data they need to make good decisions? How does City HR management and line management compare to best city administrations in the country.
Change must start at the top. The people at the top (council and senior management) have no interest in changing things. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Until we elect a mayor who is prepared to take senior to task, in public, we will continue to get what staff has been serving for the last, per your comment, three-ish decades. All enabled by a council that is more interested in how to solve problems that are so far outside their mandate as to not even be on the same map. (See Patton’s vlog re east end councillors.)
The stench of corruption and lack of accountability is amazing. This us Canada’s capital?
cW:
or we could elect better represenatives.
cheers
kgray