The amalgamation that occurred on Jan. 1, 2001 was on the premise of a “one-stop shop” for all services and departments. An audit conducted by KPMG for the province at the time, estimated that an amalgamation would result in a $13-million annual savings.
However, this was disproved in a report by the Northern Policy Institute in 2016, which demonstrated that the cost of all services increased after 2001.
Our amalgamated towns are shouting to be heard. They recognize that since the amalgamation, they have been neglected and as a result, their sense of belonging to the City of Greater Sudbury has diminished.
Where I believe we can start to create a sense of autonomy and belonging in each of our amalgamated towns is to station a manager and an administrative support person from city hall in each one of the former communities. These positions would be tasked with providing local input and decision-making with respect to operations.
One example where this could be effective is with snowplowing. Greater Sudbury is a very large and spread-out city; it’s not unusual for snowfall amounts to vary significantly from
one end of the city to another during a snow event. As it is now, there is a one-size-fits-all approach with arbitrary benchmarks triggering system-wide responses. By empowering the staff stationed in their respective areas, the snow removal response would be called out when the local conditions require it and not as a general release.
This would be a decentralized approach to snow removal that would provide more efficient and consistent snow removal, and would save on costs, as the snow removal remains local to each town, and is proportional to the local requirement.
Reallocating services and programs to the amalgamated towns would provide a sense of connection for citizens, knowing that they have a staff member who they can communicate directly with during the week, and someone who is accessible to them. Another example would be road repairs in each of the amalgamated towns.
These positions located in each of the towns would not be additional positions, as it would be a re-location of staff to oversee each local area. Staff would be relocated at their will, to best represent the citizens of that local work area. Ideally, it would be staff who live in those areas and understand the current conditions and needs of that community.
This is a start to the decentralized approach to provide efficiencies and to provide a sense of meaning and belonging to the amalgamated towns. They deserve to be paid attention to, and to be considered for essential services and for those services to be accessible for all.
Miranda Rocca-Circelli is running to be Greater Sudbury’s next mayor.
