Municipal elections are getting close and candidates are building their platforms.
I watched the Aug. 14 municipal counsel meeting on TV, and I was incredulous to see a master plan that considered building shelters for road equipment that would extend their life by one year.
The plan also included increasing satellite office space for administration.
On Wednesday, I travelled from the city's south end to New Sudbury. I drove down Paris, Notre Dame and Lasalle Boulevard. It’s late August, and all of these roads still have potholes.
Really? How about a master plan to get our roads repaired.
I had the pleasure of speaking with the late Ernie Checkeris one day about amalgamation and what he thought about it. He made comments that I will remember forever. He said in 2001, when we examined the region, there were about 1,500 civil servants taking care of our cities.
Today, we have 2,500 or so people doing the same thing.
Our population is not much different now than back then. Amalgamation was supposed to save money by removing duplication. We had seven purchasing departments, seven roads departments and so on. Amalgamation was supposed to streamline the departments and lower costs by being able to buy in bulk.
Why is it that we allowed government to balloon like this?
We didn’t consolidate departments and remove redundancy. We simply created jobs for more managers and let them grow their departments. We are less productive today than we were in 2001, and many of the services we provided have been contracted out, yet we still operate with much larger numbers.
Municipal politicians need to get their houses in order and cut out the fat.
I looked at the online organizational chart with more than 110 divisions displayed. I can only imagine that each has at least one manager or director. The political org chart needs to be revamped and combine some of these management positions.
The region need more front line people, not more management.
Today’s organizations are so top heavy that they are micro managed. Let the good front line people do their jobs and increase their numbers rather than have them report to more managers.
How many of our municipal politicians are willing to debate the above?
Ray Carr
Sudbury