Residential Tax Increase of 11% Predicted by City Manager: Is Penny Wise or Pound Foolish?

Penny Ballem, Vancouver City manager, sent an email to all staff late Friday afternoon announcing that there was now a freeze on hiring for all staff positions.

Ballem explained that City revenues over the past several months have been far lower than predicted due to a decline in development.  If this situation continues, according to Ballem, taxpayers will be hit with at least an 11 % property tax increase.  At least.  

Ballem was instructed by Council a couple of weeks ago -- when residential taxpayers were bracing for a mere 6-8% increase -- to look closely at all City departments and agencies and cut the fat. 

Vision Councilor Raymond Louie expressed concern last week, according to 24 Hr. newspaper, that the residential tax increase could result in less support amongst taxpayers for services. 

Services?  

Too much of what the tax payer is funding are 'disservices', projects that disempower people:  like CUPE members writing security reports about non-violent people at Carnegie, then passing them on to clerical staff paid twenty-something dollars an hour to type them in to the City's "Security" database, and then arranging follow-up meetings between Security boss Skip Everall, Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty and Assistant Director Dan Tetrault -- meetings which sometimes include the targeted individual, sometimes not -- and those meetings breed further follow up meetings.  Multiply this by hundreds of people a year. And then add on the hours staff spend discussing who is suspected of blogging about these security abuses, and then add on the hours it takes to constantly brief staff -- even the librarian in the VPL "reading room" that doesn't need a librarian -- about who is suspected of squealing to Joe taxpayer via blogs.  And factor in that much of this "security" work is overseen by Skip Everall, a man who shows up to work wearing Bermuda shorts through cold snaps and snow falls.  Do you feel secure?

These and other make-work projects for CUPE members at Carnegie continue while the soup bowls in the cafeteria are no longer filled to anywhere near the brim.  And people buying dinners keep asking, "Who shrunk the portions?" 

  

None of this is likely to change. CUPE brought Vision to power and Vision brought Penny Bellam to power, and they, like Mulroney, know that, 'You dance with the lady what brung ya'.  

So the tax increase will be 11%.  At least.

Lawyer Accuses City GM of "Dictatorial" Conduct "Contrary to the Rule of Law"

It may be true that you can’t fight City Hall. But if you hire a lawyer you might at least break through stonewalling by Vancouver City Hall Community Services General Manager, Jacquie Forbes-Roberts, and her in-house lawyer David Hill, both of whom have been thumbing their noses at the rule of law.

Carnegie Board member Rachel Davis forked over her own money to retain Vancouver lawyer Gregory Bruce to review the City’s treatment of a homeless man, William “Bill” Simpson (photo above). Bruce didn’t say anything in his letter to City Hall that Carnegie members haven’t been saying for months, but sometimes saying it on law firm stationery makes all the difference.

Bruce sent a letter to Hill dated March 11, 2008 about the Simpson matter. “As you likely know, Mr. Simpson was advised he was barred from the [Carnegie Community] Centre in a letter dated 21 June 2007 from Ms. Jacquie Forbes-Roberts. . . . .”

Forbes-Roberts notified Simpson in her letter that he was barred “indefinitely” from the Carnegie Community Centre for operating a website which “features links” to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog which criticizes Carnegie. Yet City staff failed to come up with even one example of libelous content on the blog when asked by Simpson to do so. The Downtown Eastside Enquirer is confident that none exists.

Bruce wrote: “The barring of Mr. Simpson from the Centre raises issues of due process, free speech, and compliance with the policy of the Centre. . . .” Free speech is a phrase with a history of falling on deaf ears of City staff. Carnegie Board member Sophie Friegang resigned last summer after the Carnegie Board and management refused to remedy the barring of Simpson; she stated at a public meeting that she had “poured over” the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog and was convinced that its content was well within the boundaries of “free speech”.

In his letter, Bruce went on to express in legalese what Downtown Eastsiders had known instinctively, that the City is acting as though they are above the law. “The letter from Ms. Forbes-Roberts found Mr. Simpson guilty of association with a blog entitled downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com via links with blogspot.com. . . . Guilt by association is no basis for barring someone from a public facility and is an offensive concept with a long history of disrepute. Guilt by association is also contrary to the rule of law.”

Bruce pointed out later in his letter what Downtown Eastsiders have repeatedly pointed out, that Forbes-Roberts and the City-appointed Director of Carnegie Center, Ethel Whitty, can’t get their stories straight about why Simpson was barred. Bruce pointed out that the “factual basis” for the barring of Simpson is not only “in dispute” but “differs from that put forward recently by Ms. Whitty.” He was apparently referring to an interview Whitty gave on CBC Radio during which she contradicted her boss Forbes-Roberts on the barring of Bill Simpson. Only one reason has been given to Simpson in writing though for the barring, that he operates a website which “features links” to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog.

In hammering away at the fact that a barring from a City building should be accompanied by an ability to appeal, Bruce went where many Carnegie members and at least one lawyer have gone before, over the past decade. “[T]he letter provides no avenue for appeal, no timeline for further investigations and determinations, and makes no effort to remedy, mediate or clarify the situation. . . . Barring a person from the Centre is an extreme action and should not be taken lightly or without providing the barred person with an opportunity to be heard and to appeal.”

Bruce essentially called Forbes-Roberts a dictator. “The letter from Ms. Forbes-Roberts seems dictatorial and was issued without any warning….” Bruce’s view of Forbes-Roberts is not unlike that of Friegang who stated at a Board meeting last summer that Forbes-Roberts seemed to be giving orders from “on high”.

Bruce never got around to using the phrase “police state” which Downtown Eastsiders have taken to using to describe the conduct of City management and staff at Carnegie Centre, but he refers to the brazen lack of tolerance for dissent that has prompted the use of this phrase. “The Centre serves and is part of the complex, diverse and politicized community in the Downtown Eastside. There will be dissenting voices and critical comments within this community. This should be expected and tolerated. . . .Barring should not be used as a vehicle for shunning those whom have rights and equal entitlement to the services offered at the Centre.”

At the close of his letter, Bruce attempted to end months of stonewalling by the City on the issue of the barring of Bill Simpson: “Ms. Davis requests that you assist in clarifying this issue. To date, Mr. Simpson awaits a follow up letter from Ms. Forbes-Roberts and has not received a reply to his letter sent to her in February 2008.”

Will the several hundred dollars Davis spent on Bruce result in straight answers from City staff who have spent thousands of public dollars on ass-covering and stonewalling in regards to the barring of a homeless man? I wouldn’t put money on it.

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Read about other dictatorial conduct at the City in the form of "political psychiatry" to allegedly deter election campaigning about the bad faith handling of bullying complaints by the NPA School Board

City Mgr. Gets $48,000 Vacation Payout

City Manager Judy Rogers has "recently received a vacation payout of $48,000". That's according to the "Counterspin" page on the Fairness for Civic Workers website, funded by the Canadian Union of Public Employees. It is also reported that last year Rogers earned $318,838.

Striking civic workers have pointed out that Rogers' vacation payout exceeds what many of them earn in a year.


For more CUPE strike-related news on this blog, see: CUPE Strike Haunted by Secretary Scandal