City of North Vancouver Council Meeting Minutes, December 7, 2009
WHEREAS the current economic downturn has negatively impacted the financial circumstances of the City of North Vancouver and made budgeting especially challenging in 2010;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT all exempt staff be limited to a 2% salary/stipend increase for 2010.
A recorded vote was taken on the motion.
Voting in favour:
Councillor Heywood
Councillor Bookham
Councillor Clark
Councillor Fearnley
Voting against:
Councillor Trentadue
Councillor Keating
Mayor Mussatto
The motion was CARRIED by a vote of four to three.
45 opinions/comments:
I see the union members on council are par for the course. I'd love to get a raise next year. Hell, I'd love to be working full time again! If the City really wants to appear to be in touch with their constituents, they'd vote for no salary increases. Better yet, they'd reduce salaries by at least 2%!
A brave move by council. Normally exempt staff increases are linked to be the same as the union increase by council resolution.
The impact will be relatively small on the overall annual budget as total exempt staff salaries are quite minimal when compared to the union's salaries but still it's a symbolic gesture that should be welcomed by those watching their tax increases or service cuts.
One possible repercussion. Civic management positions have been whacked by retirements and there's strong competition between cities for the best managers. If city exempt managment are paid less than their local counterparts a brain-drain can result that hurts municipality.
While council has to be recognized for taking this initiative a smarter thing to have done would have been to support the DNV and Vancouver when their union was on strike and have tried to encourage the rest of Metro to do the same. If successful, then both the union and exempt salaries would have been more in line with CPI increases and NVCity wouldn't risk losing valuable senior staff.
A good lesson for next union negotiations.
That’s assuming there is any brains to drain
It's a tight little club that defines it's own worth.
Money, free trips overseas, self serving Fearnley will be in favour
The myth.
"It's a tight little club that defines it's own worth."
Reality.
Compensation levels are reviewed and recommended by independent anaylsis private companies.
Job duties, complexity, education requirements and impacts are compared to other similar public and private sector job descriptions and their existing salaries are returned for council's review. Commonly, the private sector equivalent job has a higher salary range and many staff are lost to the private sector.
Similar sized munis are grouped so that a salaried position in Vancouver City is not provided as a comparable for NV City as the determinants are unreasonably disparate.
The "worth" is defined by the open market and equivalent positions.
The market provides for those that cannot compete in the private sector.
I've worked in both and I have to say that there are about the same # of "non competitve" types in both sectors.
The is a fairly brisk ebb and flow between the two sectors. In my experience the usual contempt for the public by the private is misplaced.
"Similar sized munis are grouped"
Yeah, members of the little club. Johnny gets a raise pointing out that Billy got a raise so next time Billy point outs that he isn't get as much as Johnny and so it goes up and up.
Whole departments have been created over the last 20 years. Lots of people who write reports on the social impacts on this and that. All stuff not in the City's jurisdiction.
Just fix the roads and sidewalks and actual City business instead of trying to become a MLA or MP.
If only government was run like Business!
Enron... AIG... Bear Stearns... Lehman Brothers... pets.com... Chrysler (repeatedly)... WorldCom... Bernie Madoff... General Motors...
And those are just the big guys. There are tens of thousands of small businesses that either act in a dishonest fashion, or are horribly mismanaged.
I refuse to accept that business of any size has any magic skill for being either efficient or honest.
THE following are brief summaries of topics on the agendas of North Shore municipalities and school boards.
DISTRICT OF NORTH VANCOUVER
Regular council meeting,
Monday, Dec. 14, 7 p.m.
- Official community plan, review.
- Annual review of fees.
Council workshop
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 5 p.m.
- Metro solid waste, management plan and Zero Waste Challenge.
- Tangible capital asset.
- Communications update.
www.dnv.org
CITY OF NORTH VANCOUVER
Regular council meeting,
Monday, Dec. 14, 6 p.m.
- Community energy and emissions reduction plan update, 6-7 p.m.
- Appointments to Metro Vancouver. Public hearing, 7:30 p.m.,
- To permit a liquor store at 845 Marine Dr.
- Preliminary 2010-2019 projects plan.
- Parks master plan.
- Official community plan 2021 and beyond.
www.cnv.org
NORTH VANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT 44
Towards The Future For Schools
Tuesday, Jan. 5, 7 p.m.
Queen Mary School, 230 West Keith Rd.
Public board meeting,
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 7 p.m.
www.nvsd44.bc.ca
-- Compiled by Pamela Stone
North Shore News
Actually the January 5th meeting is the North Vancouver Board of Education's Education and Programs Standing Committee Meeting: The agenda of which will be posted to the nvsd44.bc.ca website as we get closer to the meeting.
Anon 5:48, thanks for the quote. You must have missed the part where public sector jobs are compared to similar private sector jobs and the public sector comes out below the private.
Towards The Future For Schools.... yeah, I saw that New Year date, so I went looking for the above topic and found that it was dated for April of 2008!
Could you give us the heads up on what the school board is proposing, Barry
Wayne Hunter should review item 21 in the agenda for tomorrow's NV City council agenda.
I have to say the Squamish Billboards are not as bad as I thought they would be. They make the Molson sign (Burrard Bridge) and the Cap Mall LCD Digital Sign look somewhat ordinary (although they are just as visually distracting). I also think the CNV might be advertising on the Cap Mall sign.
So that's it?
Months of whining about public sector wages and tax increases and there's a few comments on a civic salary cut and then we're onto council agendas, school boards and billboards.
Speaks volumes.
I'm not a fan of billboards in general, but if it is decided that some are being installed, marketers shouldn't be deciding where they go, transportation safety experts should be making that call.
The billboard on HWY 1 near the 2nd narrows is at a crucial merge point, and the billboard on the south side of the second narrows heading onto Marine drive is a high crash location with bridge traffic swapping lanes.
9:43 am
It's just staff trying to change the channel away from their pay.
Wait unti the next contract.
Not to worry his worship the Mayor & company are up for re-election in Nov 2011. Turf out time!!!
Council is just 2 parties with the balance of power held by Fearnley. Luckily, even though he votes selfishly, it is usually positive, like here.
Fearnely is an arrogant idiot that does not have a clue on what he really wants to do for the people that elected him...he deserves to be defeated.
At the last council meeting, His Holiness said he would call on his NDP friends across the water to overturn our Council and their vote to ensure his cronies alone would sit on "HIS committees".
Tonight the non-CNV point of view which supported by two of our council NDP council members tried to declare our Mayor's one vote become five and overrule the rest of Council.
Someone serious has to run against "his Holiness" next time.
If there is not staff to put discussion forward, their will be no real discussion.
Barry R - you make a good point that businesses such as the ones you cite (Enron & Co) don't have the track record necessary for free marketeers to lay claim to the only answer to efficiency and honesty.
However, to counter, I must say that at least with those businesses, eventually the jig is up and the house of cards comes down. Accountability is a bitch.
Maybe not all businesses are run with honesty and efficiency, but I'd say its far more common that bureaucrats go about their actions with no accountability given their many union protections and arms length distance from the voting public. Unlike those companies you mention, governments never go out of business, no matter how badly their employees may screw up.
It's not us against them. Private companies work for the public and public employees work for the public. The larger private companies have unions with many of the same problems as the public sector.
The reason that the public sector doesn't "go out of business" is that people are funny about insisting on drinking water, sewage removal, garbage pickup, passable streets, and having people make their communities safe, cut them out of car wrecks etc.
In my books the peanuts that I pay for local gov't is nothing compared to the amount that I pay for provincial and federal services where there really is a lot of waste and giveaways.
If there was some kind of legislation that limited public sector increases to CPI increases I would be quite content.
Anon 8:27PM, again in English please? What you wrote made little sense. Can you provide links to the council minutes that illustrate what you are trying to say? Thanks.
Why don't you bother to watch a Council meeting before making rude comments?
CNV council shakes up regional representation
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City of North Vancouver Coun. Bob Fearnley
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By Daniel Pi - North Shore Outlook
Published: December 09, 2009 12:00 PM
Updated: December 09, 2009 12:18 PM
City of North Vancouver council got a shake up Monday night when councillors narrowly voted to significantly change its representation at Metro Vancouver.
While Mayor Darrell Mussatto kept his seat on the Regional District Board of Directors, alternate Coun. Craig Keating was bumped for Couns. Bob Fearnley and Rod Clark.
Fearnley and Clark were also voted in to represent the city on the Sewerage and Drainage District Board, and the Water District Board, replacing Mussatto and Keating.
“It came as quite a big surprise,” Mussatto told The Outlook on Tuesday.
“It’s no disrespect to the service we’ve seen from Craig or Darrell, it’s more of a balance,” explained Clark, who put forward the changes. “We were kind of shut out of the GVRD process last year.”
Council voted 4-3 to change the appointments. Clark, Fearnley, Couns. Guy Heywood and Pam Bookham voted for the changes, against Mussatto, Keating and Coun. Mary Trentadue.
“We had a bit of a change in the political centre on our council,” Fearnley said. “The vote you saw last night reflected that.”
During the council meeting, the two sides accused the other of only putting forward a narrow group of representatives. Mussatto and Keating were to sit on the regional, sewerage and drainage, and water district boards, now Mussatto, Fearnley and Clark hold those positions.
The Metro Vancouver appointments were part of a longer list of appointments to various community and city committees council was to decide on.
After voting on the regional representatives, votes to try and replace Fearnley on the North Vancouver Police Management Committee with Trentadue, and replace Fearnley and Clark on the North Vancouver Recreation Committee with Keating and Trentadue were defeated.
Clark, Fearnley, Heywood and Bookham again banded together to vote against Mussatto, Keating and Trentadue.
“It’s a kind of sad day when these kinds of power plays ... are allow to proceed,” Keating told The Outlook. “It’s pretty clear four members of council met behind closed doors.”
According to Bill Morrell, spokesperson for Metro Vancouver, “It is the prerogative of each municipality to appoint their representatives on the boards.”
City council also voted to recommend Clark be appointed to the Metro Vancouver Labour Relations Board and the Waste Management Committee, Heywood to the Finance Committee and Fearnley to the Water Committee.
“Committee members are appointed by the chair (of the regional district board of directors,” Morrell said. “They (CNV council) are free to make whatever recommendations to the chair.”
The changes come right before the Metro Vancouver Board of Directors are set to elect a new chair and vice chair this Friday. District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton currently serves as the vice chair.
Hot off the press: Council votes to bounce Mussatto off two boards:
http://www.straight.com/article-275106/vancouver/north-van-city-council-defies-metro-and-votes-bounce-mayor-mussatto-two-regional-boards
Anon 11:05AM, I wasn't being rude. I was pointing out that your post didn't make any sense and asked for clarification/translation.
Mussatto won't be bumped off the Metro executive boards, but the issue that has been missed in the media is that Mussatto has been skipping most of the meetings and sending Keeting in his place as the alternate. Now that Keeting has been dumped as the alternate I wonder if Mussatto will be skipping meetings and sending his adversaries in his place.
I admit I laughed out loud at Rod's comment in the paper today about the Twinning Cities report. He said the report should be renamed the "What I did on Summer Vacation" report. Nice shot Rod. Full marks.
Rod has had some recent success with the 2% Exempt Wage Cap, and the Committee changes, but he needs to be careful to not alienate Fearnley with his campaign against twin city agreements.
Not to mention that Keating is the only non-mayor on the Mayor's Council of Translink
I think it is fearnley who should be careful, his desire for junkets at taxpayers expence is getting well known in the community and he is always the low man woman on the election totem pole.
Mussatto's and Keating's actions make sense -- Mussatto often says he has no higher ambitions than being a Mayor, while Keating has run for NDP MLA and for leadership of the BC NDP.
Frequently attending GVRD meetings helps Keating's pocketbook but also makes it easier to raise his profile and make the connections necessary to obtaining a future provincial role. That's almost certainly also why he's the only non-Mayor on the Translink Council.
Back to 2%.
I think that there is a clear distinction between elected politicians and staff.
The politicians have the power to vote themselves raises and they should therefore be extraordinarily frugal when doing so. The majority of civic politicians have access to other income (employment, pension, spousal etc). There should be a strict CPI ONLY policiy for politician increases.
Staff cannot vote themelves raises and typically rely upon their sole income for both themselves and their families. A different position.
Also, some senior union staff have compensation at a very close level to exempt management.
No one is going to take more work, more accountability, less job security for less pay.
I worry that their is little incentive for good union staff to progress in a succession plan to management and that exempt staff may leave for other public/private employment.
CPI based increases for politicians now. Leave all staff salaries for similar increases until the current collective agreements expire, then CPI based increases for ALL staff union and management for all future agreements.
Or perhaps they'll change careers altogether and become firefighters.
Huh?
See Tom Fletcher's editorial in the NS Outlook: Negotiating with 'heroes and kings' contrasting the protracted BC ambulance dispute with the fat pay hikes of 14% over three years an arbitator granted to Vancouver firefighters over a year ago.
"Becoming a unionized firefighter is sometimes compared with winning the lottery, since many hold down a second full-time job and rest up at the firehall, where the latest arbitration-inflated wage in Vancouver is $35.70 and hour for a 10-year man."
Anon 5:10
Not to worry about exempt and management staff moving to the private sector as the majority are incompetent or lack any valuable skills that would be attractive to the private sector. Once a public sector manager always a public sector manager.
On the other hand hanging on to good union staff will be a challenge. Any employee with good communication skills, self managing, and a strong skill set will be in demand. These people will be attractive to the private sector.
In my observation it's exactly the opposite.
Management staff transfers to and from other munis and/or the private sector.
Union members build up seniority and hang in the public sector as the more senior they get the more perks.
Management transfers to and from other munis but rarely transfer to the private sector.
I doubt the union members really hang out for the perks but stay for other reasons.
I've seen engineering mgt. to engineering firms. Finance mgt. to private accounting practice. Fleet mgrs. to auto industry. Planning mgt. to development companies. Yes, mgt. to other public sector but at similar or different levels of gov't, different sector (ex. civic to education admin.) to politics. Management seems to have a broad choice and don't seem to be viewed by other sectors, private or public as "incompetent" or lacking in "valuable skills" at all.
On the other hand as the union member gains seniority not only does the salary and pension increase but so does the length of vacation and those perks seem to hold them quite well.
Each muni HR has an annual staff departure chart indicating retired, dismissed, or resigned. You don't see too many senior union resignations - perks are too good.
A school for the young and a home for the old.
No effort needed. Time will dictate advancement.
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