Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin takes heat for hiring additional communication staff
As Victorians begin to refer to the Johnson Street Bridge replacement as “Fortin’s Folly,” Victoria mayor Dean Fortin is responding to accusations that the hiring of three additional communications staff is a wasteful expenditure of public monies and, on a per-capita basis, unnecessary. Fortin approved the hiring of the new communications staff, at $60,000 per year and bringing the total to seven, in order to communicate road closures and other municipal going-ons to the community. Interviewed by the CBC this morning, it was noted that Kelowna, with a similar population as the City of Victoria (approximately 80,000 inhabitants), has one staff dedicated to this task, and Saanich, with a population of over 112,000, has none. In response, the Mayor insisted the City of Victoria expands to 250,000 people on a daily basis. Meanwhile, on the discussion forum, this raised the need for amalgamation and not additional siloed responses from individual municipalities. VibrantVictoria.ca forum members referred to the interview as “not a puff piece,” and one individual said Fortin got “absolutley roasted.” It was also noted the interview was “overly axe-grindy,” and that the Mayor showed difficulty substantiating the need for the additional staff.
VibrantVictoria.ca forum member “spanky123″ commented on the CBC interview and the Johnson Street Bridge issue, writing, “Dean Fortin is a nice guy but he is in over his head. Now he has taken a position on the bridge and he thinks that he has to follow through or else he will be viewed as indecisive and weak.”
Discussion forum member “Bob Fugger” also mentioned that the City is planning on hiring an additional staff member for “community engagement,” but added that “the irony of this when seeing that [the City is] ramming through the bridge replacement option gave me a case of the howling fantods.”
For more information on this issue, refer to this post. To link directly to the thread in which this discussion is taking place, click here, and scroll down to post #691.
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Responses to this Headline or Article
The five most recent replies to VibrantVictoria.ca's discussion forum's [Johnson Street Bridge] General discussion thread, the most relevant thread to the above headline or article:
Baro
Aug 25, 2010 at 10:06 pmYou can find all the comparable bridges, similar refurbishments, ignored reports and experts, and city mis-truths you want but the fact is the city is dead-set on this and is not going to back down or admit they screwed up or worse, outright lied to the public. The public doesn't care enough and the city has just enough spin and PR to keep things going.
Mike K.
Aug 25, 2010 at 10:21 pmQuote: Where do I find it?
I saw it several years ago on tv. I cannot remember the channel, but it was likely Discovery or Knowledge Network.
Holden West
Aug 25, 2010 at 10:23 pmQuote:
I am going to go through the cost estimates for the bridge very closely because something seems very wrong
Don't forget the lengthy amortization cost of borrowing. Sam Williams brought that dubious bit of accounting up in Focus recently, IIRC. Geoff Young criticized it, too.
R0ark
Aug 31, 2010 at 6:30 amQuote:Proponents for a new bridge: read the above and discuss.Big Blue: It isn't over
by Sam Williams, September 2010
Round 2 in the battle of Johnson Street Bridge finally gets underway
"My recommendations and conclusions will be along these lines: Retrofit rather than replace...retrofit to lifeline standards can be achieved by installing a new, relatively flexible foundation to relieve the existing timber pile arrangement. Together with electrical/mechanical upgrades, painting and other rehab items this retrofit option is currently estimated to cost in the order of $8.6M." "Dr Joost Meyboom, November 21, 2008
Main Article: http://focusonline.ca/?q=node%2F93
Mike K.
Sep 02, 2010 at 9:46 pmThe discussion on the TC's coverage of the Johnson Street Bridge project has been moved to the dedicated TC discussion thread.
