2231 replies to this topic

[G-Man]

Like I said in the other thread. I want amalgamation but I don't care if taxes go up or down. It is because doing so would make it easier to plan a great city.

Stop talking about the taxes and we might just be able to get people to care about their city.

[Rorschach]

G-Man, I think if all the police and fire services were integrated there would be better service for the money. If it resulted in fewer employees, then it would save money.

Without dissolving the municipalities, you simply need an agreement between them as to how the resources are deployed and a method for calculating who pays dependant on who is using the resource. The police and fire employees are a single pool resource.

There will be massive opposition to this kind of thing because there will be power winners and power losers and each stakeholder will fight tooth and nail to maintain their feifdom. Amalgamation will probably be forced at some point. Better to plan and execute it carefuly and thoughtfully yourself than let someone else force the situation.

[G-Man]

I agree.

I am not saying that there will not be savings but that instead of looking at savings we should look at the benefits of amalgamation apart from that, such as better ability to plan the region as a whole.

[m0nkyman]

Even my anti-amalgamation self figures it's nuts to not consolidate emergency services across the region.

[Holden West]

An Oak Bay cop once told me, "If we joined Victoria, we'd be spending all our time over there on calls" and I thought to myself, "erm...that's kinda the point..." :-/

[G-Man]

Good one, but who would hand out the tickets to people walking their dogs on turkey head?

I am not joking they do this! Dogs aren't allowed there and the cops hide and pounce on the unsuspecting dog owners.

[Galvanized]

An Oak Bay cop once told me, "If we joined Victoria, we'd be spending all our time over there on calls" and I thought to myself, "erm...that's kinda the point..." :-/

I could see Saanich taking over Oak Bay policing before Victoria. The Saanich Police already dispatches Oak Bay and backs up half their calls. Why hasn't the Oak Bay Police gone the way of the Esquimalt Department yet?

[Rorschach]

The problem is a lack of strong leadership. The multiple bureaucracies have creaded multiple high-level command structures in each municipality. Lots of chiefs with lots of privileges and status will become completely unnecessary. It's human nature. Police and fire service is generally an unselfish profession where everyone works for the benefit of others and sacraficing/risking your own interests. But at a certain level in police and fire management, the priority becomes completely selfish and the most important thing is maintaining power and privilege.

So, the lack of amalgamation given the clear and obvious need for it in police and fire service is a complete failure of leadership at the highest level.

No problem of this kind can ever be solved until the boss decides to solve it. But once the boss decides, the problem is nearly solved simply by the decision to solve the problem.

What leader will take the lead and come up with a comprehensive mutual aid agreement? When that happens -- problem solved.

The individual municipalities will not dissolve, but sooner or later police and fire will have to be integrated throughout the region and a lot of these high level managers who have lost sight of their leadership responsibilites will find themselves writing dog walking tickets on turkey head and it will be their own doing for putting themselves ahead of the community they swore an oath to serve.

[TheVisionary]

I want to do to Victoria what Premier Mike Harris did to Greater Toronto! He and his cabinet ordered, decreeed that all Toronto municipalites were to be almalgamated and the sky didn't fall like some whined.

I like to see results (type A, aggressive personality), bored to death watching Greater Victoria drop the ball too many times in the big wide world. Look people, if Victoria Region can't get its **** together, some other metro region in BC will swoop in and take the prizes.
Perhaps some or all of you heard the phrase, "you snooze, you loose"?

I would go on an amalgation spree of every greater metro area across BC, if I was Premier.

[m0nkyman]

He and his cabinet ordered, decreeed that all Toronto municipalites were to be almalgamated and the sky didn't fall like some whined.

Well.... Toronto hasn't exactly thrived since then either. What I predicted will happen here, happened there. The suburban communities took over, and are in the process of raping and pillaging the core in order to make the suburbs more prosperous.

[Galvanized]

Speaking of our local police...

Integration, yes, deadline no

Solicitor general repeats demands for police on south Island, but there's no timetable

Rob Shaw, Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, October 28, 2006

B.C.'s top cop repeated orders yes-

terday that Greater Victoria's police departments start integrating, but stopped short of backing up his demands with

the kind of deadline some local officials say is crucial to finally making things happen.

Solicitor General John Les said the local police departments don't work well enough together to investigate homicides, robberies, organized gangs and other high-level criminal activity that spill across the borders of the area's 13 municipalities.

There are integrated units with officers from around the region to cover such things as traffic, SWAT teams and crowd control.

But it hasn't gone far enough, Les warned. If more integrated units aren't created, the province will amalgamate the local forces, he said.

"I want all of the south Island police forces and police detachments fully integrated in the higher level of policing," Les said in an interview, referring to such areas as homicide and organized crime investigations.

"At the same time I want them to be free to have their own community police forces to do the usual community patrol types of activities."

The police departments have to work together, he said. "And if they don't, the province always has the prerogative to amalgamate and dictate the terms and conditions."

It is the second warning in two days to invoke threat of amalgamation. It set off a firestorm of finger-pointing and rhetoric among local unions, chiefs and politicians in Saanich and Victoria who have been at loggerheads for years over integration.

"It would be very helpful to have a deadline because everybody works with that deadline," said Victoria police Chief Paul Battershill.

However, Les refused to commit to a timeline on the long-standing issue.

"I want to see progress soon," he said. "I haven't set any deadlines. If I set a deadline, I'm not sure at this point that would be productive."

Without a hard deadline, Les's comments appeared only to reopen old rivalries between Saanich and Victoria.

Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard suggested Victoria has deliberately not co-operated on integration as a way to force amalgamation and overpower the Saanich police.

Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe called that "ludicrous" and challenged Leonard to let an independent task force review local policing and recommend to the government how to improve it.

Saanich police Chief Derek Egan said his department supports integration "where it makes sense and enhances police delivery." Saanich has already integrated with Oak Bay to take over that department's dispatch and serious-crime investigations, and is working with RCMP to battle "mid-level crime" and repeat offenders, said Egan.

But when Victoria enter the picture, Saanich effectively tells it to "piss off," said Victoria police union president Bill Trudeau.

He claimed it was Saanich's top brass that scuttled plans to start an integrated serious-crime unit in 2005. The unit was supported by the Saanich, Oak Bay, Central Saanich and Victoria police unions.

Around 87 per cent of Saanich police officers surveyed last year supported integration and 65 per cent supported a single regional police force from Sooke to Sidney, said Saanich police union president Steve Irwin.

Both unions agreed that Victoria and Saanich police officers already work well together, and the impasse is at a management level.

The one department not resisting integration is the RCMP, said Les. The RCMP has three detachments in the Greater Victoria area: West Shore, Sooke, and Sidney-North Saanich.

Insp. Douglas Scott, officer in charge of the Pacific Region client service enhancement project, said the RCMP is working to integrate with Victoria and Saanich separately.

[Rorschach]

I think the police management spokespersons are inking the waters a bit. The issue is not inter-agency cooperation so much. When the big things happen or someone needs help, the local police and firefighters band together and work together just fine. I'm sure they share local intelligence with each other just fine too.

The spokespersons are framing the issue into something they can respond to rather than addressing the core issue which is waste and inefficiency. They don't seem to have a legitimate response to that.

So maybe we could frame the issue into one of optimization? Who is against optimization?

[TheVisionary]

He and his cabinet ordered, decreeed that all Toronto municipalites were to be almalgamated and the sky didn't fall like some whined.

Well.... Toronto hasn't exactly thrived since then either. What I predicted will happen here, happened there. The suburban communities took over, and are in the process of raping and pillaging the core in order to make the suburbs more prosperous.[/quote
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The suburbs of Victoria will rape and pillage the core? Oh dear, that sounds a lot like a wild party going out of control.

Well then, If the core municipalities don't want to seem like lame duck, I'd suggest they get smart, and develop a sensible regional plan for the future or the outter areas will lead a region revolution. Howver, I'd prefer the use of something called a "self coup". This was once used by Peruvian President Albetto Fujimori, in his battle against the Shining Path rebels. The leader declares non-feasence and assumes extraordinary powers to deal with emergencies or deadlocks in the name of the people, and force a resoultion to the impasse. Alternative is, we debate this to death until the next 5 generations pass and show no results.

Oh, a colleague said her home town of Halifax was forcfully amalgamated and the region seems to run much more smoothly. I'd like to forcefully amalgamate Victoria too. LESS TALK, MORE ACTION!

[Jeffamartin1970]

Why not let each municapality elect one councillor, one crd member and we all electr one mayor. Look at the difficutlies of getting sewage treatment. It will years to settle on type of treatment and were to locatre the treatment center. Even though the province has ordewred we must have. I do not think we can get enough agreement because I know that Stu Young in Langford would want nothiang to do with sewage treatment, and even less to allow it to be built in his municipality!

[Galvanized]

Arena closure is town foolery

Editorial
Apr 20 2007

Esquimalt’s politicians seem intent on dealing yet another serious blow to a community that has already suffered too much.

Council announced plans to close a public amenity to save money, voting to begin a one-year closure plan for Archie Browning Sports Centre.

Not only is the action somewhat hypocritical, given the political stand council took against the Greater Victoria school board’s fundamentally similar approach (closing a public facility to save money), the move could not come at a less-apt time.

On the heels of the news that Esquimalt will surely be the site of an expanded sewage-treatment facility and the Victoria Police budget’s demands for more money from a community that has largely decried the loss of effective police service, came the school board’s decision last week to close Lampson Street school.

Now, completing the assault, council wants to close the community’s only ice rink – a move made without any of the open and public consultation promised during the elections of November 2005.

Even if politicians deliver an about-face and keep the rink open – or build a new one – the long-term damage is already done: the move will be a blow not only to the psyche of the town, but wreak considerable damage on a fragile business community.

This weekend marks the return of the Victoria Walking Festival, an event that regularly draws 800 people through a three-day event based out of Archie Browning Sports Centre.

Planners for such events usually begin laying the groundwork 10 months in advance. Without certain knowledge of a base to work from next year, the organizers of the walking festival would be wise to consider other venues for 2008.

That’s lots of feet – many of them international tourists – that will likely never visit Esquimalt again, 1,000 visitors destined for another community next year: Saanich, Oak Bay or Victoria will likely reap the economic benefit of Esquimalt council’s folly.

The annual Church of Latter Day Saints convention would also be wise to consider moving to another community, taking its money elsewhere.

Minor hockey, minor lacrosse and the town’s championship hockey team will – like the businesses that have already fled a hostile environment – depart for greener pastures.

The town has lost its police force, risks degradation from a sewage plant, has lost one of its schools and will now lose its hockey rink, lacrosse facility and curling sheets.

What’s left to lose?

If the town’s council members are trying to kill whatever remains of the community’s spirit, they’re doing a very good job.

Maybe they should simply begin discussions of amalgamating with Victoria: might as well kick the community when it’s already as down as it can be.

© Copyright 2007 Saanich News



I don't think amalgamation is kicking the community when it's down, it would make it better. They can't afford Archie Browning because of their declining commercial tax base and the fire department is costing them more than it ever did before, the water system is already owned by the City of Victoria, and the police funding is an issue. Why not tap into the commercial tax base from downtown. Esquimalt would be another village just like Cook, Quadra, Cadboro Bay and so on so it would still have an idenity.

[m0nkyman]

All symptoms of the same disease. The feds and the provinces are overtaxing, and because they dip their hands in the pockets first, the municipalities end up with not enough money....

[Willa]

When Mike Harris ordered Toronto to amalgamate, he also ordered Ottawa to do so. The city had 11 municipalities, I believe, and now is just one. It's been seven years, and there have been some kinks to iron out, but in the end, the move has resulted in a much more cohesive regional planning strategy.

Yet, Ottawa wasn't even as bad as this place: It had one police force already.

I honestly think we'll never get to the stage of amalgamating here unless the province steps in. But I can't see any provincial politicians with the balls to do it.

[m0nkyman]

Sure. Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax were amalgamated. And in every case the costs have gone up, the core has suffered to the benefit of the vote rich suburbs, and basically everything that it said would be solved hasn't been.... except the feds now have a group of very powerful mayors to play off the provinces...

There has to be a better way.

[Willa]

I don't know about the other cities, because I haven't lived there. But I did live in Ottawa -- in the suburbs and downtown -- for a period of 12 years (six prior to amalgamation and six after) and I didn't see what you're describing. Yes, taxes for some people went up, but not all. And the core definitely hasn't suffered. As I said, there were some bumps, but overall most people are happy with the new city. Things are way more organized, cohesive and sensible.

[m0nkyman]

Explain the latest transit fiasco. It's a classic case of the suburbs screwing the core.