STV may be coming to next civic election

Armchair Mayor column, Saturday, April 24, 2010

Picture this. At the next City council election, you go into the polling station to decide which candidates you want to represent you for the next four years.

Yes, I said four years.

The ballot has the usual roster of three dozen council candidates (that’s a typical number for Kamloops).

In past years, you simply marked eight choices because that’s how many councilors need to be elected. Not anymore. You must now rank them in order, first to 36^th. Hope the chair in the voting booth is comfy, because this is going to take awhile.

When the votes are tallied up, half your choices may not count. That’s because the 19^th place finisher might have received more seventh-place votes than the eighth-place guy, who drops down to number 23 and waits to see if he can pick up a few votes from number 29.

Or is it, number 12’s votes are transferred to number 21, or number 11 to number 17? Who knows?

After the formula for weighting the votes is determined according to a mysterious process, and the candidate with the lowest score drops off, we move to number 35, then 34 and so on until, a few weeks later, we’ll know who we elected to City council.

It’s the Single Transferable Voting system, it’s all very democratic, and it could be coming to the next municipal election near you.

We’ll know soon enough. The Local Government Elections Task Force is due to present its recommendations May 30 on changes to the way we vote for City councils, and the STV system is just one of the proposals under consideration. You may remember the STV, the one that got trounced in not one but two referenda as a way of “reforming” provincial elections.

Say what! One day, Mr. Mayor, you’re expanding our political vocabulary with terminology that would have gotten our mouths washed out with soap in our younger years; the next day everything is hunky dory and we’re all good friends over the transfer of administrative power from RIH into the clutches of our rival to the south?

But back to the STV. I really can’t imagine how it would work for civic elections, but Fair Voting B.C., aided and abetted by the Green Party of B.C., can’t let it go.

“The GPBC recommends that the task force propose use of an alternative vote or preferential ballot system in local government elections,” states the Greens’ submission.

“This would mean that every candidate will have received at least 50 per cent of the vote. Knowing he will have to work to get the support of voters who may select another candidate as their first choice will promote more respectful discussion of issues during the campaign period.”

As a matter of interest, only three of the Kamloops councilors — John O’Fee, Pat Wallace and Marg Spina — elected in 2008 received more than 50 per cent of the vote. Nancy Bepple, John De Cicco, Jim Harker, Tina Lange and Denis Walsh were all below the threshold.

Seriously. Is that all it takes — an exchange of business cards and a few nice words about how RIH will always be independent in spirit even if the boss lives in Kelowna — and suddenly “it’s a brand new relationship”?

Four-year terms for mayors and councils — a bad idea if there ever was one — is another proposal in front of the task force, one that’s supported by our own mayor and council.

It’s a great idea for local politicians who savor the thought of being guaranteed another year in office, not so good for the public or for candidates who just don’t want to commit for such a long period of time.

Not all City councils support four-year terms. Kimberley and Tumbler Ridge, for example. But Richmond sides with Kamloops.

So Royal Inland Hospital will remain “an independent tertiary facility.” How can the place be independent until the local community — either through a local hospital board, representation on the IHA board, or an autonomous administrator — has veto power?

Not all the ideas being considered by the six-member elections task force are bad. Capping campaign expenses is one of them. While I’ve never agreed with the idea of eliminating lawn signs, I certainly think a reasonable limit on expenses would help level the playing field.

(The B.C. Civil Liberties Union, on the other hand, believes spending caps would “limit speech and distort the political process,” contending that candidates with less name recognition need more expensive campaigns.)

Campaign donations should be tax deductible for civic elections the same way they are for provincial and federal elections. The inequity makes no sense, yet many councils have opposed it for a long time. (Kamloops council is in favour of the change).

Within the several dozen submissions to the task force, there are proposals on everything from the date on which civic elections are held, to limiting the campaign period, to bringing back the business vote (which, by the way, John O’Fee, the NDP and the Canadian Labour Congress are all on record as opposing), and implementing mandatory ward systems.

How will Royal Inland ever be anything but a poor cousin, a little brother, a weak sister to Kelowna General when Kelowna is the centre of decision-making? We need co-operation, we need efficiency, but, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Mayor, the system that IHA has come up with is, well, bullshit. If you’ll excuse the expression.

None of the recommendations before the elections task force is guaranteed to be included in the task force’s report to the provincial government and the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and the report has no assurance of being accepted in full.

But, along with some needed reform, there are enough whacky ideas to make one very, very afraid.

Site C brings back memories of W.A.C.

Yesterday’s Site C announcement brought back some memories. Premier Gordon Campbell loaded a bunch of Liberals, B.C. Hydro reps and reporters onto airplanes and flew them up to the W.A.C. Bennett dam to announce that the province will proceed with the long-controversial Site C hydro plan for the Peace River.

Back in 1967, W.A.C. himself traveled to his namesake dam — in a rail car. He called me to that car late one night to say he would be announcing at the next day’s official opening of the dam that the reservoir would be named after Ray Williston, just as the Prince George newspaper I was working for at the time had campaigned for in editorials.

The following day, I rode up to the opening in Ben Ginter’s Lear jet. I remember trying to muscle my way through the crowd to get a half-decent shot of Bennett officially firing up the plant. Just as he was about to push the button, I raised my second-hand Pentax above my head and clicked, having no idea whether it would be in focus.

Not only was it in focus, it was a pretty damn good shot. Good enough to be used by B.C. Hydro as the official photo of the opening.

Welcome, knaves, to the Kingdom of Kelowna

Mayor Milobar gets warmed up.

Armchair Mayor column for Saturday, April 17, 2010

“Is this triage? I’m having a heart attack!”

“Did you pay for your parking, sir?”

“Uh, no, I’m having these chest pains, see, and —.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to hoof it over to the parking machine and pay up. And I suggest you hustle before the tow truck comes.”

“Can you make change?”

“Different department. . . . Next, please.”

But, as they say, I digress.

Ah, to have been a fly on the wall when City council met with Interior Health Authority officials this past Tuesday. That’s when mayor and council got the first clue that Royal Inland Hospital was to become a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Kelowna, an administrative chattel, a mere satellite somewhere outside the castle moat.

Did the “B” word escape the lips of Mayor Peter Milobar — he of the even temper and “balanced approach” — when then-chief operating officer for Thompson Cariboo Shuswap Andrew Neuner, about to become “vice president of community integration,” let it drop that an announcement was on the way?

Were Neuner and health services administrator Marg Brown fortunate to escape with their heads? (Being the bearer of bad tidings has always been a risky business.)

I digress, again, to note that Brown was the architect of the women’s auxiliaries fiasco, in which decades of service by those organizations was rewarded with the big heave ho, the unceremonious boot, from the corridors of RIH. These IHA folks are on a roll.

There is no joy in the Loops this day. Just as we were beginning to think we were almost as good as Kelowna, we get a reality check. We get the ol’ slap down, put firmly in our place, told we don’t quite rate up there with the big boys.

And it isn’t just the news itself, but the whole disrespect thing. A notice to staff, followed by official word to area mayors and regional district folks, was supposed to go out Tuesday afternoon. It didn’t, instead being sent some 24 hours later, by which time leakage was underway.

As Milobar waited for the official notification, he was instead presented with public comments on the subject by IHA board chair Norm Embree. That’s when he uttered the “B’ word right there on radio, after which every reporter in town was after him to repeat it, to which he obliged, throwing in a few others, like “mismanagement,” “absolutely ridiculous,” “lack of transparency” and “enough is enough” in an effort to be clear on what he thinks of IHA’s handling of RIH.

One might think news of this kind would be deserving of general dissemination among the peasantry, but no press release followed. A check of the IHA website Thursday included the re-written job descriptions of the “senior executive team” fitting with the new order of things, but still no press release. Biggest item on the site was the startling news that April is daffodil month.

Friday morning, it was still daffodil month. And, the mayor was still waiting for a phone call from IHA chief Robert Halpenny, Embree, Joanne Konnert (now in charge of RIH), Health Minister Kevin Falcon, anybody.

“It’s Friday and I’m done leaving voice mails,” he said of his efforts to get hold of a live body at IHA. (Halpenny did finally get back to him later in the day.)

This lack of attention to small details like telling people what they’re up to shouldn’t be particularly surprising, since IHA didn’t bother telling patients they’d now have to pay for parking at the ER, either. Indeed, though it boasts a fine staff of communications officers, IHA is one of the toughest organizations around to get information out of.

Confronted for comment Thursday, MLAs Terry Lake and Kevin Krueger sided with the IHA, bravely insisting that ripping the administrative heart out of Royal Inland’s chest cavity like a scene from Aliens is good for health care.

One wonders what rabbit they will pull from the hat to extricate themselves from the political warren they’re digging for themselves this time, as once again they’re in the glue and on the opposite end of an issue from City council.

As for the new boss of RIH, Joanne Konnert, who is that, you might ask? The Kelowna resident is now vice president of tertiary services, one of a growing legion of VPs in the increasingly complex IHA hierarchy.

If she isn’t feeling like she’s No. 1 in the hearts and minds of Kamloopsians right now, well, she’s no stranger to unpopular situations. When a Delta mother caught a flesh-eating bacterial infection after having a Caesarean section at Surrey Memorial Hospital, Konnert was chief operating officer for the Fraser Health Authority. She was the one who had to face the media.

When Kelowna General got in hot water after a patient spent the last two weeks of his life alone in a hospital bed, then five days in the morgue before his family was notified, Konnert was given the job of refusing comment on behalf of the health authority.

When 1,000 orthopedic, gynecological and general surgery patients got backed up after IHA cancelled a contract with a private operating facility, it was Konnert who explained that it was costing too much.

Whether she’ll get a raise on her current $270,000 package for the added aggravation of overseeing the Kamloops ingrates is unclear at this time.

Meanwhile, back at the ER, it would be a good idea to keep some spare change in the ashtray of your car just in case you have to make an emergency visit.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

http://www.armchairmayor.wordpress.com

Nancy makes up for Kennedy’s lackluster performance

The annual Sports Hall of Fame banquet at the Grand Hall is a great event because it reminds us what a great city we have when it comes to athletics. Saturday night’s event, though, had its disappointments as well as pleasant surprises.

I hesitate to say anything negative about community galas of this kind, because so many people work so hard to make them happen, and they’re always for a good cause. But I must say Sheldon Kennedy was a disappointment.

Kennedy, the former NHL player who was one of those molested by coach Graham James, has an important story to tell. James was back in the news only a week earlier when it was revealed he’d received a National Parole Board pardon, re-igniting the whole issue about the responsibilities we have for our youth involved in sports.

But Kennedy, the keynote speaker, didn’t once mention James and his pardon. He totally ignored a great teaching moment, instead rambling along for a scant 10 minutes with a disjointed speech that failed to deliver his message. In fact, he admitted he hadn’t put any work into the speech and wasn’t even sure what he’d talk about right up to the day of the event.

Fortunately, Nancy Greene-Raine was there to pick up an award of excellence, and entertained the 380 attendees with tales of the Olympics. Indeed, she would have made an excellent keynote speaker.

The usually excellent TRU catering service took an hour and a half to get dinner on the table, by which time everyone was chewing on the centre pieces.

Nevertheless, you can’t take anything away from the organizing committee — the glitches were beyond their control — and the Hall of Fame inductions and achievement awards made up for the shortcomings.

At last, the untold story of ACC

Some stories, no matter how good or clever, never see the light of day. Here’s one we briefly considered for publication into today’s Daily News, but which became a casualty of sober second thought. Hope you enjoy, and take a look at the calendar as you read it.

By MEL ROTHENBURGER

Editor, The Daily News

A company that vowed to take its controversial gasification plant elsewhere is having second thoughts.

Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. president Kim Sigurdson told The Daily News on Wednesday he expects to apply for an amendment to his environmental permit to change the fuel for the plant from creosote to slaughterhouse waste.

“It became very clear to me through the consultation process that the main issue was creosote,” Sigurdson said. “We can adapt the technology to accept just about anything as fuel, and there’s a big need in B.C. to dispose of slaughterhouse waste.”

He said he’s been in discussions with the Energy and Environmental Research Centre at the University of North Dakota, which developed the original design, and has been told it can be easily adapted.

The ACC president said the big advantage of his technology is that it can incinerate all types of slaughterhouse waste, including brain-stem tissue, also referred to as “specific risk material,” associated with mad-cow disease.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Sigurdson said. “It’s not like composting. With gasification, all the waste is rendered inert.”

A composting facility that would have processed slaughterhouse waste, except for SRM, was rejected in Westwold last year after residents there protested.

Acknowledging he should have consulted earlier with the public on his original plan, Sigurdson said he won’t wait as long this time, and has already set up a hotline.

Anyone with questions about the revised plan can phone 250-374-7467.

According to Sigurdson, the EERC has already done preliminary tests at the university, and adapting the creosote gasifier designed for Kamloops would take only a few weeks.

It would produce syngas that would generate electricity similar to what the creosote plant would have done, he said. ”It would hardly smell at all.”

If the demonstration facility works out, it could be expanded to take city garbage as well. Sigurdson hopes to meet with Mayor Peter Milobar about that soon.

“We’d have to add several more gasifiers,” he said, “but I don’t see that as a problem, as long as we get additional government funding.”

Will City taxpayers be on the hook for part of the cost? “That remains to be seen, but I’m getting good vibes.”

Asked why he would forge ahead in the face of public opposition expressed at a recent Kamloops Chamber of Commerce forum, he commented,  “I didn’t get the impression people would be against other types of fuel.

“They had a lot of questions, but I think a lot of people there were in favour of the concept in general.”

He said it’s even possible the plant could handle nuclear waste.

“If this thing works out, we’re hoping to move our office (ACC’s office in Winnipeg) out of the basement of our home and onto the main floor.”

Despite the ease of adapting the technology, he said he expected it to take some time to put federal and provincial funding in place and to get political buy-in.

“I’ll be conferring with Terry Lake on Facebook later today but I understand he’s fine with it as long as it’s not in the Fraser Valley.”

Sigurdson said the plant should be up and running on the Mission Flats site by next April 1. “I think that would be an excellent date for a grand opening,” he said.