ELECTION 2006
     

      

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT 101

or

HOW TO RUN A CITY!

  
Sitting on City Council should not be that difficult a job. 

All you have to remember are a few basic principles.

bulletYou represent the constituents of your Ward and must speak on their behalf at City Council meetings. While you can be empathetic and supportive of the people in other Wards, it is up to their representatives to look after their interests. All you have to do is focus on the needs of the people in your own Ward;
 
bulletYou must constantly keep in touch with your constituents so that you know their issues and concerns and can address these at City Council meetings. This requires more than just the odd public meeting. It also requires more than just showing up for ribbon cutting ceremonies, open houses, or dropping in to wave and say hello. It means that you must get involved with many aspects of the community and give people a chance to speak to you face-to-face about their real problems. You must be available and willing to listen to their concerns. You must become a part of the community;.
 
bulletThe decisions you make on policies and by-laws with respect to matters that appear before you at City Council meetings must be made so that they will have a positive impact on your own constituents. Everything you do must be done to move your own Ward forward and should be the best decision possible for your own constituents;
 
bulletIf you adhere to a "Baseline Philosophy" when making decisions at City Council meetings, you will never go wrong..
  
THE BASELINE PHILOSOPHY
   
When you follow a "Baseline Philosophy", you are concerned about three main outcomes of every decision.
 
bulletYour decision must "increase" the Total Money Available within the City of Greater Sudbury, and/or;
 
bulletYour decision must "increase" the Total Population of the community, and/or;
 
bulletYour decision must "increase" the Total Constituent Satisfaction Level within the City of Greater Sudbury.

Every decision begins with a BASELINE that exists before the decision is made. This is referred to as the BDB (Before Decision Baseline). 

BEFORE DECISION BASELINE (BDB)

The BDB Index is set at the numerical standard of 3.0 at the time the decision is made.

The equation explaining the calculation of the BDB is as follows:

BDB = CMA + CP + CCSL = 1.0 + 1.0 + 1.0 = 3.0

Where,

CMA represents the Current Money Available within the City of Greater Sudbury at the time of  the decision;

CP represents the Current Population of the community at the time of the decision;

CCSL represents the Current Constituent Satisfaction Level at the time of the decision.

At the time of the decision, each of the CMA, CP, and CCSL are given a numerical value of 1.0.

AFTER DECISION BASELINE (ADB)

Councillors must understand that each and every decision they make will change the BEFORE DECISION BASELINE.

It doesn't matter how hard you try, when you make a decision on City Council, you are going to change one or more of the baseline ingredients. You are either going to increase or reduce the total money available within the community, the total population or the satisfaction level of your constituents.

Keep in mind that 'any' change will either increase or decrease the total value. For example, if you purchase a $1,000  item from a manufacturer that is located in Toronto, you have reduced the Total amount of money available in the City of Greater Sudbury. The item you purchase must then increase the population or the constituent satisfaction level by an amount equal to or greater than $1,000 or your decision will result in a lower AFTER DECISION BASELINE and your decision will have had a negative effect on the City of Greater Sudbury.

THE BENEFIT YOU RECEIVE MUST BE WORTH MORE THAN THE MONEY YOU SPENT TO GET THAT BENEFIT...OTHERWISE, YOU SHOULD NOT MAKE THE PURCHASE.

To illustrate:

ADB = TMA + TP + TCSL

Where,

TMA represents the Total Money Available within the City of Greater Sudbury after the decision has been made;

TP represents the Total Population of the community after the decision has been made;

TCSL represents the Total Constituent Satisfaction Level as a result of the decision.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

The BASELINE PHILOSOPHY allows you to evaluate each decision made by City Council by using the RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI) principle.

ROI = ADB - BDB

If ADB - BDB is greater than 0, the decision will have resulted in a positive ROI for the community.

If ADB-BDB is less than 0, the decision will have resulted in a negative ROI for the community.

Therefore, City Councillors must always keep in mind that when it comes time to make any decision they must ensure that there will be an overall  "positive outcome", or a positive RETURN ON INVESTMENT. If all of their decisions have a positive RETURN ON INVESTMENT, we will be moving forward as a community and fulfilling our long-term goals.

PREDICTING THE IMPACT OF YOUR DECISION

The secret to becoming a successful City Councillor rests in your ability to "predict" the outcome of your decision. 

Take for example the decision to spend $2 million to purchase new public transit buses. 

Council will be removing $2 million from the total amount of money available within the City of Greater Sudbury. 

That decision will definitely result in an increase in the Total Constituent Satisfaction Level. Nevertheless, this increase in TCSL only affects the 4% of the population that uses public transit. Councillors must then decide if the increase in Constituent Satisfaction Level will be equivalent to the decrease of $2 million in the total amount of money available in the community. It will be difficult to quantify the increase in satisfaction level of adding 3 or 4 new buses to the fleet, but it must be done in order to determine if the ROI is going to be positive.

Another option would be to spend up to $2 million refurbishing existing buses, rebuilding motors, installing new seats, painting, etc. If the $2 million could be paid to individuals and companies who operate within the City of Greater Sudbury, then there will be no reduction of the Total Money Available within the City of Greater Sudbury since it will stay here. There will definitely be an increase in the Total Constituent Satisfaction Level of the people using the public transit because of the upgrades to the vehicles. There may also be an increase in Total Population if the companies receiving the contract to refurbish the buses are required to hire new skilled employees. Even if one assumes that there will be more breakdowns of the old refurbished buses, at least the money paid to these service providers will remain within the City of Greater Sudbury.

As you can see, the second option clearly results in a positive ROI.

The first option, however, may or may not result in a positive ROI depending on the value one places on the increase in Constituent Satisfaction Level from having 3 or 4 new buses to the fleet.

OBTAINING THE MAXIMUM RETURN ON INVESTMENT

As a City Councillor, the goal must always be on obtaining the maximum possible RETURN ON INVESTMENT with each and every decision.

Any decision which results in an increase in Total Money Available within the community would be seen as a major positive move.

For example, City Council recently decided to use $1.5 million of extra grant money to reduce the tax rate it had already announced. This was NEW MONEY that was given as a gift to the community from a higher level of government.

However, City Council could have used the $1.5 million to generate an additional $3.0 million of grant money from the provincial and federal governments by putting the money towards road construction. This would have amounted to an overall increase of $3.0 million for the community. Reducing taxes had the effect of allowing ratepayers to keep the money themselves (about $18 each) but would not have increased the total amount of money in the community. The $18 that was returned to each ratepayer could have been kept by the City and turned into $4.5 million of new road construction (the equivalent of $54 per taxpayer). An opportunity for a  ROI of 200% doesn't come along very often, but City Council decided that it would lower the taxes by 1% instead. This resulted in absolutely no gain in the Total Money Available in the community. The resulting increase in Constituent Satisfaction Level was not very much since most constituents are upset with the amount of taxes they pay in the first place. By keeping the taxes, and giving the constituents three times the value in services, the Constituent Satisfaction Level would likely have gone higher than it did by reducing taxes by 1%.

The above are examples of POOR DECISIONS based on the alternative options available to City Council.

APPLY THE BASELINE PHILOSOPHY TO EVERY DECISION

The Baseline Philosophy should be applied to every decision made by City Councillors. Even if the decision seems relatively minor, by applying the Baseline Philosophy you will always be moving forward in a positive direction.

Remember, you can eat an elephant if you eat it one bite at a time.

 
 

 

ROBERT KIRWAN
CANDIDATE FOR CITY COUNCILLOR - WARD 5 - CITY OF GREATER SUDBURY
Phone: (705) 969-7215


rkirwan@infocomcanada.com