He moved council meetings to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and introduced a new rule that only allowed speakers at committee meetings (held on Thursdays during the day). There was a lot of carrying on about that, with people saying he was destroying democracy by holding meetings during the day when fewer people could get time off work to observe the proceedings or hang around forever waiting to speak.

Now, a new change. Council meetings will be at 9:30 on Tuesdays. Presumably not the same problem observing, as we can all watch on our electronic gadgets now. Committee meetings (the previous three committees now consolidated to two) will now be held Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings.

This is apparently all being done so that councillors can get to Metro Van meetings, usually held Thursdays and Fridays, without having to miss a city meeting or be hung over from the previous day’s debate festivities. As well, it will allegedly reduce the time senior staff have to spend waiting around at the end of the day to see if they’ll be called on to answer questions.

Any thoughts on whether this will improve or worsen your life?

Also paid for by your tax dollars on the list: Coast Mountain Bus.

You can go to the link here, click on the organization of your choice, and see which workplace policies contributed to their selection.

But it’s not the first time there’s been an exodus from the hall.

The first high-profile swan dive I recall was deputy city manager Ted Droettboom, a highly respected guy who quit when then-councillor Jennifer Clarke insisted on bringing in new zoning to the False Creek Flats’ industrial area in preparation for the fabulous high-tech/dotcom boom. Remember that?

Then the tide flowed out copiously after Judy Rogers, with enthusiastic cheering from the development industry, canned the four-day wor week.

Others have quit under various administrations over the years. So is this term unusual?

Here’s the memo from city manager Penny Ballem to various people at city hall.

chart showing retirements, voluntary and involuntary departures for the regular, full-time City staff (+/- 6605) (VPD, VFRS, Parks, Library and City Hall) over past 10 years. (2003 retirement levels higher as a result of pension eligibility changes.)
Year    Retirement      Involuntary     Voluntary       Total Turnover 
2000    2.3%            0.3%            2.7%            5.3%   
2001    2.4%            0.3%            2.2%            4.9%   
2002    2.1%            0.3%            1.8%            4.2%   
2003    4.1%            0.3%            1.7%            6.0%   
2004    2.2%            0.2%            1.8%            4.2%   
2005    2.2%            0.3%            2.1%            4.6%   
2006    2.2%            0.3%            2.6%            5.1%   
2007    2.4%            0.3%            3.3%            6.0%   
2008    2.1%            0.4%            2.4%            4.9%   
2009    2.4%            0.3%            1.6%            4.2%   
2010    2.9%            0.2%            1.4%            4.5%   

So, the answer would appear to be …. no.

My observation. This helps give some needed perspective, as the political opposition tries to stampede all of us in the media and public into thinking people are leaping from the upper floors of city hall. (Some are excited and energized by the changes. And many in the business community are relieved to see some changes.)

But the chart doesn’t give a sense of the psychological impact at the hall of the unusual number of high-profile departures from the city or departures of people like Carlene Robbins, who were apolitical, not particularly Judy Rogers’ clan members, and well respected by many.

It also doesn’t isolate out the different sectors of city hall, so the hall by itself or the park board by itself can’t be compared.

Kind of odd, as it’s not really that hard to keep track of the four blogs that cover the city the most intensively.

Too many doses of annoying, temperature-raising information? I have heard that some blog posts have generated so much angst that various councillors or staffers have made vows not to read any more just to keep their blood pressure down.

Or is it that the powers that be figure that everyone, from the lowliest staffer to the city manager, is reading them obsessively anyway, so why bother? We don’t know as no explanation was offered.

But Councillor Ellen Woodsworth is planning to ask why next Tuesday.

Here’s the memo that went out.

From: Donovan, Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 8:46 AM
To: Donovan, Thomas
Subject: TODAY’S HEADLINES (Wednesday, December 1, 2010)
Today’s Headlines

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Community Services :

Vancouver Opera to kick off season with opera version of West Side Story Globe and Mail

Safe injection sites will open with or without permission montrealgazette.com

Park board may close washrooms and cut cleaning Vancouver Courier

City councillor floats downtown public square plan Vancouver Courier

Planning talk; Grandview-Woodland is next in line to receive a community plan Vancouver Courier

Governance :

Survey finds a quarter of Vancouver city employees lack confidence in city hall Globe and Mail

Low morale among city workers, survey finds Vancouver Sun

Less than half of employees think City of Vancouver well-run, survey shows Georgia Straight

City workers happy with jobs, less happy with brass METRO VANCOUVER

Vancouver gets a failing grade from city’s employees QMI Agency

City workers not a happy bunch CKNW AM 980

Transfer payments Vancouver Courier

Mayor & Council :

Mayor Robertson an acolyte of global green plutocrats Vancouver Courier

Olympics :

Steep discounts likely part of Olympic village strategy, marketer says Globe and Mail

Policing :

Former gang associate appeals to students to choose a better path Vancouver Sun

Fired Vancouver Cop Pleads Guilty to Drug Trafficking Vancouver Sun

Sun helps launch anti-gang video contest for B.C. high school students Vancouver Sun

Jim Chu: Vancouver’s top cop CTV NEWS

Cop pleads guilty to drug trafficking The Province

Outrage greets officer’s conviction on assault charge The Province

Cop found guilty of Kits assault QMI Agency

Former police officer pleads guilty QMI Agency

Sustainability :

Some landowners using community gardens to get a tax break Special To The Sun

Transportation :

TransLink targets fare cheats The Province

Yesterday’s Headlines

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

City Services :

Trees destroyed in Vancouver (Segment features Mayor Robertson) GLOBAL NEWS

Policing :

Drugged driving GLOBAL NEWS

Hearing ordered in Vancouver police beating case ctvbc.ca

VPD veteran charged with assault; Ex VPD officer admits to drug dealing CTV NEWS

VPD assault hearing CTV NEWS

Blogs will no longer be included in these summaries

There’s a lot of material in the report and survey, which none of us in the media could possibly cover all of so here’s the link to it.

Does it look good?

No. As the consultant noted, the indicators of employee satisfaction were below the averages for other public-sector agencies and for private-sector companies in all areas except “stress and workload,” where the city was higher than average with employees who feel those two items are manageable. (As I noted, the VPD’s survey, which came out the same day, showed employee satisfaction at 70 per cent.)

The areas that were particularly low:

- Confidence in leadership (27 per cent were favourable, 30 per cent couldn’t decide, 43 per cent were unfavourable)

- Development opportunites (34 per cent were favourable)

- Work structure and process (35 per cent were favourable)

- Clear and promising direction (44 per cent were favourable, but 29 per cent were unfavourable)

Vision councillors timidly asked questions to try to put the numbers in context, knowing all reporters would run out anyway saying morale is terrible at city hall.

JJJ asked for my thoughts. Here they are:

- This administration deserves some credit for actually doing this survey. For a group that hates bad news, this was almost inevitably going to be bad news. They didn’t have to do it, but they did anyway.

- This likely does reflect some unhappiness at city hall that is connected to the current administration, especially the changes that Penny Ballem is bringing in and the way she is bringing them in. But I don’t think these numbers are solely attributable to just the current situation.

As Mark Jackson from the Hay Group noted, you’re unlikely to see a change of more than about 10 per cent in a two-year period.

- It doesn’t tell us whether things are worse than better than two years ago or five years ago or 10 years ago.

- There’s a lot of bad history with employee relations at city hall: many strikes or episodes of working to rule; a lingering sour taste in many people’s mouths still from when Judy Rogers cancelled the four-day work week at city hall; a lot of frustration about what’s seen as waste and lack of respect for employees for many years. If you had done surveys at certain key points in the past, you would have got results much worse than this.

– I don’t have a clear idea of what different levels of people are unhappy about. What people in the bottom four-fifths of the organization — the parking-ticket issuers and recycling picker-uppers and permit issuers — think is not working at city hall is likely very different from what the more senior people, the ones we are hearing the most from about how they can’t take the efforts to control and hyper-manage everything, think is not working.

But it all does indicate a problem that needs to be worked on. And while that unhappy group of people in the top fifth of the organization don’t represent everyone, they are the ones whose poor morale is the most visible and having a significant impact on the organization as a whole.

Just anecdotally, here are some of the things I’ve heard in the past few months in casual conversations with people:

- Someone who works for a major developer told me last week it feels hopeless working with the planning department these days. “It’s like they’re all working to rule. Even XX, who’s a new guy and was enthusiastic and great a while ago, it now feels like he’s just going through the motions.”

- There are managers who do like the new direction and management at city hall. Yes, hard to believe if you only listen to the critics, but there are quite a few who think Penny is smart and doing stuff that needed to be done long ago. And I’ve heard even major supporters of former city manager Judy Rogers say that her style — never saying much publicly, making people guess which direction she was really going, letting every department at the city kind of go its own way, lack of centralized financial control – was a problem. But those gung-ho managers are struggling with other staff who are less enthusiastic and basically operating in first gear or reverse, hoping to be bought out.

- I continue to hear about people who want to leave because they just don’t feel like their work is valued or that they have any real say.

- The new media policy continues to be demoralizing for many at city hall. It has been revised, by the way. Media have been given a list of about 15 senior managers at city hall whom we are now allowed to contact at will. But it leaves off dozens of people who have been regular and helpful sources for the media in the past, along with others we may want to contact in the future.

The unmistakeable message for staff on the no-fly list is that they’re considered too dumb, too unable to express themselves coherently, or too dangerous to be allowed to speak publicly. As one said, “They’re telling us we can’t talk because we’re not supposed to express opinions before reports are discussed by council. But we’re paid to write reports that have our recommendations in them.”

-

There’s occasional grumbling about the level of power they seem to exert. (One political staffer noted bitterly that an advertisement for city staff used the slogan at one point, “We run the city.”) But by and large, the new councils have adapted and come to grips with the fact that the thousands of bureaucrats they allegedly oversee actually know something and are excellent public-relations ambassadors for the city.

They give reporters explanations about complex issues and they do it in a way that removes some of the politicization from particularly contentious initiatives. (Note how council recently made sure to send out their engineers to explain the process of designing and building the Hornby Street bike lane during public consultations.)

But apparently things are changing at the hall. I called three planners last week to talk about a relatively innocuous report going to council last Thursday: a report about efforts to deal with noise around the two stadiums that will impact the 7,000 people who will eventually move in there. Important note: This was not a controversial report or one that was likely to split on political lines or one that was likely to set off any more neighbourhood commentary than already existed.

It’s the kind of call I’ve made hundreds of times over the past decade and a half, as have many in the city, which the city has always made easy for anyone to do by printing the names and phone numbers of the people who wrote the report at the top.

But I didn’t get a call back from any of those planners, as I normally would. Instead, I got a call from communications officer Wendy Stewart, who explained to me that I wouldn’t be getting any calls back.

That’s because it has created some awkward moments in the past, she said, when reporters have done stories about reports, quoting staff, and councillors have had to scramble to catch up. (I’m not quoting verbatim because Wendy called when I was walking around on the street and didn’t have my notebook with me.)

So, in order to prevent councillors from being asked to comment when they’re not ready to, staff are no longer going to be returning calls about staff reports.

Wendy Stewart suggested that I call COPE Councillor David Cadman instead. Which I did and, while I’m sure David cares deeply about noise in general in the city and has championed anti-noise initiatives, he knew almost nothing about the specifics of this report and didn’t have answers to the technical questions I had. No surprise, since it’s really staff and the legal department who initiated this particular effort to come up with noise-minimization measures.

This is unprecedented and a sad day for everyone who covers the hall. I’m also not totally surprised at this rather blunt statement. I’ve noticed over the past while that staff sound more nervous and cautious when I call to have them explain something to me. I’ve heard through various channels that staff have been told bluntly not to say anything about particular high-profile issues, like the casino.

And I’ve had staff on occasion ask me not to mention to any councillors that I’ve even been talking to them (let alone quoting them in stories), as those councillors apparently get upset when they something to me and I say, “Well, that’s not what I’ve heard from Planner X or Engineer Y.”

As well, I understand that one of the areas of conflict around former FOI officer Paul Hancock was that he would release FOI documents that were requested by media without notifying anyone else at city hall. That also occasionally created embarrassing moments, when councillors were being asked to comment on released documents that they didn’t know anything about.

The plan for the future is to have a notification system internally, so that everyone is briefed and ready to go when an FOI document is released. (I’ve checked with Darrell Evans of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association and apparently this is not illegal, as long as there is no interference with the request.)

I can understand the Vision team wanting to figure out new ways to deal with messaging. They’ve facing a new, energetic and unusual kind of opposition in Citycaucus.com, two former staffers in Sam Sullivan’s office who have used their insider knowledge of city hall to get information, through FOI and other means.

But in their struggle for control, they’ve gone too far. In the past, it’s been accepted practice that reporters wait until city reporters are posted online before calling councillors (even if we knew about them in advance), to give councillors a chance to read them before getting calls.

But this goes beyond that. Now staff can’t even comment once the report is out, so as to give councillors the stage to themselves where they may or may not be delivering accurate information. (I note that the bureaucrat to whom this does not apply is Penny Ballem, who usually takes over doing the actual explaining of complex issues once Mayor Gregor Robertson has delivered his crafted message on whatever the topic at hand is.)

The bureaucrats at city hall are knowledgeable professionals, whose efforts to explain difficult issues for reporters have only worked to the city’s benefit.

If councillors are concerned because they sometimes appear to be less knowledgeable than their staff or even at odds with them, I’d suggest that the solution is not telling staff they can’t speak.

 
The City of Vancouver today announced the selection of Amanda Pitre-Hayes as its new Director of Sustainability.
 
With 18 years of experience in leadership roles at the Pembina Institute, Vancity, Citizens Bank of Canada and the Body Shop Canada, Ms. Pitre-Hayes brings to the City innovative environmental and business practices that address the root causes of climate change. In addition, her experience with businesses such as Accenture will help guide the City’s green business and long-term sustainability objectives.
 
As Director of Climate Change Consulting with the Pembina Institute, Ms. Pitre-Hayes worked with large organizations such as Mountain Equipment Co-op and the Business Development Bank of Canada to become greener by measuring and managing carbon dioxide emissions.
 
At Vancity, Ms. Pitre-Hayes managed the organization’s climate change strategy, led its successful effort to be the first carbon neutral financial institution in North America, and developed the first carbon offset grant program in Canada.
Ms. Pitre-Hayes’ environmental expertise is complemented by solid business acumen. At Accenture, she managed multi-million dollar projects for major North American government, energy, telecom and financial services organizations. At Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, she helped social entrepreneurs grow profitable businesses that employed at-risk youth. She holds a Masters of Business Administration degree with a focus on sustainability.
 
The Director of Sustainability works with staff on Council initiatives that help the City realize its Greenest City Action Team targets and its goal of becoming the world’s greenest city by 2020.
 
Ms. Pitre-Hayes was selected by a panel of seven City staff including directors and managers, the Deputy City Manager and a representative from Human Resources. Over 100 applications were received for the position.
 
Having recently completed Ironman Canada, Amanda is looking forward to the relatively short cycle commute to City Hall from her home in Vancouver’s eastside. She begins work with the City on November 1.

As I noted in my Globe story a month ago, chair Mirko Mladenovic engaged in some fairly unusual behaviour at the commission, the likes of which I’ve never heard of any commission member doing in my 15 years covering the hall, as the city was grappling with how to regulate the recent UFC match.

According to various media reports, he argued with city manager Penny Ballem at a meeting about what level of insurance should be asked for from the UFC match organizers. He openly talked about insurance numbers, saying they should only have to pay $5 million instead of the $12 million Ballem was asking for — numbers that the city was trying to keep confidential. He brought his own lawyer in to one meeting. Et cetera, et cetera. And he repeatedly told media that the city was being obstructionist and endangering the chances of having a match.

A sign of what was coming is that the vice-chair, Dr. Jerome Yang, became the commission spokesman in the week before the match.

I’m sure some in the sports blogger world think he’s a hero. But just from a city-hall watcher point of view, it was astonishing behaviour from a city-appointed member of a city commission.

Mr. Mladenovic has been on the commission for three terms, so some are asking why he would fall afoul of the city only now. But the reality is that the athletic commission meets rarely because there are very few events for them to monitor. The UFC match really tested the abilities and skills of both city staff and the commission members in a way that was unprecedented.

The city is working to have former chief city engineer and head of Olympics preparations, the now-retired Dave Rudberg, put on the committee and made chair. Awaiting more news on that.

If you’re interested, more on this issue at Civicscene and the Vancouver Sun.

N.B. Even though it doesn’t specifically say so in this news release, I have been assured, since I put this up on the blog, by the powers that be at city hall that this motion will also refer to the expenses of the mayor’s entire office (which includes costs of all staff, travel not just for the mayor but anyone travelling with him from the office, and other things that go well beyond just the mayor’s travel and miscellaneous expenses.) We don’t even get an unexplained total of those expenses in the skimpy report going to council this Tuesday, as has been the practice since time in my memorial.

Mayor Robertson calls for Council expenses to be available on-line

Vancouver – Mayor Gregor Robertson will be introducing a motion on Tuesday to have the details of Council’s expenses posted on-line for the public to view, in a move to increase transparency and accountability at City Hall.

“Vancouver lags behind other cities when it comes to openness and accountability,” said Mayor Robertson. “In cities like Toronto, you can view on-line a detailed breakdown of each councillor’s local and travel expenses, but in Vancouver, you have to request it.”

A report coming to Council on Tuesday outlines the remuneration and expenses for Council in 2009, but does not provide details on what those expenses actually are. Anyone who wants to see what the expenses are has to request it through the City Clerk’s Office.

“We should be making it as easy as possible for the public to see how City Council spends its money,” said the Mayor. “By posting the details of individual expenses on-line, taxpayers can see what their elected officials are spending their budgets on. Other cities around the world already do this and it’s time Vancouver did too.”

From: Ballem, Penny
To: [deleted]
Sent: Thu Mar 04 16:01:48 2010
Subject: For your info – this is going to council tonight pb

I would like to provide you with an update on communication that will be sent out to all staff this Friday regarding HR changes related to the 2010 Budget.

As you are aware, in December, we estimated 109 positions would be impacted through the service level adjustments as a result of the 2010 Budget. We also announced that an additional 14 impacted positions had been identified within Engineering Services, Equipment Services Branch and Mountain View Cemetery due to a decrease in work load within these areas. Thus, a total of 123 positions would be potentially impacted out of our 10,000 member workforce.  At that time, CMT established a committee with membership from across the City to work to mitigate the impact on staff.

In January following a lot of hard work by our committee, managers and unions, we announced that only 44 employees were subject to the group termination notice under provincial labour legislation. Shortly after the communication in January, an additional three positions within Equipment Services and Mountain View Cemetery were identified, bringing our total number to 47 employees covered by the group notice.

Since that time, our HR Transition Team, Vacancy Management Committee, Unions and managers have worked together to further reduce the impact on staff.  Our goal has been to have as few people as possible leave the organization while ensuring we meet our budget targets.

Through the Section 54 process which is mandated under provincial labour legislation, we have been involved in discussions with our unions to develop labour adjustment plans.  We have reached an agreement with CUPE 15 to develop a number of placement mechanisms that will help to lessen the impact on staff.  Under the adjustment plan for CUPE 15, employees who accept placement offers to available vacant positions (including temporary assignments) that are at a lesser pay grade than their current position, will receive wage protection, continue to work the same (or greater) number of daily/weekly hours, and will have a priority right of return to their former pay grade and Service group for a period of up to a maximum of 18 months.  Employees represented by CUPE 15 who choose not to accept a placement offer, or where an offer is not made, will retain all of their existing rights under the collective agreement.

We continue to participate in Section 54 discussions with CUPE 1004 and IBEW.  I am hopeful that we will have agreements with those unions shortly and will communicate those at that time.

The very encouraging news is that as a result of a lot of hard work on the part of our city-wide committee, managers, and our Unions, to date we have been able to find placements through retirements or vacancies for a total of 112 employees, meaning that at this point in time, only 14 employees our of the original 126 will receive actual layoff notice.

For those of you who might have a particular interest in the Park Board’s changes, I am pleased to report that through financial commitments by Community Centre Associations and identification of transfer opportunities for staff, there will be no layoffs in the Park Board at this time.

Finally, last week we met with our Unions to give them an overview of the status of the VSR projects.  We continue to assess and evaluate the impact that these projects may have on staff.  More information specifically relating to the IT Shared Services project, as well as the Procurement project will be communicated sometime this month and we will of course, continue to keep you apprised of those developments.

I want to express my appreciation for the tremendous amount of work done by our union colleagues, our HR department and all of our managers in making sure we did everything possible to support our staff and broad organization through this challenging process. This commitment will continue and Council’s support is much appreciated.

Thank you,

Penny Ballem, MD FRCP
City Manager
tel: 604.873.7626
fax: 604.873.7641
penny.ballem@vancouver.ca