Jan. 27, 2009 Presenter to R.M. of Portage la Prairie Reeve & Council: Jim Pallister

ESTABLISH PRIORITIES AND CONSULT THE PEOPLE BEFORE MAKING MAJOR CHANGES. PROVIDE LEADERSHIP.

Former MB Premier (and Flee Island farmer) Douglas Campbell (whom I’ll bet many of you knew) was asked “what was his greatest accomplishment in over 40 years in politics?” His answer, “Rural Electrification”. It doesn’t sound very glamorous at first, but think of how many lives it changed. Empowering so many who had been left out. Many positive developments then become possible.

Last week I was at MB Ag Days, a huge trade show. As I walked around there was row upon row of booths of people selling everything from tools, innovations and software to training programs. Then you walk into this room full of the huge, dazzling BIG IRON. But I know that if I’m tempted to spend all my money on the shiny big combine & tractor $400 – $500,000, I’ll have nothing left to invest in all the other smaller, mundane but essential investments. That’s why I always have to remind myself to first establish priorities. You gentlemen are all farmers. I know you wouldn’t spend one whole year’s farm income on one big expensive and non-essential item. Not unless you’d first set it as a priority.

I.  STRATEGIC PLANNING AND PRIORITIES MUST FIRST BE DONE.
The Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie must do a prioritizing exercise. (If anything has been done in this regard it hasn’t been shared with us.) For example: What policies will most empower and improve the lives of people? As was well pointed out here at the last meeting, “the R.M. is about people”. Which choices will add economic growth and attract new investment to the rural? What is the private sector doing already versus what necessary things will not happen without R.M. involvement? Can we partner with the private sector to make good things happen? Brainstorm. Think outside the box.

BUT – to govern is to choose how to allocate limited resources. As in business, if you say yes to a huge expensive project it will mean saying no to many other things. Some of our wisest people have been called “naysayers” for expressing reservations about spending all our available resources on a single recreation/entertainment project. But this council will become, for years to come, a huge naysayer on everything else. You and your successors will have to say no to a great many positive ideas and opportunities if all our capacity is tapped out. The current plan is to borrow & spend every dime we can on this multiplex.

Like Douglas Campbell, I know all of you have the best intentions for our people and as in Doug Campbell’s time, we in the Rural still face a great many challenges and inferior services compared to our urban friends. In what importance would you rate them?

For example:

• Water: Many still have no safe dependable drinking water. Much progress, but more to go.
• Internet: This is the highway of the future for quality of life, education & business. Dial-up, by comparison to high-speed is just a rutted dirt road. For $1 – $2 million we could probably deliver high speed to us all. Few have it now.
• Education: If we were to re-direct the $35 million could we possibly have our own Portage Community College Campus? Many towns our size and smaller, likeCrookston, Yankton, S.D., Bottineau, The Pas have post secondary institutions. Changing Portage into a “College Town” could be a solution to so many of oursocial, demographic and economic challenges. Distance is a barrier to educationfor our rural and “at risk” youth. Attracting and retaining young people; providingopportunities for experienced people to re-train, and others to teach; creatingsynergies with our strong local industry and research sectors; having a well trained entrepreneurial workforce to draw other investment would all lend a great vitality to this community. Voluntary community and industry financial support would be much greater for education than for entertainment. Education is an investment in Human Capital; not in concrete. It keeps on giving.
• Direct Education Support. If not build a college, with the magnitude of the multiplex investment we could pay post-secondary tuition for all R.M. residents and their children. The R.M. is about people. Wouldn’t this change lives for the better? Our family supports this type of initiative as we’ve helped over 20 local 4-Hers with education bursaries.
• Recreation – Hiking or ski trails, biking trails, snowmobile trails, investing in existing rural hockey rinks and city arenas, curling, golf, indoor soccer, skateboard park, Delta Beach improvements. We’ll have to say no to assisting any proposals like these even though they might be quite inexpensive by comparison.
• Hospital Renewal. It will have to wait.
• R.C.M.P., public safety. An increasing concern of rural residents.
• New Industry. What if a new job-creating investor comes to the area and needs some       infrastructure? We’ll have no borrowing capacity. They’ll have to go elsewhere.
• Entertainment Multiplex. There are 3 active gymnasiums and several recreation pools available now in Portage. No extra hockey ice will be gained. The main added benefit of this investment, then, would be a better venue for Spectator Events.

Looking at all these options then, are we sure that the last one is the top priority by a great enough margin to come at the exclusion of all the others?

II.  PROPOSED R.M. COMMITMENT TO THE MULTIPLEX IS BIG.
$8 million is greater than the entire cost of running the municipality for a year (~ $7.5 – $8 million). The burden of carrying our share of the operating losses will add $400,000 and increasing annually, so will add over 5% to R.M. spending PERMANENTLY. At today’s interest rates that is equal to the cost of borrowing, servicing and never paying back an additional $8 million loan. The additional cost to each taxpayer then is easily calculated: Additional taxation equal to more than one whole year of his or her municipal taxes plus a permanent tax increase of over 5%.

III.  PRESENT COUNCIL HAS NOT SOUGHT AUTHORIZATION FROM THE RATEPAYERS on this major departure from long time policy of not funding Recreation and Entertainment.

I asked one councillor why they had never provided any significant support to rinks and community clubs in Edwin, McDonald, Oakland, High Bluff, St. Ambroise, Poplar Point or Oakville and now we’re spending over $1.1 million and $50,000 annually per ward on recreation and entertainment in Portage. “That was the policy.” Why had the R.M. never significantly sponsored the curling club, snowmobile club or the golf club? His answer, “They never asked.”

That spoke volumes – it told me that on this multiplex you had been approached by a well organized lobby who said, not unlike George Bush, “Are you fer us or agin us?” But you first needed to look at all your priorities and achieve a consensus before splitting council and dividing community. Leadership is needed here.

None of the existing council ran for office on a platform of involving the R.M. in this project. It was not an issue in the 2006 rural elections. Therefore this Reeve and Council were elected for 4 years on the understanding that they would run the R.M. delivering the usual programs and services spending about $7.5 – $8 million per year, or about $30 – $32 million total. Instead you are intending to spend as though you were elected for 6 years or more. Burdening future elected councils with $16 million equivalent of your debt and loss obligations and removing all their flexibility without even consulting the ratepayers. This is not democracy. You might have the power. You don’t have the right.

As farmers how would you feel if an employee spent a whole year’s crop on one non-essential item; without your approval? In this situation, gentlemen, with respect, it is you who are the employees, the public servants of the ratepayers.

CONCLUSION:  MY RECOMMENDATION:

Once you’ve first established priorities AND consulted ratepayers, then act. This is my proposal to you. Take the time, get a committee working on it, find out what else we might be able to do with our finite resources. We will find there are things of a much higher priority, greater significance or better value than the present proposal. We will be totally precluded from doing any of them if we spend all our money on one Big Iron, Big Concrete project.

If you vote for this project, you are voting against all other forms of recreation, against education, against hospital renewal, against all proposals in the foreseeable future. Without study you will have closed all other doors.

If for no other reason, since last summer the economy has declined sharply, everyone’s savings have been cut by 1/3, grain prices are only ½ – 2/3 what they were. Let’s take some time here to think, study and re-assess.