Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
What do you want cut, Slava? Again: just more kvetching about no cuts, about "not even a cutting back of the increases". So what do you want cut?
I'll make one suggestion: I never wanted them to spend a dime on the new Flames arena. But that ship sailed. I'm never going to forgive any of these council members for their stupidity on that one, and let's not forget: Braid's "Sane Six" also voted for that turkey of a deal. "Sane" when it comes to voting down a property tax increase, but where was that fiscal restraint and "sanity" when it came time to tell the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation to build their own ####ing arena instead suckling on the teat of taxpayers? Hmm?
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I will start off by saying that the Flames arena deal is absolutely horrible and I agree with you.
This notion that City Council and administration CAN NOT find not even 1% in savings and cuts on a more than $4 billion is absurd. They can't even come up with one tenth of 1% in actual costs, which is $4 million.
Any department manager, treasury department or CFO/CEO who can't do that is beyond useless and should be fired immediately. You can start with their total compensation package right there.
If we look at the arena deal and how badly that is for the taxpayer, did we really put the hammer onto the Flames ownership group? Did we really have the best and brightest on the deal? Did they really push back on costs and funding? No and it's evident. Best if we just raise taxes and raid the rainy day fund and all is well.
Corporations layoff employees, restructure and reduce expenses all the time, literally daily. If anybody has been laid off as part of restructuring, they would know this is done to reduce costs. Not every single person, department, City asset, office space and more needs still be here.
My brother works for the city, the level of waste in his department is downright shocking, sometimes what goes on and the lack of control is nauseating.
I was having a conversation with a senior member of CPS, high ranking. When discussing ways at improvements and efficiencies he said the mindset at the VERY top is, but why? If your still getting paid to do this mundane but extremely important task, why do you care? Short of finishing the case and moving onto the next scumbag, City of Calgary isn't offering you stock options or compensation based on financial performance.
That is the mindset and that is what happens a lot of times in government AND business. Business a lot of times just has more incentive to actually cut costs and drive it down.
The City of Calgary's policy is pretty much keep the costs at population growth + inflation. So it's ALWAYS an increase, as opposed to a reduction. Anybody who has ventured out to anywhere these days can visually see with their eyes that everybody is CUTTING costs due to deal with inflation.