Cashing pay-cheques and making out of town treks

The Daily News provided some number crunching for the hard pressed taxpayers of Podunk in its Monday edition, as they named the names of the city’s big earners. The city’s top staff members found their pay stubs introduced to the public, as the Daily listed the top 10 salaries in the civic bureaucracy.

Not wanting to have the politicians feeling left out, they also outlined the pay and travel expenses of the Gang of Seven of Third Avenue. As a group they are staying closer to home these days, as the travel budget has not increased in the last 365 days, the city spent close to 20,000 less on jaunts to and fro through 2005. Which is an admirable bit of restraint, but then again the city is supposed to have been in a financial jam the last few years, so it would make sense that the first thing to go would be all but necessary travel plans.

That however may change by the time 2006 is over, as there seems to be an impression that the only way to attract new industry to town, is for the mayor to hit the road and act as chief salesman for Rupert Inc.

As the mayor put it “If we are going to move ahead and get things done, our city needs to be represented and there is no stronger signal than sending your mayor,” said Pond.

This would probably be a lot easier to accept, if we actually had seen some progress on the job creation front. There’s been a lot of promise, but not much in the way of closing deals of late. Outside of the usual suspects, there has not been a lot of feedback given to the public as to who or what may be interested in setting up any kind of industry here.

For the most part, the most likely candidates of late, consist of industries that it seems were going to come here anyways. A Gaming Centre, a shopping centre developer and a pulp mill. We’re not sure how much of an impact a wandering Willy Loman would have on those deliberations.

In fact, considering the rather handsome deal that the China Paper Group got on its purchase of the Skeena site; shouldn’t they really be coming to us? The same could be said for a Gambling operation and a Shopping Mecca, if they want to build here, we’re pretty sure they can find a map and make their own arrangements, they after all are going to be making some serious money once they have their operations up and running .

We would like to think that any of their requests for information could have been handled by the Economic Development Office, perhaps with some timely e mails and faxes, not to mention a website with information on the city and contacts for further information.

A smart investment in town might be a travel agency, considering the history of civic travel over the years in these parts. Last year was a rather down year in travel, a statistical blip if you will, compared to the two years prior.

While we ponder where our civic officials should travel to next, lets see what we’ve been getting for our money in 2005 shall we.

CITY REVEALS PAY OF ITS TOP EARNERS
The Daily News
Monday, September 18, 2006
Page Three

Municipality releases its annual breakdown of who earns what

The City paid its top 10 staff members more than $1 million in salaries and wages in 2005.

The city’s audited financial statements, which were released last Monday, include the annual list of employees who earned more than $75,000.

Former chief administrator officer Victor Kumar topped the list for wages, $117,587 and travel, training and other expenses at $14,769.

Other people on the list include Bob Thompson, director of Engineering, $91,278 in salary and $25 in expenses, Terry Pierce, captain of the airport ferry, $90,353 in salary and $6,698 in expenses, fire chief Ron Miller, $90,024 in salary and $2,496 in expenses.

Tom Ireland, corporate administrator earned $87,538 in salary and $5,699 in expenses and Michel Pilon, information systems manager, $85,754 in salary and $2,585 in expenses.

Gordon Butterworth, financial administrator earned $77,630 in salary and $3,621 in expenses, while Jim Martin, deputy fire chief made $77,037 in salary and $1,810 in expenses.

Sigrid Ireland, operations manager was paid $76,552 in salary and $430 in expenses and William Horne, operations field manager for Public Works collected $76,132 in salary and $1, 160.

COUNCIL PULLS IN ITS BELT OVER TRAVEL
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Monday, September 18, 2006
Page Three

The mayor and city councilors spent almost $20,000 less in travel in 2005 compared to 2004.

As part of the city’s audited financial statements, the city released travel expenditures for council last Monday.

In 2005, mayor and council members spent $35,769.83 in travel and other expenses, compared to 53,612.24 in 2004 and $42,790.65 in 2003.

In 2005, Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond was paid $32,456 and spent $17,374 on travel and other expenses.

This is almost half what was spent in 2004 when the mayors tab was $32,098.98 in travel and other reimbursements. In 2003, the mayor’s tab was $28,002. Meanwhile, council members spent $18,395.83 in travel in 2005, compared to $20,512.43 in 2004, and $14,788.18 in 2003.

Former Coun. Paul Kennedy logged the most travel expenses among councilors in 2005, at $6,681.50.

This was followed by former Coun. Jack Rudolph at $4,453.77, Coun. Tony Briglio at $2,974.46, Kathy Bedard at $2,380.87, Ken Cote at $704.92, Sheila Gordon-Payne at $407.20, Joy Thorkelson at $405.20 and Nelson Kinney at $387.91.

Each councilor receives an annual stipend of $9,577.10 and those newly elected councilors or those who did not serve a full year because of the November municipal election receive a percentage on the amount of time served.

Pond said mayor and council travel is mostly related to pursuing economic developments for the city.

“The opportunities that are developing in our community aren’t all originating here,” said Pond. “The business people that are investing in our community are often from elsewhere.”

For example, the Highway 16 shopping mall complex is being developed by the Royop group in Calgary, while the major partner for the Community Gaming Centre is based in Prince George. The China Paper Group, which purchased the pulp mill is located in Vancouver and provincial ministers are all in Victoria.

“If we are going to move ahead and get things done, our city needs to be represented and there is no stronger signal than sending your mayor,” said Pond.

And overall, expenses for council have gone down in recent years because council no longer pays $25,000 US to retain an Alaskan consultant. Council made that decision in 2003 with the understanding it might require some additional travel by the mayor to keep up relations with Prince Rupert’s northern neighbours.