ADAMS, David

My understanding is that the city currently has a little over 150 FTEs. It's important for each employee to have a clear job description, reporting accountability and clear KPIs tied to advancing the work that they have been hired to do under the direction of their supervisor and ultimately back to council direction. Remuneration increases should not be a given but should be tied to the achievement of KPIs.

Focusing on results is also tied to the speed and efficiency with which results get achieved. In talking with business owners and individual citizens seeking simple permits, it would seem that there is often too much process and bureaucracy with permits and approvals rather than focusing on the customer - the business or citizen. So reviewing procedures and processes for routine applications etc. should be undertaken with a view of minimizing the time to process such applications.

Yes. Given that one of the complaints I have heard consistently in my discussion with citizens is that "nothing ever changes" with city hall. Those may be anecdotal perceptions but perceptions are people's reality. Owen Sound should be a magnet for industry and tourism given its geographic positioning but has been unable to move the needle very much on either front. The city can ill- afford to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

Yes,

That said I would support exceeding inflation if the City Manager was able to persuade council via cost benefit analysis that it would be less expensive to spend money on key pieces of infrastructure or other preventative maintenance now (thus potentially pushing property taxes higher than inflation) than waiting when the cost of having to repair or renew infrastructure would be significantly higher.

Yes. This exercise should be a part of every budget process. I do believe there is a way to undertake this exercise in a way that could also spur innovation and efficiency if there was a small remuneration and/or recognition for employees coming up with creative, innovative ideas to reduce costs and improve efficiencies that could be transferable to other departments.

I think the 2011 city budget is being used as a baseline for analysis given Mr. Hutton previously published work looking at the CPI increase vs. city expenses increases. I am all for controlling expenses however I think there are also things that appear to be outside of the city's control that we have to live with - like the arbitrated settlement for the fire fighters. Moreover, while Owen Sounders feel and look at CPI the city has to contend with inflation as it relates to non residential commercial construction and roadworks - where increases have been well over CPI for a number of years as I understand it. So it is a bit of like comparing apples and oranges. Additionally, it goes without saying that tariffs and retaliatory tariffs have been exogenous factors in increasing costs. My point would be, let's focus on the areas/items where we can potentially control costs/mitigate increases and ensure that we are comparing apples to apples when looking at spending levels.

I think the city needs to take a good hard look at its initiatives and expenses - much like any household. Initiatives and budget line items should be reviewed and labeled as either essential or discretionary expenses. Discretionary expenses should be given a thorough review with the goal of eliminating them if such expenses are not in line with the mission, vision and values of the city.

I share the belief that there is a disconnect between City Hall and the taxpayers it serves. That said I also believe that the disconnect is not entirely the city's fault. Citizens are becoming increasingly disengaged and disenchanted with governments and politicians to the extent of not utilizing their democratic right to vote and not appreciating that municipal government is the level of government that in many cases has the most effect on their lives. However, I believe all citizens should be given the option of opting into receiving a summary of all committee and council meeting minutes via email or through the creation of a city WhatsApp group. Agendas for committee and council meetings should be established and publicized at least a week in advance o meeting and the agendas should be true agendas of the business to be transacted - not just placeholders with the real agenda to be added later. All meetings of committees should have written minutes with votes noted and how councilors/committee members voted.

Councilors have their own views and perspectives that may or may not be informed by discussions with or complaints from their constituents. Therefore there is merit in retaining public participation in committee work to ensure that the views and perspectives of at least some of the public are being reflected as opposed to the views of 7 Councilors

I also appreciate the efforts of helpOS.ca and other private efforts that have been established to help those interested in municipal politics and city happenings stay abreast of current events and key council decisions that may affect citizens.

A primary plank of my platform is to increase transparency and accountability of council to the citizens of Owen Sound and I will push in every case for greater transparency and broader public participation.

Absolutely. (make City Council more transparent, accessible and accountable to residents.)

While not without compassion and empathy for the homeless and the addicted, this is a real problem that is not unique to Owen Sound. Therefore part of the solution would be for the city to research other cities in Ontario that have been successful in reducing both the percentage of homeless and how the addicted were handled to see if there are transferrable concepts that can be deployed without reinventing the wheel.

Public disorder and violation of the law would seem to me to be the responsibility of the newer downtown River District foot patrols. This is an issue that really does need to be addressed because it is these folks that leave some residents fearful of coming downtown and leave tourists -when or if they come with a decidedly negative view of the city. While some may be upset with Owen Sound securing the Brightshores Wellness and Recovery Centre, the statistics suggest that the centre's efforts have been largely successful in terms of reducing opiod deaths and in reducing traffic volume to the hospital.

While it may have already been attempted, trying to deal with the homeless and addicted as human beings as opposed to a blight on the downtown may make a difference and individual case attention has been successful in reducing homelessness in other Ontario cities.

I also believe that social agencies receiving funding from the city should be required to have their own kpis and service guarantees as part of receiving city funding.

Yes. I would support each of those initiatives and yes I believe we should be giving a hand up, not a hand out.

I think you need to have objectively measurable metrics established from a baseline with respect to each of the four points above. The old Peter Drucker quote applies "What gets measured gets managed", and that needs to be applied in these instances

Yes. I would also recommend that the city manager reach out to cities like Alliston, St. Thomas and Cambridge that have been highly successful in attracting global companies to their cities resulting in significant employment and secondary and tertiary economic spinoffs. We need to know what our competition is offering commercial developers and be more than competitive.

With respect to housing construction, while I certainly support initiatives that would expedite new housing construction and make doing so more attractive to developers, we should also address the fact that there are a number of vacant buildings in Owen Sound and, like other candidates and other jurisdictions I would support the notion of introducing a vacancy tax to encourage owners to sell or rent their vacant properties

Yes I would. (support targeted incentives or a temporary reduction or moratorium on development charges)

I believe that citizens have a right to clear, fully allocated costs of municipal departments, agencies and other shared service arrangements. Knowing the full-costing of all services is the only way to make responsible decisions about those services

Yes this makes inherent sense to me. (support requiring the Water Department to present Council with a complete explanation and justification for proposed rate increases as part of the annual budget process)

Thanks for the additional question, Jim. As a relative newcomer to Owen Sound I have to admit that this case was a bit of a head scratcher for me. On the face of it it made no sense to me that the city would be expending time, energy, and resources on this case given the circumstances as we know them which seem dubious at best.

At the heart of the issue however appears to be the so-called "system" with all parties involved looking only at their piece of the system rather than the big picture of whether the whole system is operating as it should .

I am not a lawyer but I believe that the mayor and council are correct in saying that they cannot get involved in this case. It is important principle that public administration cannot be interfered with by those with political responsibilities. We have seen the pitfalls south of the border where the Trump administration has overstepped and disregarded that division to attempt to bend public administration to his will. That division is an important safeguard for citizens.

I would offer that if the administration in this matter were spending their own money to prosecute, the issue would likely have been resolved some time ago. To me there are related issues as to the merit of initiating a case - especially without providing a warning - based on the facts of the case, and the subsequent responsibility for pursuing it.

There are multiple failures of the "system" here - the by-law officer for issuing an infraction notice based on a mail label, supervisors either without the authority or willingness to exercise it to shut down this superfluous case etc.

All that to say that if different pieces of the system can legitimately claim to be "just following the rules" and "doing their job" then the system itself is broken necessitating things like changed by-laws (council responsibility) clear lines of authority and discretion in the job descriptions of our civil servants (city manager)and .appropriate legal review to assess the merits of pursuing a case - even if the probability of winning the case is high - which does not appear to be the case here (professional legal counsel)