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When viewed in the context of overall City hall failure, the
alleged scandals are a drop in the bucket. The fact is that the list of
the City of Greater Sudbury`s municipal government failures is long and
growing. Without reforming what government does and how it goes about
doing it, we’ll soon be learning of many incidents of defrauding public
funds by City’s bureaucrats.
Greater Sudbury taxpayers are fed up with secret
bureaucratic agendas at City hall. The disappointment mainly lies in
the large amount of tax dollars scammed, misspent and improperly
managed. This amount is not in hundreds, but in millions. City hall
is full of scandals and secret deals. Adding to the lack of
transparency. The city’s clerk office continually denied public
access to the records. Furthermore, the taxpayer-funded legal
service department worked against public will. The division led by
Jamie Canapini, City Solicitor and
assistant City solicitor Kristen Newman take every effort not
to release the information and to keep the public in the dark. Their
prime task is to protect corrupted bureaucrats at the cost of
taxpayers.
Additionally City bureaucrats are stuck in a mooted sense
of entitlement and as such, have burnt up thousands of tax dollars
for their own personal fine dining, luxury hotels and air travel
expenses.
The lack of
political leadership paired with a politically divided city council
render them unable to achieve anything but the destruction of public
trust. City’s bureaucrats took advantage of the instability of the
political state of the City council and started to work their own
way. For example, the Mayor and city Council advised City Solicitor,
Canapini, to contact Ontario Ombudsman, Andre Marin to find if there
was a possibility to have a closed-door meeting investigator during
the transition period. But
Canapini did not follow instructions and instead chose to act in his
own way. He did through means such as manipulating the facts and
sent a disrespectful letter to the Ontario Ombudsman’s office. The
letter indicated his opinion as well as his neglect towards the
advice given by political leadership. It was widely reported but
political leadership was unable to take any action against him.
Incredulously, these corrupted well-connected, powerful bureaucrats
remain in their positions and continue to rake in thousands of tax
dollars.
The City’s corrupted bureaucrats secretly conspired
to fire the Ontario Ombudsman which led to major public outrage. The
City hired their own private investigator to investigate closed door
meetings but paid using tax dollars. Regardless of public outrage
however, City bureaucrats continually engage against the public will
but taxpayers have not yet been able to take any action against this
behaviour, instead, being left to helplessly watch these cruel and
irresponsible acts. Now this is the time for Greater Sudbury
citizens to provide clear mandate against corruption and in
defrauding public funds. Everyone
should therefore come out in full force to vote against them.
Greater Sudbury tax payers lost over $500,000.00 tax
dollars and corrupted bureaucrats attempted to bury the scandal. The
City clerk`s office continually denied access to the records and City
Solicitor Jamie Canapini argued they were covered by
solicitor-client privilege, and that the records were the property
of city council. As such, he advised them not to turn them over to
the auditor. Bigger’s office then spent $20,000 on outside legal
advice in an attempt to gain access to the documents. Interestingly,
the audit committee chair and Mayoral candidate, Ron Dupuis,
attempted to write-off this loss of public funds from the books and
argued that the public has no right to know the internal affairs of
City hall. Ron Dupuis’ position on the matter is that information
should be released to the public on a “need to know” basis only.
Nick
Benkovich, Director of Water and Wastewater - the leading group of
individuals in the City hall - decided to outsource water main
repairs. According to a recent Freedom of Information request (FOI
2014-133) submitted to the City, the City was not able to find who
authorized to outsource the water main repair contract. This
indicates the presence of secretive agendas within City hall. The
employees at the Water and Wastewater Division managed the water
main repairs very well themselves up until the outsourced contract
in 2005. Benkovich was
not able to find a contentious solution with his own employees.
Instead, Benkovich exercised his authoritarian management style and
decided to outsource the contract, at the cost taxpayers. It cost
taxpayers millions of dollars. Similarly, Benkovich outsourced the
remote monitoring contract, also at the cost of taxpayers, which
amounted to over $59,104.65. The consultant fee alone cost taxpayers
an hourly rate of $5,910.46.
Benkovich
and fellow corrupted bureaucrats work for the best interests of
special groups. They did
not consider the value of tax dollars by neglecting to find
efficiencies of the Water and Wastewater Operations and the
possibilities and alternatives that would have saved a millions of
tax dollars. According to the American Water Works Association (AWWA)
standards, operation staff to managers’ ratio should be 8:1.
However, the City’s water operation ratio is 3:1. It means every
three workers have one manager or supervisor. This poor management
decision directly contributed to increase of water bills for Sudbury
residents.
The
value of tax dollars was neglected and for the mere benefit of a
special, interested group - the core services outsourced. Finally,
the total cost passed on to the taxpayers. After the large amount of
tax dollars scammed and misspent, no one is willing to claim
responsibility and not even the person who authorized such
outsourcing was discovered. It therefore comes as no surprise that
City bureaucrats do not hesitate the proposed 4.9% tax increase for
next fiscal year.
This corrupted TDS regime must be toppled and
bureaucrats involved in corruption and defrauding public funds must
be booted out from City hall.
The following demonstrates how City’s bureaucrats
wasted your millions of tax dollars.
Who was Involved / Responsible
|
Uncovered Facts
|
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Utilized public funds
Director
of Water/Wastewater Services was reimbursed from tax dollars
$ 36,120.96 from 2005 to 2011. Highest amount
reimbursed was in 2007 totalling $ 8,597.76.
Details
are as follows:
2005-
$ 3,067.59
2006- $ 6,097.42
2007- $ 8,597.76
2008- $ 4,815.16
2009- $ 6,089.46
2010- $ 2,636.29
2011- $ 4,817.28
Total:
$ 36,120.96
This
is in addition to $ 130,000 / year salary and benefits
|
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
SCADA Contract Scandal
Did not utilize available in-house resources
and service was outsourced.
Professional fees paid for 10 hours of work for 3rd
party contractor for SCADA monitoring contract from tax
dollars to a total of $59,104.65
Hourly Rate: $ 5,910.46
|
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Emergency
Water-Main Repairs Scandal
City
resources not properly managed.
Service
was outsourced. Internal resources improperly managed and
utilized. The
term of the contract was for three years with the option to
extend the contract for two additional one-year terms. The
selected proponent, bid an estimated annual amount of $247,437.
The
City extended the 2005 Tender contract for the full five
years, during the term of which the City spent approximately
$8.1 million under the contract, which was over six times
the original estimate bid by the selected proponent.
Contract
#2005-45
2006
(4 months) – $ 543,000.00
2007 (12 months) –$ 1,205,000.00
2008 (12, months) – $ 1,329,000.00
2009 (12 months) - $
2,051,000.00
2010 (12 months) - $ 1,645,000.00
2011 (8 months) - $ 1,305,000.00
5
year Total: $ 8,078,000.00
Yearly
Average: $
1,616,000.00
Contract
#: ENG 12 -42
Based
on the increased quantities in the 2011 Tender, the amount
of the annual estimate that was bid increased. The bid in
the 2011 Tender was again submitted by the same
contractor at an estimated annual contract amount of
$740,550.
2011
(4 months) – $ 1,036,000.00
2012 (12 months) – $ 2,152,000.00
2013 (12 months) – $ 3,399,000.00
Total
: $ 6,587,000.00
Yearly
Average: $
2,823,000.00
(Note:
This matter is still under investigation and more details
will be released to public)
|
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water Wastewater Services
|
Utilized
tax dollars to pay personal dispute
Legal Fees paid for personal disputes
Court
File No. 12-9145
Total
amount paid to Lawyer from Toronto Legal firm: over $6,000.00.
Part
of the expenses recovered but not yet paid balance to the
City over $2,000.00.
|
Keven
Fowke
Director, Human Resources and Organizational
Development
|
Utilized Public Funds
Director, Human Resources and Organizational Development of
City of Greater Sudbury claimed:
In 2010 - $3,541.33 and
in 2011 - $ 4,691.13
as his expenses from taxpayers,
Total of $8,232.46
This
in addition to salary and benefits Total: $ 139,667.43
|
Keven
Fowke
Director, Human Resources and Organizational
Development.
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
James
Canapini
City Solicitor
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Gross Incompetence in Managing Human Resources Issues
Legal fees paid using tax dollars for Human Rights Tribunal
Legal proceedings against own City employees.
2009 Payment: $ 808.00
2010 Payment: 12,895.00
2011 Payment: $10,480.00
2012 Payment as of August: $ 61,959.00
Total: 86,142.00
|
Keven
Fowke
Director, Human Resources and Organizational
Development.
James
Canapini
City Solicitor
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Transit Ticket Scandal
Over $860,000.00 tax dollars missing and not
recovered
|
Keven
Fowke
Director, Human Resources and Organizational
Development.
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
James
Canapini
City Solicitor
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Gross Incompetence in Managing Human Resources Issues
Legal fees paid matters for arbitrations and
mediation from tax dollars violating Labour Rights
(2005-2011).
Compensation: $ 321,062.00
Mediation Fees paid:
2005 Payments: $114,172.81
2006 Payments: $154,444.20
2007 Payments: $146,632.29
2008 Payments: $225,373.59
2009 Payments:
$288,228.87
2010 Payment:
$303,633.42
2011 Payment:
$ $407,862.15
Total: $1,640,347.33
|
Keven
Fowke
Director, Human Resources and Organizational
Development.
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
James
Canapini
City Solicitor
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Gross Incompetence in Managing Human Resources Issues
Legal Fees Paid to third party external law firm for Labour and
employment matters from tax dollars
Budget: $ 455,000.00 for 3 years
Spent:
2008 - Payments: $ 1,357,541.85
2009 - Payments: $ 4,492,678.91
2010 - Payments: $ 1,886,428.62
Total: Payment: $ 7,736,649.38
|
Keven
Fowke
Director, Human Resources and Organizational
Development.
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
James
Canapini
City Solicitor
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Gross Incompetence in Managing Human Resources Issues
Legal Fees paid to third party (external law firm) for Labour and
employment matters from tax dollars
Budget: $151,865 per
year
Spent:
2011 Payment: $ 681,682.27
|
Keven
Fowke
Director, Human Resources and Organizational
Development.
Nick
Benkovich
Director, Water and Wastewater Services
James
Canapini
City Solicitor
Doug
Nadorozny
Chief Administrative Officer
|
Gross Incompetence in Managing Human Resources Issues
Legal fees paid using tax dollars for third party company in Toronto.
Annual Budgets for Labour and employment matters:
$ 75,932.50 (est)
Spent $ 717,123.22
|
It
is time for institutional reform and positive change for the city,
and those involved in the misspending of tax dollars must be held
accountable. This particularly includes Doug Nadorozny, CAO;
Keven Fowke, Human Resources Director; James Canapini, City Solicitor; and Nick
Benkovich, Director of Water and Wastewater Services. They should
immediately step-down and provide taxpayers with answers.
As time reveals, we see
the power, responsibilities and budgets devolved from the federal/ontario
government down to the local level. This includes anywhere from
social welfare to land development.
It can also be noted that local governments are playing a
greater role in designing policies and delivering key public
services.
When considering methods
for improving the current situation, one method that can be looked
at is decentralisation. However, while decentralisation processes
can positively affect accountability by bridging the gap between the
people and their government, decentralisation can also present
corruption risks since corruption is a problem at all levels of
municipal government. For example, local officials may have greater
vested interests that can influence decision- making. These
interests may lie in family, friendship and business ties.
A more viable solution however includes ensuring that
transparency, accountability and integrity are emphasized as the
central focus of local governance systems. In this way the risks of
corruption are significantly reduced. This is also because citizens
can participate in and influence policy design and implementation.
They are thus also able to hold local officials accountable for
their actions or lack thereof. In such a scenario local government
officials therefore act effectively in the public interest and are
open about their activities.
Finally,
we need a mayor and council that competent and confident enough to
make certain that city departments deliver the projects needed to
improve the conditions of the city of Sudbury. Without leadership
and direction from a sound city council that serves the public
interest, Sudbury will continue on its current path of being nothing
other than a second class city that is in serious danger of decline.
In order to exemplify this lack of leadership on behalf of both the
mayor and city council, it is worth pointing out the issue
concerning our failure to develop streets and roads accessible to
all. This however is only one example. Furthermore, this is also an
example of the unwillingness of staff to work effectively for the
benefit of the citizens of Sudbury.
It is time for change.
----------------End
Editorial
Released on October 03, 2014 at 10:00 AM EDT
The
article initially published on
American Political Science Review,
9(4), 851-875
.
Excerpts
from the article as follows.
Note:
A recent article written by Darren MacDonald, published
in the Sudbury tabloid newspaper: The Northern Life ,(September
18, 2014 - 5:00 PM) misinterpreted the
political communication concept of “negativism.” The concept of
Negativism means political criticism of opposing “individuals” but
does not refer to their concepts and ideas. This
criticism is mainly involved with “personal attacks” towards the
opponents. For example, recently, the conservative party’s television
advertisement campaign was clearly a personal attack against liberal party
leader Justin Trudeau. This advertisement was a true representation of
Negativism.
Additionally, MacDonald’s main objective is to
discredit mayoral candidate Brian Bigger. Bigger is advocate of
transparency and exposing secrets within City Hall, and thus the
article clearly only served the best interests of a specific group
of individuals affiliated with City hall.
Furthermore, MacDonald is facing allegations that he is under
the City bureaucrats’ payroll. Readers must henceforth be very
cautious when reading and interpreting articles written by
MacDonald.
This article provides a clear definition and example of the concept of
political communication Negativism.
Political communication: Negativism - A
Meta-Analytic Assessment
Synthesis of findings reported in the literature does not bear out the
main claims made about the effects of negative advertising. The
great majority of the effects reported are of modest magnitude, with
effect sizes clustered in a narrow band that extends from slightly
above zero to slightly below zero. Researchers observed no
significant tendency for negative ads to evoke lower affect than
other campaign ads, contrary to the common contention that citizens
reserve special disdain for negative ads. As noted earlier, this
does not mean that negative political ads are well liked. Indeed,
there is abundant evidence that they are not; for example, 75% of
those interviewed in a 1994 poll said they were "turned
off" by negative ads.
Rather, it simply means that, according to the available evidence,
negative political ads are not disliked significantly more than
other political ads or, for that matter, than ads in general. In an
era when majorities or substantial minorities of adult Americans
consider television advertising unhelpful, unbelievable, and
misleading, and respond by leaving the room, attending to chores, or
channel-surfing during commercial should
the unpopularity of negative political ads be considered especially
noteworthy? More important, we did not uncover consistent, let alone
strong, evidence that negative ads work to the advantage of their
sponsors and/or the disadvantage of their targets. In this respect,
it appears that, in a Newton's third law, for every research finding
there is an equal and opposite research finding. Only a handful of
the positive effect sizes we catalogued are large, and these are
counterbalanced or even overbalanced by another handful of effect
sizes on the negative side. There simply is no compelling evidence
that negative advertising "works." Of course, the
effects of negative campaign ads need not be statistically
significant in order to be politically significant or even decisive.
Even a tiny advantage to the sponsor can be enough to determine the
outcome of a close election, and even an attack that fails to sway
voters can cause the target to divert precious resources in order to
answer it. The results of our meta-analysis should not, then, be
interpreted as saying that negative advertising is invariably a poor
tactic. In general, however, negative campaign ads appear to be no
more effective than positive campaign ads and even somewhat less so.
Thus, while we concede that a well conceived negative advertising
campaign can be a key to electoral success, the same can be said,
and with somewhat greater confidence, about a well-conceived
positive advertising campaign.
Finally, our meta-analysis also fails to confirm the widely held view
that negative advertising should bear a major share of the blame for
the widespread political disaffection of recent decades. The effects
we observed for the "unintended consequences'' measures are too
small in magnitude and too mixed in direction to provide empirical
support for heated claims that negative ads are undermining public
confidence and participation in the electoral process. We should
note, however, that all the studies analyzed here focused on the
immediate or short-term effects of viewing negative ads rather than
on the long-term consequences of being subjected to a continuing
barrage of such ads. A quarter of a century ago, researchers McCombs
and Shaw attributed the prevailing lack of understanding of the
effect of political advertising to the dearth of research on the
subject. Since then, a great deal of research has been completed,
but if the findings reported here are to be believed, widespread
misunderstandings remain, at least in the form of overly expansive
claims about the effects of negative ads. Why are claims about the
effectiveness of negative advertising so far removed from the
findings reported in the literature?
Academic research had hardly dented the consciousness of those who shape
public discourse concerning negative advertising. Also, campaigners,
consultants, and pundits are not immune to a wide array of
perceptual and attributional. Researchers cite three such biases. In
campaigns in which both sides go on the attack, the well-known
tendency toward internal attributions of success and external
attributions of failure can lead winners to credit their own
"brilliant campaign strategy'' and losers to blame their
opponents' '"vicious attacks." Both claims bolster the
impression that negative advertising '"works," even though
it obviously did not work for the losers. A different bias that
produces the same result is the tendency to over generalize from a
vivid example that is easily retrieved from memory. More broadly,
people often misperceive, reinterpret, or ignore information that is
inconsistent with their preconceptions, and any or all of these
tendencies can lead candidates, consultants, journalists, and
political reformers to exaggerate the effectiveness of negative
political advertising. Which, if any, of these accounts is most
accurate must remain a matter for speculation at this point.
Editor
WikiLeaks Sudbury
October 03, 2014
Reference
Lau, R. R; Sigelman, L; Heldman, C; Babbitt, P. (1999). The Effects of Negative Political Advertisements: A Meta-Analytic
Assessment December 1999. American
Political Science Review, 9(4), 851-875.
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