The City of Nanaimo will look at what’s next in the core review process.
At a meeting Monday at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre, city council voted 5-4 to ask staff to make recommendations about the scope of a Phase 2 core review.
Coun. Gord Fuller made the motion, saying that the core services review has been “one of the the best things” the current city council has accomplished.
“I want to see this done,” he said. “I want to see more and more of these recommendations implemented in it.”
The core services review, completed by Western Managements Consultants in 2016, looked at six corporate processes, 13 departmental services and three external agencies. A city staff report earlier this fall calculated that the city had completed 11 recommendations of the core review, with 31 in progress and 29 slated for 2018 and 2019.
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“It’s been a good thing for our city, to shake us up…” said Coun. Jim Kipp. “What I have said for a long time is that a correction needs to be done.”
Coun. Ian Thorpe, Coun. Sheryl Armstrong and Mayor Bill McKay all mentioned that they wished to see the city move further along with Phase 1 implementation before taking on Phase 2.
McKay added that he felt some of the line items in the core review final report lacked evidence to show that sufficient information had been considered, and that recommendations were based on “scratching the surface.”
Coun. Diane Brennan was also opposed to moving forward with another phase and said she “wasn’t the least bit impressed” with last year’s core services review final report.
“I think there were several real misses in terms of understanding this community and making recommendations for it,” she said.
Brennan added that she wasn’t convinced that the process had led to cost savings for the city.
Coun. Bill Yoachim argued that the core services review was also about accountability, not only cost savings.
“It’s part of it, yes, I’m not naive, but it’s also about best practices and keeping ourselves in check,” he said.
Coun. Jerry Hong said he supported the motion in order to “get the information there” to the council table.
“It doesn’t matter if we do anything or not – at least it’s there…” he said. “It’s just like all the other plans, master plans and OCPs and everything else. We never do everything that they call for and what they recommend. It’s always up to the discretion of council.”
McKay, Brennan, Thorpe and Armstrong voted against the motion.
editor@nanaimobulletin.com
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