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Some regret covering city wages

Along with my editorial this week, I thought I’d share with you some background on my reporting on the substantial wage hikes received by the city manager and the senior administration team at the City of Prince George in recent years.
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Along with my editorial this week, I thought I’d share with you some background on my reporting on the substantial wage hikes received by the city manager and the senior administration team at the City of Prince George in recent years.

First, a disclosure. 

A reader challenged me back in the spring to publicly reveal that I had unsuccessfully applied for a position at the city. 

That is true but it's dated information. 

Under Derek Bates and Beth James, the two previous city managers before Kathleen Soltis  (and their respective mayors Dan Rogers and Shari Green), I applied once each for a communications position at the city.

After Beth James became city manager in May 2013, she called me and asked for a meeting. At that meeting, she surprised me by asking me what I thought the city needed in terms of communications and if I’d be interested in joining the city under her leadership to do some of that work. When the posting appeared that summer, I applied and was interviewed for the position. Both Colleen Sparrow, my publisher, as well as the city hall reporter at the time, Charelle Evelyn, were aware of my application to make sure I wasn’t in conflict of interest and I wrote no editorials during that time – positive or negative – about the city.

Incidentally, Todd Corrigall, who is now the CEO at the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, filled that city communications position until he was let go when James was removed as city manager shortly after Lyn Hall became mayor in 2015.

As I informed the reader who brought this issue forward, my pointed criticism of the wages hikes and overtime received by the city manager and senior administration came five years after I was considered for a position at the city. If all this has been sour grapes on my part, it sure was a long time coming and I was taking it out on a different city manager and a different mayor and council.

I have no regrets of not informing readers of that sooner because I never felt it was an issue and neither did my manager when I first started writing about the wages and overtime issue in the summer of 2018.

I also have no regrets with raising these issues. Unlike provincial and federal governments, Prince George and most municipal governments have no official opposition to hold mayor and council accountable. And as Kris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation pointed out in her guest editorial last week, the provincial government isn’t using its powers under the Municipal Act to hold local governments responsible, either.

That leaves local news outlets, which have been decimated by Google and Facebook.

History clearly shows that when accountability of elected officials and senior bureaucrats diminishes, corruption rises.

My actual regret is that I didn't push harder. 

I let up for a variety of reasons. I was distracted by other issues arising in the community. I was distracted by the challenges in our industry and at the Citizen. I was distracted by some personal and family issues.

I didn't file more Freedom of Information requests. I stopped asking questions. I didn't stay with the story.

That's no excuse. 

We all face different professional and personal challenges but that shouldn't get in the way of doing important work. 

I can't help but wonder if I had stuck with this story more consistently and aggressively if things might have been different.

Would mayor and council have held Soltis more accountable?

Would the wages and overtime have been more of an election issue in the fall of 2018?

Would Hall have faced a more formidable candidate for mayor when he ran for re-election in 2018 than Willy Ens and would more candidates have challenged the six incumbent councillors that ran for re-election?

Would Hall and the current city council have already reviewed and changed or removed the overtime policy for senior staff, something they promised at public forums in 2018 they would do once re-elected but still haven’t done nearly two years later?

We’ll never know the answer to any of those questions but I know in my heart I could have - and should have - done more.

You may have found all of the above interesting background or you may have found it all self-important naval gazing. I agree with both assessments.

My editorial has the numbers, what I think it all means and what I believe should be done about it.

As always, what you do with that is entirely up to you.

But now you know.