Candidate Rossi is starting to stir the pot on how to operate or manage a big city_ especially, a big city where the quality of city services has been declining while costs increase and worker unions create monopoly situations in terms of service delivery.
This is a necessary discussion during the 2010 election campaign and must be continued down to the wards by candidates for councillor office. It also makes good politics that is best handled under the mantle of a municipal political party.
Today, we see Rossi and Smitherman going at each other and vying to see who says it best. The Star editorial today Outsourcing worth a look provides a good introductory for city voters. Columnist James looks at the Candidates in a race to the right. The Star also provides a good backup story on Private transit less rare than you'd think.
The current cabal of city politicians supporting a status quo in service delivery must start to acknowledge the cost & quality disadvantages of monopoly delivery and look deeply at the market concept of private-public competitive bidding delivery. This is not necessarily a march to the right but a march to do it right. We see too much evidence of service delivery not being done well with the right social payoffs.
As a social democratic this writer feels that city and any governance must keep the eye on serving the citizenry well and not just keeping the public service better off than the citizenry they should be serving. Subsidize when necessary. Make money where it doesn't hurt. This is not a left of centre vs right of centre thing_ it is just being pragmatic and wise.
The bottom line is that we must start to seek cost containment on city service delivery and it starts with staffing and technology: labour is the biggest cost element. Technology added to the mix can provide the increases in work productivity leading to cost containment.
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