Amalgamation

[jeffster]

Strictly speaking from a government management point of view, Waterloo has a very poor reputation with the way it manages.

There are two entities currently named Waterloo, right? The City of Waterloo and the Regional Municipality of Waterloo.

Your concerns here, which are very well articulated, seem like they are based on the assumption that, post-amalgamation the governing entity will be formed from the City of Waterloo. Is that understanding correct? If so, would they still exist if the governing entity is the Regional Municipality of Waterloo which would then have to build out roles, staffing etc and in theory might be able to do so from all the cities and townships?

I am pretty ignorant of the mechanics of amalgamation so this may be a particularly stupid question.

Yes, I understand that there are two entities although they're entirely different. I don't know enough of the regional government as I have had little exposure to it.

I don't believe that the governing entity would be formed from the City of Waterloo, nor the region for that matter, but certainly when it comes to staffing, you would get some merging from all 8 (the region, the 3 cities, and the 4 townships). The City of Waterloo part is the issue. Even if it was agreed that we'd follow the same ideals of Cambridge, Kitchener and the 4 townships, which are more similar to each other than Waterloo, it doesn't stop some of profound sh*t show from migrating over from Waterloo, as that's just the way they roll.

Perhaps it's an HR issue with Waterloo, I don't know. We know that in general politicians are fairly lazy when it comes to their work, and heavily rely on city staff to inform them in order for them to make informed decisions, it seems that in Waterloo staff is fairly lazy too (again, refer to RIM).

Again, though, I have no exposure from the regional portion, as staffing seems to be consistent, and same applies to Cambridge and the townships. But I do have a lot of exposer from people that once worked for Waterloo and had nothing positive to say about it. A few of them have worked with other cities (after leaving Waterloo), but ended up in Kitchener simply because of work location and/or promotability. One of the men had worked for Waterloo and left to work for Woolwich Township, and even then said the difference was like night a day, aside from lack of ability for advancement.

When you amalgamate, you certainly will get some of that staffing from each city and township, and sometimes attitudes start to permeate the rest of city hall. Would regional staff, for example, understand the importance of arena's, pools, parks, local utilities, etc? Yet they might be thrust into a position like that. You would also get changes in staffing in such areas that come from Waterloo, which I can guarantee none of the cities or townships would want to be any part of, along with the poor management style. And likely, they're not going to choose Cambridge, Kitchener and Township managers over Waterloo, it'll more likely be even.