The following article was originally published by the Chronicle Herald on November 5, 2008.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Letters/9009241.html
By Don Mills

Twelve years into amalgamation in the Halifax Regional Munici­pality, are we better or worse off ? More important, what will really change under the new council?

Let’s review some achieve­ments of the HRM since amalga­mation of the former Town of Bedford, City of Halifax, City of Dartmouth and County of Hali­fax. Since 1996, we have wit­nessed:

•  the largest increase in property taxes in the history of each of the four previous municipal units;
•  uncontrolled urban sprawl that has contributed to significant growth in municipal expendi­tures to pay for infrastructure in outlying areas, essentially subsi­dizing such development;
• a decrease in the population of those living on the peninsula and an increase in the number of res­idents travelling into the urban core, creating greater traffic con­gestion;
• stalled commercial develop­ment in the downtown core, re­sulting in the loss of tens of mil­lions of dollars in tax revenue;
• the loss of identity associated with belonging to a regional mu­nicipality with an acronym as its name;
• a citizens’ revolt in the old Town of Bedford as a result of a deficiency in infrastructure spending in that community;
• a council largely divided along rural and urban lines that is sim­ply too big and cumbersome to be able to make decisions, and that spends a disproportionate amount of time on the wrong is­sues;
• a mayor with little or no sense of vision for the future, except perhaps a fast ferry to Bedford and a clean harbour;
• procrastination on almost ev­ery issue, tax reform and crime to name but two, and slow deci­sion- making otherwise (five years to develop an economic plan for the municipality and nearing three years to get HRM by Design approval, scheduled now for some time in 2009); and
• a piecemeal strategy regarding public transportation.
  

As someone who supported the amalgamation of the urban mu­nicipalities while chair of the board of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, I believe the provin­cial Liberal government at the time made a late, politically ex­pedient decision to include the County of Halifax in the amalga­mation to address its significant fiscal problems at the time. It cer­tainly wasn’t done for good gov­ernance reasons. HRM covers a geographic area the size of Prince Edward Island, with more than 100 mostly small communities. It is clear from the performance of council that the ability to appropriately address the very different needs and con­cerns of urban and rural resi­dents has been largely compro­mised for both these constituen­cies. Clearly, issues such as traf­fic congestion, public transit, crime and downtown develop­ment are more important to ur­ban residents than rural resi­dents; while essential services such as garbage collection, fire protection and roads are more important to rural residents than their urban counterparts.

Our research at Corporate Re­search Associates has consis­tently demonstrated the desire by the majority of residents to separate HRM into two munici­pal units, a county for rural resi­dents and a city for urban resi­dents. This would have the bene­fit of reducing the size of council for each unit to a more appropri­ate size (perhaps 12 to 15 councillors each) to address the needs of these very different constituen­cies.

Indeed, residents support such a division by a two-to-one margin (61 per cent support versus 30 per cent oppose), with those living in the rural areas of HRM the most in favour of such a split (66 per cent). By the way, the question asked was as follows: Do you sup­port or oppose dividing HRM in­to two municipal units, one for rural residents called the County of Halifax and one for urban resi­dents called the City of Halifax?

Furthermore, the majority of residents across HRM believe the new City of Halifax should in­clude the former Town of Bed­ford, City of Dartmouth and City of Halifax.

The mayor has publicly stated the costs of such a division would be $42 million. I challenge the mayor to back up that statement with facts, because, while there would clearly be some costs in­curred, both municipal units would be able to continue to use the current municipal services on a cost-shared basis without necessarily adding to the cost of service delivery. The real ques­tion to be asked is: What is the continuing cost to our communi­ty of the current dysfunctional governance structure? The loss of tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue from stalled com­mercial development alone would significantly alleviate the rising costs to residential prop­erty owners.

Residents did not get a voice in the amalgamation process; I challenge the provincial govern­ment to let residents decide on their preferred governance structure through a plebiscite.

Keep the dialogue going by sending your comments to the editor - herald.ca

Don Mills is president & CEO, Corpo­rate Research Associates Inc.