Mark Horseman

Saskatoon’s landfill has the potential to hold a high amount of valuable materials that have been buried there over the course of its lifespan.  Things like older washing machines, car batteries, tires, old motors, oils, and old copper wiring.  Much of this material carries significant value.  One way to get at this material would be to look at our landfill as a mining opportunity.

As part of a project like this, we could extract value from our landfill, segregate hazardous material, separate the organic reusable material, and treat any leach liquids.  Currently there are mining operations worldwide that recover material with a gross value of $30 per tonne.  From this value, handling and extraction costs are paid and the remainder would be a profit.  Thus, if the City of Saskatoon undertook such a project, our landfill space could have its lifetime extended, have a much lower impact on the surrounding environment, and provide many skilled jobs over the course of this work.  In-fact, we have many local experts right here in Saskatchewan.

As a first step towards this type of project, you need to elect me, Mark Horseman, to be on City Council.  As a Councillor, I pledge to be a person to bring big ideas to the table, that will streamline our Civic Government and focus on improving services and keeping taxes respectably low.  As a second step, we’d need to work with our community and examine other cases where landfills have been mined, the historical use of Saskatoon’s landfill, and work on Metallurgical recovery studies on municipal waste.  Luckily, we also have one of Canada’s top Universities right here in Saskatoon with its world class School of Business and College of Engineering.

This project would be a great way to extend the life of our landfill, reduce its environmental impact, create highly skilled jobs, and all while making a profit.  I hope the Citizens of Ward 10 give me an opportunity to sit on Council and bring Clear, Bold, Conservative ideas like this to life.

Saskatoon faces a number of issues as a quickly growing community.  One area that has been a monetary success for the City in past years, since it’s creation in the 1950’s, is the Saskatoon Land Bank.  The Land Bank is an operation carried out by the City Administration where land is purchased by the City and new areas are planned.  The city makes a massive profit operating the Land Bank.  The downside to the massive profits the City makes operating the Land Bank are starting to be realized.   The major downside is that Land Bank profits have the unintended consequence of placing a large burden on Private Sector developers wishing to assist with Saskatoon’s affordable housing issues.  It’s difficult to get private sector co-operation in supplying affordable housing units when prime area’s for such developments are sold to developers at a premium.

There are a lot of resources and reading materials out there for how other municipalities have operated similar structures, they all have their up-sides and downsides.

I feel that it’s time Saskatoon had an Independent, 3rd-party review of how our Land Bank operates.  While the City has been well served by the existence of the Land Bank from the 1950’s through to the 1990’s, I think it would be prudent to review Land Bank operations and see if there’s room to build a system that’s more in the spirit of co-operation with our friends in the private sector.

Should the electorate in Ward 10 honour me with the opportunity to sit on City Council on October 24th 2012, I will work hard to start a review of the operations of Saskatoon’s Land Bank with the aim of improving our investment climate and affordable housing issues.

It’s entirely possible to get a North Bridge Constructed and Operational by 2016.  I pledge, should I be elected Councillor of Ward 10 this fall, that I will do everything I can to make this goal a reality.

Getting the North Bridge online by 2016 will require a public-private-partnership (P3) arrangement.

I will endeavor to work hard with the community, especially Ward 10, to get approval for this project, then work hard to find private sector interest in making this deal work.

It makes a lot of sense to have another bridge link the growing Evergreen, Willowgrove and Silversprings neighbourhoods to the growing industrial and commercial zones between 51st and 71st streets.  This project needs to happen as soon as it can possibly happen to allow for efficient traffic flow to and from work, and to alleviate traffic issues on the much maligned Central and Attridge intersection.   For those of you who may not drive Central and Attridge, the first snow of the year, or other challenging weather issues, typically mean a one hour delay in a drivers morning commute.

Why do we need a P3 to get this bridge up and running?  Well, the “old way” of running this City lead to a multi-decade turn-around time on the new Circle Drive bridge.  I can’t, in good conscious, say that the “old way” of getting a new bridge operational is good for the City.  If we don’t have a bridge up soon, the traffic issues around getting to work from Ward 10 will be staggering.  A bold, clear, fiscally conservative plan is required, and that’s what I am bringing to the table.

On October 24th, elect me, Mark Horseman, as Councillor of Ward 10 and we can work together to make this goal a reality.

Drive-thru’s are a fantastic business model that work well for a wide variety of food service outlets and franchises.  As a Councillor, I would not endorse a ban on a widely successful, and economically positive mode of business.

Councillor Dubois does not agree.  (skip to 2:59:00 of this video http://download.isiglobal.ca/saskatoon/archive_2012-03-12.flv.html)

Although, Vic Dubois of local radio fame had said this, “Somehow this got twisted up a bit in the reporting in some media and some people may have been under the impression an elected official is advocating the elimination of drive-throughs. This Councillor in question knows that would be a pipe dream of course, and not worth wasting time discussing.” http://www.saskatoonhomepage.ca/drive-through-challenges/itemid_61

One of these things is not like the other.

That said, I think it’s important to look at Drive-Thru’s on a case-by-case basis.  When a new location is being proposed, City should have an opportunity to look at the capacity of the planned Drive-Thru, and the business owners plan for the traffic volume at peak times for the new location and assist them in planning accordingly.

Existing locations, we need to examine possibilities of routing traffic in a way that supports their location.

We need to work with businesses and not against them.

Thanks everyone for your interest in the upcoming Campaign.  I’ve had a flurry of questions come my way and I’m working hard to make sure you all get a personalized email response or a response in the comments section on the site here.

If you’d like to email me a question, feel free to write me at contact@markhorseman.ca

I, Mark Horseman, am officially announcing my intention to run for the position of Councillor representing Ward 10 in the upcoming October 2012 civic election.

Ward 10 needs a Councillor who will stand for clear, fiscally conservative policies in Saskatoon.  As Councillor I will stand with our allies in the Business community and ensure that Saskatoon is open for business.  I will strive to lessen the impact of Government on our daily lives and make sure that Council doesn’t interfere with working business models or compete with the private sector.

Our Council needs a representative that isn’t afraid to propose cost cutting measures to reign in our spending and reduce the size of Government, ideas like:

• Selling our interest in the Municipal run golf courses.  Golf should be run by the private sector.
• Changing the nature of Saskatoon Light & Power so the Civic Government doesn’t get in the business of defining the energy mix of the province, and ending the taxation shell games.  Only one level of Government should be in the power generation business.
• Letting services that should be optimized for profit be investment opportunities for the private sector before becoming competition for private business.
• Regain control of the core competencies of our civic government and focus on what matters, roads, policing, and public safety.

Our City needs a Councillor that has the courage to stand up for small government and fiscally conservative policies.  I am that candidate, and I ask for your support this October.

The whole “City Administration vs North Ridge Development” affair gives me a chill down my spine.  I’m left asking myself a simple question, why is it Wally Mah’s sole responsibility to tackle City Administration?  Where is the array of Councillors to help North Ridge Development navigate the Civic obstacle course?

If I was a Councillor, I would immediately reach out to Wally Mah and do whatever I could to make sure that his proposal was understood by the Administration.  I would also make sure that North Ridge Development knew that they had an ally on Council that was prepared to stand up and fight for a business opportunity that would be a fantastic economic driver for the city.

The “Windmill” decision is going to be discussed at Council tonight.  With this, I find it to be a great opportunity to share my thoughts on the separation of powers between different levels of Government.  As I discussed in my previous entry on Golf Courses, Governments should operate businesses that are optimized for accessibility.   Power generation and distribution is one such service.  Everyone needs power, to some degree, and everyone should be able to pay for and get power.  Therefore, the most efficient way to meet the accessibility need of power is to have one level of Government run it.

In Saskatoon, we have Saskatoon Light & Power.  They are an outfit run by the Civic Government that buys power from the Provincial crown and redistributes that power to people living in certain areas of the city.  Luckily enough, I live in a location that doesn’t require that I purchase my power from the Civic Government, although I still live in Saskatoon.  Already, as you can see, the downside of Government running things quickly creeps in.  The list of caveats that are appended to these agreements, some of them very old, are an expensive maintenance, that falls squarely on the taxpayer.

Recently, Saskatoon Light & Power has seen it necessary to get into the Power Generation business.  First they were part of an effort to lobby for a Civic run Hydro dam on the river, now they want a Windmill at the landfill (so the trash can, literally, hit the fan).   This is politically popular for many, as it promotes Green Energy, provides a revenue center, and creates jobs.  Who loses?  The taxpayer loses.  The taxpayer loses because we have two levels of Government providing power.  They’re working in isolation to define the energy mix of the province and city.  We have two sets of staff working to solve the same problem for the same area (electricity supply to Montgomery).  This is highly inefficient.

What needs to happen, moving forward, is the operations of Saskatoon Light & Power need to be handled by the Province.  One level of Government is all it takes to be involved in Power Supply and Distribution.  The Civic Government shouldn’t be pining for Power Generation as a revenue center, as the taxpayer ends up paying considerably more overhead for two sets of Government to clash on a solution.  It is in the best interest of the City, and it’s taxpayers, to have the Province in the Power Generation and Distribution business.  It would be more efficient for us all.

Many people in Saskatoon, and Saskatchewan as a whole, enjoy their rounds of golf in the spring, summer, and early fall.  I also enjoy the occasional round of golf.  The municipal courses in Saskatoon are fantastic and I also enjoy the multitude of courses in the entire province.  It’s quite nice to pay $20 to play the back 9 at a course, and at many courses this is a possibility, not just the municipal courses.

There are two ways that a service, like golfing, can be offered to the public.  A service can be optimized for accessibility, or it can be optimized for profit.  A service should be optimized for accessibility if it is a requirement, things like drinking water, safe roads, reliable electricity, and telecommunications (phone, and arguably, internet).  Otherwise, services should be optimized for profit, things like restaurants, mining companies, financial planners, and golf courses.  Governments are uniquely equipped to do very well at optimizing a service for accessibility (by spending tax dollars to offer the service).  The private sector is well suited to optimizing a service for profit (and thus creating jobs and paying taxes to all three levels of government).

Saskatoon’s fantastic municipal golf courses are operated such that they are revenue neutral.  The concept of the municipal government golf course is an idea from the 1920’s, when it was very expensive to run and maintain a golf course.  The only way for a golf course to exist that the majority of the public could play on is if government operated it.  This is still true for a number of similar services, like pools and the Forestry Farm (and to the latter, my kids are proud to donate to yearly).  Golf courses are demonstrably no longer in this category.  I can pay $22 to golf the back-9 at a private course, or I can pay $17 to golf the back-9 at Silverwood.  There’s no reason for any level of Government to operate a golf course for accessibility.  The golf courses would still exist and still be affordable if operated privately.  If privately run, it would be an opportunity for the Civic government to actually have a revenue stream from them, in the form of taxation.

Governments are not well suited to run services “for profit” or design effective revenue centers in the traditional business fashion.  Governments are not businesses, they shouldn’t pretend to be, and they can’t be effectively run as a business.  I’ve heard many people, some Councillors included, turn the phrase, “The Civic Government should be run as a business”.  I suppose when you’re a hammer, every problem is a nail.  Here’s an interesting and relevant case study as to why this is wrong.  Lets say government operates a golf course.  The golf course wishes to implement a new policy around the attire of its customers.  The golf course itself does not have the authority to make any change, any policy change must happen at the government level.  What then follows is a public debate on acceptable attire for golfers at the government owned golf course.  If the course was privately owned, the owner could wake up one morning and hang a sign saying, “No Shirt, no Shoes, no Service”.  Instead, we have Councillors and administrators drawing their hefty salary to debate what type of clothes people wear and what’s acceptable.  That’s not a free debate to have, it costs taxpayers the salaries of all the politicians and administration involved.

It’s time for the City of Saskatoon got out of the Golfing business.  This, of course, isn’t an easy overnight change.  In my belief the Government would need to be responsible in the sale of the golf courses to a private interest and have assurances that they would continue to operate as golf courses.   Civic officials need to extend that offer and see if there are any takers.   After which, we’d be one step closer to a more efficient, transparent, and effective Civic Government.

As I read the Star Phoenix’s fantastic coverage of the Civic “Preliminary” budget, I’m left with a gut feeling.

Citizens should expect more from their Council.  Saskatoon is growing, and growth places demands on infrastructure and services which are reflected in this budget.  That growth also carries with it downtown revitalization and other amenities.

What this budget fails to do is offer people a clear plan on tackling our growing debt servicing as a result of our Capital budget, provide direction on how the city will keep tax increases to a minimum over the next four years, or offer any strategic insights on how revenue could be increased.

One item I’d like to bring to the table is selling the civic stake in Saskatoon Light & Power to the Province.  There’s no need for us to be in the business of power distribution or defining the energy mix of the city.  This could be done cheaper for all tax payers if it was managed by a single level of government.  What happened to running a smaller, leaner, more efficient Civic Government?  We can work with the Province to make it happen.