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P3 all over me - part II

VC Powel continues on the trail of Whistler's wastewater treatment plant public-private partnership conundrum.

By VC Powel

Cliff Jennings and his wife Vivien have been in Whistler for 40 years. Their four kids were born here, and two still live in town.

"I started working for the Muni in 1977," Jennings said as we sat in my living room, "and worked my way up through the system. I was works foreman for a while, then moved to utilities, then to the wastewater treatment plant 15 years ago. I took early retirement in 2002 because of stress. My replacement lasted about six months. The foreman left. A lot of staff left. I’d say the problems began about eight or nine years ago."

What kind of problems, I asked.

"Not with the plant," Jennings said. "I mean, it should have been upgraded when Dayton and Knight suggested, but the problems are more in the management area."

How did he feel about the blue ribbon panel suggestion that a P3 approach would realize savings by lowering the staffing number from the current 10 to "two to four," I wondered.

"I don’t know where they got 10 from," he said. "There were seven when I was supervisor, including me, and I think there are supposed to be five now, but there might only be four. There’s a plant in Nevada that’s about twice the size of Whistler’s and they have around 70 staff.

"When we had adequate staff we could monitor things closely and make minor adjustments before they became big problems. We could do preventative maintenance rather than wait until something broke. We ran the testing lab on site and did daily monitoring. Now it’s been contracted out and they might have to wait five or six days to find out if there’s a problem."

I asked him how he felt about the two options council had looked at, the P3 and the traditional approach.

"I don’t have any emotional attachment," Jennings said, "but I know of at least two occasions Dayton and Knight came to us and suggested innovations that saved Whistler millions of dollars, once on tankage, and another time on the solids treatment. They know all our bylaws, our weather and geographical issues, they helped write the Liquid Waste Management Plan, they know the existing plant inside and out because they built it. They’ve worked with the permit and Natural Step. As far as I know they delivered every project on time and on budget. If it’s not broken, why fix it?"

After Jennings left I sat there looking at my notes and realized that every time I talked with someone new, the whole issue just got more complex, and I got more conflicted. It was time to talk with the big boys and bring it on home.

The doors start to close

I assured my editor I was getting close to wrapping things up. I had three interviews left – Partnerships B.C., Brian Barnett (Resort Municipality Of Whistler general manager of public works & engineering), and Donald Lidstone, and then I’d be done. My wife gave me a knowing smirk and motioned towards the dirty dishes in the sink.

I was very impressed with Partnerships B.C.’s response when I called for an interview. Within an hour, their media relations person called me back and said she had set up an interview for the next day at 3 p.m. with either CEO Larry Blain, or Suromitra Sanatani, vice-president, corporate and government relations. This accessibility flew in the face of charges that the organization was secretive and I was looking forward to the interview.

In contrast, I was on day three of trying to set up an interview with Brian Barnett at the RMOW. I had left multiple messages with very friendly staff in the engineering department and I had played phone tag with Diana Waltmann, Information Officer for the RMOW, but so far, I was no closer to an interview.

I had also run into a brick wall trying to talk with Donald Lidstone.

Lidstone, municipal solicitor and chair of the blue ribbon panel, is often consulted on international trade agreements, and he advised the RMOW that two of those agreements, NAFTA and GATS (the General Agreement on Trade and Services) do not apply to Whistler’s P3 treatment plans.

And what the heck do international trade agreements have to do with Whistler’s sewage treatment?

Well, some believe that under those agreements a corporation operating the plant in the P3 model could sue for damages if Whistler ever tried to take back operation of the plant or if it tried to prevent the corporation from expanding into other areas of municipal operations.

Interestingly, Mr. Lidstone’s legal advice to the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) in 2002 suggested such trade agreements might apply and his opinion was one of the factors in the GVRD’s decision not to go the P3 route for their water treatment system.

I hoped to talk with Mr. Lidstone about this issue and also learn a little about his personal connection to Whistler, so I phoned his office three times and left detailed messages. The second time a receptionist asked me, "Can I tell him who’s calling?"

After I told her who I was, she disappeared for about 30 seconds then came back with, "He’s not in the office today. Would you like his voice mail?" I was skeptical of her claim but too chicken to make an issue of it, and ended up leaving another rambling message.

I never did hear from Mr. Lidstone, (I was informed later that municipal lawyers won’t talk to the media), so instead spent many hours on the phone and Internet seeking other opinions. And what’s my conclusion? These trade agreements are designed to drive people crazy.

And when it comes to GATS, I don’t care how many legal opinions you get, nor what "side" they’re on – none of them are worth the gold bars you sent to the lawyer. Why? GATS is still being negotiated. No one knows what’s going to be in the final text.

For example, the European Union wants water services to be included. Others don’t. Will they be? No one knows. In fact, it may end up that GATS applies whether Whistler’s plant goes P3 or not.

And if an international corporation ever files a complaint against Whistler under GATS, Whistler doesn’t get to argue its case anyways. It becomes a dispute that Ottawa has to handle before a World Trade Organization tribunal. So, good luck.

(A leaked document shows the EU is even pushing to have zoning bylaws and retail hours of operations covered in GATS. Theoretically, that would enable Wal-Mart to file a complaint against the municipality for a bylaw that prevented them from opening a 24-hour store on Lot 1/9.)

And as for the clarity of whether NAFTA applies or not, all I should have to say to anyone in B.C. is "softwood lumber."

Partners in time

Meanwhile, back at the sink doing the dirty dishes, it was Friday afternoon and I was an hour away from my phone interview with Partnerships B.C. I had still not arranged anything with Brian Barnett or Diana Waltmann, and in frustration, had left a message suggesting it was rather ironic that I had been able to set up an appointment so quickly with Partnerships B.C., but was being stymied on the RMOW front, a five-minute walk away.

Then the phone rang. It was the executive assistant for Suromitra Sanatani from Partnerships B.C. "I’m very sorry but Ms. Sanatani has been called to a meeting with the minister and won’t be able to talk with you today. She very much wants to do the interview, however, so can we reschedule it for next week?"

I joked about being appalled that "the minister" would take priority over me and we laughed our way through a selection of dates and times during the next week when Ms. Sanatani would be available. We settled on 10:30 Monday morning and I went back to the dishes.

About 45 minutes later, the phone rang again. It was Partnerships B.C. once more, but this time the media relations rep I had talked with originally. "I’m very sorry," she said, "but there’s been a total schedule screw-up and it doesn’t look like anyone is going to be able to talk with you before your deadline."

I assumed she didn’t realize I had already received a call from Ms. Sanatani’s assistant so I explained that it was fine, we had already rescheduled for Monday.

She said she realized that, but unfortunately, it now looked like no one from Partnerships B.C. was going to be able to talk with me. In fact, they thought it was really a local issue, and would be best if I went through Whistler’s Information Officer. Would I like her name?

"Diana Waltmann?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "Do you know her?"

We bantered back and forth for a while, me suggesting that Partnerships B.C. was playing a pivotal role in this project and should talk with me, she insisting it was a local issue and that they just couldn’t say when, or indeed if , someone from Partnerships B.C. would be available to talk with me.

I tried an end-around, offering to relieve her of the burden of being involved by making my interview arrangements with Ms. Sanatani’s assistant directly (who less than an hour earlier obviously had Ms. Sanatani’s schedule right in front of her).

But the media rep was much sharper than that. My offer, she regretted, was not acceptable. She would, however, be more than willing to e-mail me a fact sheet and some links to information I had requested. An interview, unfortunately, was uncertain at best.

I asked her to allow me to turn on my tape recorder and review our discussion, but she declined. I sunk my teeth in like a ferret with its feet in the air and eventually she agreed to phone me Monday morning about the possibility of an interview the following Thursday, but she didn’t sound hopeful. Her e-mail arrived later that day with the information and links she had mentioned, and with a polite thank you for my patience.

I found out afterwards that someone from Partnerships B.C. had made a couple phone calls to Whistler earlier in the day to inquire about me. I have no idea, of course, if those phone calls had any impact on my sudden lack of popularity at the head office.

It was still Friday afternoon, and now day four of trying to arrange a meeting with RMOW staff. I had finally been told by someone in the engineering department that Brian Barnett wanted me to go through Diana Waltmann. I had also been trying to get information from the RMOW Legislative Services department, and was initially told by an assistant that they would try to track down the information for me because the person in charge, Shannon Story, was away for a week. The assistant called me later, however, and explained she had made a mistake – I would actually have to contact Ms. Waltmann for the information I wanted.

At 5:30 Friday evening Ms. Waltmann left a message on my machine suggesting one day next week might work and to call her on Monday.

It had been a frustrating week. I had planned to finish the article on the weekend and leave Monday on a trip, but suddenly, no one was cooperating. I hadn’t heard back from the people on the blue ribbon panel I tried to reach, Donald Lidstone hadn’t returned my calls, Partnerships B.C. had cancelled their interview, and I had made no headway in arranging an interview with RMOW staff.

I found it ironic that proponents who insisted the process would be open and transparent, now seemed to be circling the wagons.

A couple of colleagues suggested I end my research and "just write the damn thing."

I agonized over that option for a while, consulted a few more people, and decided I would give it one last shot on Monday.

Monday at the muni

First thing Monday morning, Ms. Waltmann left a message for me.

"I understand you feel you’ve been getting a bit of a run around and I want to assure you that’s not our intention. It looks like Brian and I can meet with you at three o’clock this afternoon. If you call me back I hope we can set up an interview."

I called back, left a message and got a return call in about 10 minutes.

About four hours later I walked into Municipal Hall and almost bumped into Ms. Waltmann coming the other way. "Well, that’s two of us," she said, "let me find Brian." About 10 minutes later she tracked him down and we pulled up chairs around a table.

Would Whistler be able to get more grant money, I asked, considering that the costs had increased so substantially?

"No," he said, "that program is no longer available."

I asked who had selected the blue ribbon panel.

"I guess the way to answer that is that it was the senior staff that made the decision and we would have had a lot of discussions with various proponents, various groups or people to make our selection."

Why had staff recommended a 20-year term, I wondered, when the blue ribbon panel had suggested a 10-year contract?

"I think the blue ribbon panel report suggested at least 10 years", he said. "Not 10 years, but I think at least ."

"Didn’t the proponents suggest a 20-year contract? The proponents suggested a 20-year contract," said Waltmann.

(I checked the panel report later. The executive summary states "… the Panel recommends a design build program combined with a ten year operating agreement …", with a renewal option.)

Barnett then explained that the latest staff recommendation was for a 12-year term, and was an attempt to balance technical flexibility with financial benefit.

I asked about the merits of the Partnerships B.C. shadow bid used by the blue ribbon panel to draw its conclusion that a P3 was the preferred option and he agreed that it was just illustrative in nature and would need to be done in much more detail.

Which is one of the aspects that confused me, I admitted. Even the blue ribbon panel said the shadow bid didn’t provide "a suitable basis upon which to evaluate the merits," yet the blue ribbon panel’s recommendation was based on this very same, apparently lacking, shadow bid.

Barnett said: "I agree with the conclusion there that we’ve got to do more due diligence in terms of the shadow bid," and we then ventured into the murky realm of whether this would be an added expense over the traditional approach.

Another thing I was curious about was Nancy Wilhelm-Morden’s description in council of the apparent role of a provincial ministry in staff’s decision to change direction two years ago. Could he tell me which ministry it was?

"Ministry of Finance… wouldn’t it have been…?" said Waltmann.

"I’m not sure what Nancy was really referring to with that statement. It could have been with Partnerships B.C. to look at it," said Barnett. He said they had changed direction after examining Partnership B.C.’s business case and deciding it was worthy of further study.

I think it was at this point that my brain finally overdosed and turned into the kind of sludge we may be trucking to Squamish in a few years.

I started out asking a question about projected savings and before long accelerated into a rant about a 2004 study commissioned by the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants in the UK that detailed hidden costs, unexpected monitoring expenses, unrealized risk transfer, and distorted value for money claims in P3s.

Barnett looked at me and justifiably said: "I’m not sure if you’re interviewing me for an article or if you’re debating the project."

He was right. It was time to pack it in. In that moment I realized I had found what I’d set out to discover – an informed opinion – and could shut down the research and get back to my life.

I asked a few more questions and took a few more notes, but I think all three of us knew there was nothing else of value to be found in this room. We shook hands and parted with smiles, and as I walked home I looked up at the mountains – fields of white, a background of vibrant greens, and a deep blue sky hanging over it all. Beautiful.

It’s a wrap

It can be a tricky thing, taking sides, especially in a small Canadian town. The people on "the other side" may very well be our friends, neighbours and business partners, and we’re wary of damaging those relationships.

Some expect us to pack the hall for every event, on every issue. And if we don’t, they accuse us of being apathetic. We’re not apathetic – we’re busy! Still, I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere where so many residents care so much about their town and demonstrate it through their actions.

I was burning myself out at one point in my career – too many board meetings, too much volunteering – and a mentor said, "If you don’t put a value on your time, guaranteed, no one else will." He taught me how to say "No" to others and feel all right about it.

Whistler might have to learn the same thing. If we don’t put a value on what we’ve built here, no one else will. And if we don’t take control of what we have, guaranteed, someone else will.

We might even have to learn to say "No" to others now and then. And feel all right about it.

Is this that time? I don’t know. We’ll see.

As for me, I’m off to the cabin tomorrow. And I still have to figure out what to do about the outhouse.



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