The City of Calgary has taken the decision to contract out the work of the Parks department. I have many problems but here is the letter I wrote to the Calgary Herald outlining some but not all of my concerns, “Jack Mintz and Derek Fildebrandt are making the claim that Municipalities can save money by privatizing more services. They offer no evidence to substantiate that claim. During last year’s flood city workers were able to clear garbage in affected neighborhoods quickly. The City paid the workers overtime but there were no extraordinary costs. During September’s snow storm the City of Calgary was able to redeploy park workers and road crews from their regular duties to cleaning up the debris. Had the City outsourced its garbage collection what premium would we pay private contractors for the clean up?
If the City outsourced all of the parks maintenance how much more would we pay? The City could not have been as nimble, because when we sign a contract it is for specified duties and the City would then have to pay a premium for extra ordinary events. I have made numerous freedom of information requests on if the City of Calgary has saved money by outsourcing maintenance of parks and to date I have not received any document that confirms that claim. If they are saving money it’s certainly a well kept secret.”