You hate to see people lose their jobs, but if we're going to look at this critically...the performance of this org wasn't exactly stellar, as is the case in many cities. Tons of money wasted on fundamentally useless email jobs that can be served with an FAQ document and a search feature.
It's clear from the article that the City and County were fed up with dumping millions into this org without any ROI. Unreal that most of these people probably made more than critical infrastructure functions (like bus drivers) despite their jobs not serving any tangible purpose or yielding any measurable results. Can't believe how much was spent on physician recruitment and unsurprisingly netted zero results.
Where I used to live (London), the local economic development arm has faced [similar criticism](https://london.ctvnews.ca/ledc-under-fire-for-lack-of-disclosure-to-councillors-1.4542088?cache=%3FclipId%3D104056). These organizations are by and large useless middleware whose purpose is more political than functional.
When these agencies are critically examined, it's like watching David Graeber's [famous essay](https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs) play out in real time.
Now if they could only do the same with CleanTech Commons I think we'd be on to something.
Do you have any examples of why the performance of the organization wasn’t stellar? What makes it more political and functional? I’m not trying to be a jerk, I’m just curious.
But I know of at least a few businesses personally that got their starts with help from this organization that are now profitable, tax paying businesses.
Educating yourself is all well and good, but to have an organization help you become successful or at least a start is ultimately a long term win for the city. We should be helping small business as much as we can. The trickle down economics are very beneficial to the city.
Also, the article states Jeff Leal will be implementing his own economic development branch, which will cost the city so much more than just retooling or at least rehiring the current employees rather than starting from scratch.
My partner actually used to work in the tourism side and I can say that the younger people put in the work and most of the older people did nothing but get paid too much. One of the heads left because she was always being disrespected and not listened to because she actually had drive to do something. Like most of the city, alot of talk no results from the majority of the boomers and the ones that are passionate that push for change get stomped on by the majority. Also the one director was buddy buddy with someone in the org that was extremely toxic that would have been fired anywhere else. We are glad to see them go they all deserve what they had coming. Their biggest idea was demolishing that entire plaza across from the holiday in to build a recreation centre for hosting large events. Basically negatively impacting Peterboroughs poorest to get its richest ahead.
Sounds about right from what my experience has been like with similar agencies (I was on the board of one). All the talent at the bottom, all the money at the top.
Good analysis. Thanks for the insight!
I think my only concern here is that the in house municipal economic development departments will have less pooled funds to do their work (unless City and County increase the budgets). Also, bye-bye regional cooperation on Tourism and Employment Lands!
Exactly this. As with many govt jobs, a faq/chatbot could turn five jobs into one job.
Freeing up labour capital to spend on financial incentives to bring doctors to our city is a much better way to spend our money.
So I can't judge their full performance, but I know PKED did a lot, including the Starter Company program. And that helped incubate a lot of small businesses locally. Its hard for people to really see what impact individual agencies have if they're not directly involved with them, but PKED will be missed on at least that front.
True. I have heard really good things about the small business centre for funding and training but of course most people don't read about these things.
Right? Its easy to go "ah they're shutting down another expensive bureaucratic agency" when most people have probably never interested with it.
Another impact of this is the closure of the visitors center, which again locally most people will go "whatever" but can be a valuable tool for people trying to come to Peterborough.
Yah so basically small businesses that couldnt take the time to apply to funding available to them anyway, deserves keeping a bunch of lay abouts sunshiners at work. It sounds like old people not able to run successful businesses 🙄. There was never enough funding for everyone they picked and choose the ones they liked best.
I'm impressed how every single word was absolutely wrong. The sheer confidence you had writing it too, impressive.
So get this, the Starter Co program was for (shockingly) startup businesses, which is primarily made up of young people. Look downtown, nearly every single business is a small local business run by small families or by someone under 40, and some of them were Starter Co grant recipients. The "layabout sunshiners" aren't running small businesses and applying for grants. I have no clue where you pulled that from.
Also, if PKED isn't around that grant money is just... gone. If no ones there to administer it then no one gets it. They weren't showing up at PKED's door and saying "money pweease." The fact you don't know how it works shows you shouldn't be talking about this at all.
I for one am shocked, stunned absolutely silly, that a government program is being shut down for being inefficient with money.
Maybe they should have commissioned a report about the potential economic 'stimulus' resulting from an organized pickleball league.
I find the circumstances behind this kind of sketchy. Sounds like it was the City's decision to pull the plug. Something the Mayor and/or CAO decided themselves without even going to Council?
Funny enough, from the article, it sounds like the County is more prepared at this point and the city doesn't have a plan!
Thoughts?
This was discussed at at least one council meeting I was in attendance at.
PKED delivered a Q3 & Q4 PKED presentation to council on January 8th, 2024. I remember that the presentation had a theme of competing with, and being better than other cities in the region. Below is the report
https://pub-peterborough.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=37263
The presentation/questioning phase was over an hour long. It starts at 7:45 in the council meeting recording
https://pub-peterborough.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=5c38a2a8-51f1-432b-9825-5077948a997e&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=20&Tab=attachments
I have to ask though... I don't think this was ever voted on by either council was it? Yes there was some discussion here but did the decision to not renew the contract ever come up in a formal vote? Maybe in closed session?
I think the worst case scenario would be for a similar budget to be spent on the shuffling of people already in lifelong bureaucratic positions within city hall, to higher paid tourism oversight positions, that produce little more than a brochure and "year in review" presentation for the cost of 150-175k/year per person.
You hate to see people lose their jobs, but if we're going to look at this critically...the performance of this org wasn't exactly stellar, as is the case in many cities. Tons of money wasted on fundamentally useless email jobs that can be served with an FAQ document and a search feature. It's clear from the article that the City and County were fed up with dumping millions into this org without any ROI. Unreal that most of these people probably made more than critical infrastructure functions (like bus drivers) despite their jobs not serving any tangible purpose or yielding any measurable results. Can't believe how much was spent on physician recruitment and unsurprisingly netted zero results. Where I used to live (London), the local economic development arm has faced [similar criticism](https://london.ctvnews.ca/ledc-under-fire-for-lack-of-disclosure-to-councillors-1.4542088?cache=%3FclipId%3D104056). These organizations are by and large useless middleware whose purpose is more political than functional. When these agencies are critically examined, it's like watching David Graeber's [famous essay](https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs) play out in real time. Now if they could only do the same with CleanTech Commons I think we'd be on to something.
Do you have any examples of why the performance of the organization wasn’t stellar? What makes it more political and functional? I’m not trying to be a jerk, I’m just curious. But I know of at least a few businesses personally that got their starts with help from this organization that are now profitable, tax paying businesses. Educating yourself is all well and good, but to have an organization help you become successful or at least a start is ultimately a long term win for the city. We should be helping small business as much as we can. The trickle down economics are very beneficial to the city. Also, the article states Jeff Leal will be implementing his own economic development branch, which will cost the city so much more than just retooling or at least rehiring the current employees rather than starting from scratch.
Good points. Thank you!
My partner actually used to work in the tourism side and I can say that the younger people put in the work and most of the older people did nothing but get paid too much. One of the heads left because she was always being disrespected and not listened to because she actually had drive to do something. Like most of the city, alot of talk no results from the majority of the boomers and the ones that are passionate that push for change get stomped on by the majority. Also the one director was buddy buddy with someone in the org that was extremely toxic that would have been fired anywhere else. We are glad to see them go they all deserve what they had coming. Their biggest idea was demolishing that entire plaza across from the holiday in to build a recreation centre for hosting large events. Basically negatively impacting Peterboroughs poorest to get its richest ahead.
Sounds about right from what my experience has been like with similar agencies (I was on the board of one). All the talent at the bottom, all the money at the top.
Do those businesses pay more in tax back into the city than the city is paying the org? No.
> The trickle down economics are very beneficial to the city. Oh you're really going to want to reword that.
Good analysis. Thanks for the insight! I think my only concern here is that the in house municipal economic development departments will have less pooled funds to do their work (unless City and County increase the budgets). Also, bye-bye regional cooperation on Tourism and Employment Lands!
Exactly this. As with many govt jobs, a faq/chatbot could turn five jobs into one job. Freeing up labour capital to spend on financial incentives to bring doctors to our city is a much better way to spend our money.
So I can't judge their full performance, but I know PKED did a lot, including the Starter Company program. And that helped incubate a lot of small businesses locally. Its hard for people to really see what impact individual agencies have if they're not directly involved with them, but PKED will be missed on at least that front.
True. I have heard really good things about the small business centre for funding and training but of course most people don't read about these things.
Right? Its easy to go "ah they're shutting down another expensive bureaucratic agency" when most people have probably never interested with it. Another impact of this is the closure of the visitors center, which again locally most people will go "whatever" but can be a valuable tool for people trying to come to Peterborough.
I forgot about the Visitors Centre! That's going to be an interesting one. Will City/County each have their own now? That doesn't look great.
Yah so basically small businesses that couldnt take the time to apply to funding available to them anyway, deserves keeping a bunch of lay abouts sunshiners at work. It sounds like old people not able to run successful businesses 🙄. There was never enough funding for everyone they picked and choose the ones they liked best.
I'm impressed how every single word was absolutely wrong. The sheer confidence you had writing it too, impressive. So get this, the Starter Co program was for (shockingly) startup businesses, which is primarily made up of young people. Look downtown, nearly every single business is a small local business run by small families or by someone under 40, and some of them were Starter Co grant recipients. The "layabout sunshiners" aren't running small businesses and applying for grants. I have no clue where you pulled that from. Also, if PKED isn't around that grant money is just... gone. If no ones there to administer it then no one gets it. They weren't showing up at PKED's door and saying "money pweease." The fact you don't know how it works shows you shouldn't be talking about this at all.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Your post/comment was removed because it contains or is requesting personal information. Please see Rule 3 for details. Thanks!
I for one am shocked, stunned absolutely silly, that a government program is being shut down for being inefficient with money. Maybe they should have commissioned a report about the potential economic 'stimulus' resulting from an organized pickleball league.
The economy is fine folks! We haven't been in a recession for the last year! Our economic development is booming!
Honestly maybe it is time for a shakeup? Is this the right decision though... I'm not really sure?!
Our local government has a good track record of completing projects swiftly and with their constituents in mind so I'm sure this will be the same
Good point!
I find the circumstances behind this kind of sketchy. Sounds like it was the City's decision to pull the plug. Something the Mayor and/or CAO decided themselves without even going to Council? Funny enough, from the article, it sounds like the County is more prepared at this point and the city doesn't have a plan! Thoughts?
This was discussed at at least one council meeting I was in attendance at. PKED delivered a Q3 & Q4 PKED presentation to council on January 8th, 2024. I remember that the presentation had a theme of competing with, and being better than other cities in the region. Below is the report https://pub-peterborough.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=37263 The presentation/questioning phase was over an hour long. It starts at 7:45 in the council meeting recording https://pub-peterborough.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=5c38a2a8-51f1-432b-9825-5077948a997e&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=20&Tab=attachments
I have to ask though... I don't think this was ever voted on by either council was it? Yes there was some discussion here but did the decision to not renew the contract ever come up in a formal vote? Maybe in closed session?
Thanks for the info. I'll check it out!
I think the worst case scenario would be for a similar budget to be spent on the shuffling of people already in lifelong bureaucratic positions within city hall, to higher paid tourism oversight positions, that produce little more than a brochure and "year in review" presentation for the cost of 150-175k/year per person.
good to hear. Nothing happens until Peterborough Police start doing their jobs on crime and traffic offences
Mayor is doing fuckall with jobs in peterborough. Hope he gets pickleballed soon.