One of the few givens in life is change. But the City of Estevan took that to an extreme in 2013 as it went through a raft of changes to both personnel and policies.
Those changes resulted in a very interesting year for Mayor Roy Ludwig who, after a lengthy career on council, moved into the big chair and faced a number of challenges in his first full year on the job.
In an interview with Mercury co-editor Chad Saxon, the mayor looked back at 2013 and touched on some of the major issues facing Estevan in 2014.
Chad Saxon: It was your first full year as mayor, did you find moving into the (role) to be a major change from your time on council?
Roy Ludwig: Council gives you a lot of skill and experience and helps you to make that change. It gives you the skill set to make that change, but it is a lot busier and very demanding. I knew it would be and it has been very enjoyable, and I am ready for the challenge but being mayor of our great city is very demanding and very busy right now. There is so much going on.
CS: Was there anything that caught you by surprise?
RL: I knew it would be busy but I didn't really expect it to be quite this busy. There have been so many changes and more changes to come and so many ongoing issues with more to come.
CS: You mention the changes, because there were so many of them, you didn't really get a chance to ease into the position. That alone must have kept things interesting.
RL: It was daunting with all of the changes we had, for example, the recycling. Unfortunately, we still have some people that are against that but we are starting to make gains in that area. We did have a segment of our population that going in was against it but a lot of those people, once they tried it, they realized the benefit and the fact that we are saving so much on our landfill by recycling. And it is the right thing to do.
Of course, we had the negotiations with CUPE, we were busy with that for awhile and fortunately, they were a good set of negotiations and we reached a successful conclusion. As well, with the police, we had a good set of negotiations with them as well. But there is always something coming to the forefront. Now, we are getting serious about hiring a new city manager, working with developers in town; there is always issues that come up. There are many ongoing issues and challenges that we are dealing with but I think they are good challenges and they are to be expected with a city like ours with so much growth.
CS: One of the big things that took place in the spring was the audit of the City's financials. It seems as though that was a big event in terms of your operations but it seems to have mapped a road forward and brought forward some pretty big changes.
RL: The audit was much needed and it was a catalyst for change, a catalyst for improvement, and now that we have the right council to make the needed, necessary changes, we will be moving forward in a positive fashion. As well, we've got some key people in place with our city treasurer Jeff (Ward); he is young and bright and moving us forward now toward a sound financial footing.
For awhile, perhaps it was our fault, we weren't aware of all the financial implications we were facing and now that all of these have come to the forefront it is something that we will have to deal with and will deal with in a timely fashion.
CS: Was the audit a pretty big eye-opener for council?
RL: It was. It gave us the opportunity to look at things closer than we would normally and it brought to our attention that some of our financial practices could be improved upon. We are working towards doing that.
One of the issues that came out of (the audit) was a whistleblower. If any of our people see something going on that is, perhaps, financially inappropriate, we have a phone number that they can call. It goes to Calgary and MNP has a group of trained individuals at the other end that can separate the wheat from the chaff as far as these concerns, and if they are valid concerns they move them forward to the benefit of everyone.
CS: You touched on working with the new council; you had three new councillors, did you find that brought in a new set of ideas and energy to council?
RL: I do feel that we had a positive change on council. All six of our councillors are from different backgrounds, they bring something different to the table. They all bring something positive, it's not so much picking things apart and negative. (The attitude) has been let's get together, stand side by side and move this city forward with positive change.
The biggest issue that we see as a council before us is debt reduction along with balancing and moving the city forward. Those are our two main challenges - growth and debt reduction, and we are totally focused on that.
CS: How do you balance the two of them because they are basically in contrast of each other?
RL: Some of our areas we are going to have to cut to the bone. I know this will not be easier for our manager but I know they do understand there will be at least one year of doing with less until we can get this financial picture turned around. Then we can start slowly improving the financial picture for all of our managers and allowing them to spend a bit more in needed areas. For this year, it will be cut to the bone and then some.
CS: Did the debt sneak up on council because it seemed at times as though it did kind of sneak up on everybody?
RL: For too long we were looking at land sales as supporting a lot of the infrastructure spending that we were doing. That simply was not a good practice; number one, you can't predict land sales and number two, land sales should be a bonus, not a means and an end to running your budget.
Now that we have turned the corner and realized that land sales will be a bonus and not a huge part of making our ends meet, it will be a lot better for our financial health.
CS: Do you see a clear road to paying the debt down?
RL: Yes. Short term we are going to have to increase our debt limit. That means going going to the municipal review board, which we already have approval to do, and after that, it means going to our banking institution. After that it will be paying down the necessary debt, doing the necessary infrastructure and after that setting monies aside and doing less of what we would normally do and setting those monies aside for debt repayment.
CS: Another big event of 2013 was the dismissal of Jim Puffalt as city manager. At the time (of his dismissal) you said that council felt a change was needed. Do you feel the City is moving in a different direction?
RL: The new council absolutely wanted a new direction. They saw that with Jeff we were getting a new perspective on the financial side and they felt there was a need for a new change and new perspective on the city manager's side as well.
We are in the process of getting a new city manager and we are getting fairly close now and once we get that in place we will have a new perspective in that area as well. Sometimes change is a double-edged sword, you never know what you are going to get when you make those changes but we are optimistic.
CS: In talking to some city employees, there was a sense that under the previous city manager there wasn't an environment in place that didn't foster a teamwork environment. Do you feel that is going to be an important thing for the next city manager, to bring in an atmosphere of teamwork and make sure that everybody is part of the process?
RL: Everybody has their own way of doing things. I think our previous city manager, in some areas, was very capable. When you have an individual in that position under council's direction you have a lot of things to do and they are not always popular.
Having said that, the new city manager we will be looking for a team player that will not only follow council's direction, but will be willing to step up and give us suggestions to help us make positive change.
CS: With all the changes, and there's been a lot of them across the board, do you feel when compared to Dec. 31, 2012 to Dec. 31, 2013 that the city is in a better position?
RL: Yes. Since I first took this job as mayor, my eyes have been opened up to the issues we have, they have been opened up to council and it gives us the opportunity as a team to say OK, these are the big issues moving forward, how do we tackle them? Let's get the right people in place and move forward.
CS: Obviously the debt is going to be a big challenge in 2014 and beyond. What are the other big challenges you'll have to be facing right away?
RL: Infrastructure is always a challenge. With not enough work being done for 30 some years now, we have been handed the gauntlet and the responsibility of keeping up our aging infrastructure. It's an issue right across the province.
CS: The last question I had was how would you rate your first full year as mayor?
RL: Well, it's been very challenging and very interesting. "May you live in interesting times" is an ancient Chinese curse but it has been challenging and interesting. I am fortunate that I had the experience that I have from the 18 years before I took this job. I have to say if I didn't have the experience that I had, taking on this job at this time would have been very daunting.
I'm not saying I would have ran the other way, but it would have been daunting.
