The 100 mile Thanksgiving project!

The picture to the right is from the link below. I am not a rampant tree hugger but I do subscribe to this email newsletter.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/happy_160944_ki.php

We need government to go on a 100 mile diet too! Or even more local! We need as consumers to have conversations with our local merchants on what they need to stock on their shelves that we drive out town to purchase. We need as investors to put our investments in local firms, where we can watch it. We need to instill a culture in our administrators that there are talented folks and efficient manufacturers locally that can do as good of a job or better in meeting the budget demands of their departments. We need our local utility ERTH to return value for our investment by servicing accounts efficiently and stop eyeing the goal of being a global leader. It ain't working from my soap box.

I did a stint at a local manufacturer most folks don't even know exists in Oxford County. HINO trucks. They are one of the best selling trucks in Europe and making inroads in the USA market.  They make a range of medium duty truck platforms that serve as Fire Trucks, garbage packers, utility and delivery vehicles. I do not believe they have sold even one to an Oxford County municipality even though they are built right beside the 401 in Woodstock. I'm sure that we could get a deal buying direct from the factory.

We have a local waste management company, a local box company that has it's own recycled paper mills, a long time plastics manufacturer and a company that specializes in bird feed and compost, all in Ingersoll. Imagine is we could leverage their expertise and handle Oxford Countys' blue box and maybe Green Bin/composting services in Ingersoll. Imagine the jobs and vacant industrial space that could be filled.

We have a plethora of web designers and consultants in Oxford County. Imagine if they were allowed access to Fusion's state of the Art facilities to reduce their costs of business. Fusion might even get a website up and running after 5 years. Imagine companies paying Fusion to design training materials, commercials and videos. Imagine the life skills our youth could achieve. Imagine Fusion making a profit to invest in more programming.

But it's not all about High Tech. Take our recent property numbering bylaw. Imagine if Fusion could make a few designs of house numbers and sell them to local folks so their properties could comply. If Fusion bought locally that would help out merchants and if they offered installation more non-tax dollars could be found for programming. They could branch out to mail boxes too. (Trust me - there are a lot of pretty sad mail boxes in town).

Conferences, committees, golf tournaments and other road trips are not a big part of our budget but they add up in time spent away by our officials and volunteers and I have never witnessed a report on the value received. There is a company in Tillsonburg that facilitate webinars - Imagine a quarterly AMO conference held on the Internet in. I participated in webinars with Mr Flaherty, the president of RBC, business leaders and safety organizations all from my desk chair. Sending a committee to PEI to represent Ingersoll seems a little excessive to me as part of a tourism promotion, especially when we do not even have a gateway sign at the 401 for the 250,000 vehicles that pass by each week.

Imagine if we had on staff talent that could repair things, instead of outsourcing them. Public employees are not always more expensive. It is the value we receive for the pay cheque they get that has to be managed. It is no different than a business. The most profitable companies I have worked for had unionized folks with good pay rates and benefits.

Years ago, Ingersoll had a group known as the Big 8. It was 8 service and fraternal organizations that would pool their human capital to better achieve community goals. Sponsoring a fundraising event is expensive. Insurance costs can be a big part of the expenses. The Big 8 could form an association to sponsor events and save on insurance costs or have the town sponsor it on their insurance rider. More money to programs. Imagine a local lottery (Break Open Tickets) where the profits stayed local as well as the prizes, rather than filtering through the Ontario Lottery empire. Imagine if more folks joined these organizations so that the time commitment would be less and the impact greater.

Imagine if Ingersoll could capitalize on it's location and the hundreds of trucks that leave CAMI every day empty for far flung locales. Local manufacturers could team with local logistics firms and make an impact not only on their bottom line but also the environment. Chasing Green Energy manufacturers is what every body else is doing. Food manufacturers are not the prize for employment (Ingersoll's water and high electricity costs are not conducive to their business plan) Logistics, Waste/Recycling and bigger than a bread box products are where we should be focusing. $100 a barrel oil is coming back and China will lose it's cheap labour edge. We have over a million consumers in a hundred mile radius and millions more within an 8 hour drive.

Imagine poaching small manufacturers from the expensive real estate of the GTA. Economic Development folks like new shiny things as part of their code of operation. I like jobs and tax revenue and better utilization of empty land and buildings.

Imagine if Ingersoll could create a New Urbanism style subdivision on our Northern Border. Smaller affordable homes with grey water systems and gardens and a common use picnic shelter with a meeting room and kitchen attached. A community within a community that would attract folks looking to dump their over sized and over priced homes.  A shared tax load and development charges could save our services and our wallets from the coming economic storms. Imagine only half the proposed 900 acres of farmland being used for development and 40 small 10 acre specialty farms being created. Seasonal jobs, local produce, herbs, specialty crops, something for the semi-retired to do to supplement their income are all possible to show Zorra it is not just a land grab.

We as a town and as citizens can no longer look to Toronto or Ottawa for solutions. The $16 million in Stimulus spending carried almost $5 million in costs to the town, which we had to borrow. I really question the value to ratepayers of even our 1/3 of the overall costs. Drive down to where McKeand street use to cross the railroad tracks and see where $44,000 of Ingersoll residents money was spent and I'll add at the inconvenience to the many folks that use to walk down to the flats. PM Harper has already warned Mayor Holbrough directly that Ingersoll can not expect to be blessed in 2011 with similar funding.

We need to take a breath in 2011. We need to look around at what we already have and utilize it better. We need to rail against more restrictions to commercial and residential property owners and employers from senior governments. We need to take back control of our wallets. We need this municipal election to be a message to senior governments that we the people are not happy. We need a Mayor and a council that will treat every taxpayer dollar as if it was their own. We need to vote for our wallets. I will do that if I am elected your Mayor 

Thank You

Tim Lobzun