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Response to Feedback

I’ve had some great feedback from readers regarding my report on the AES intervention at the Oakridge Community Centre earlier this week.

Some readers are thanking me for sharing the facts and most agree that firing the children was the wrong thing to do. On the other hand, a couple of people are accusing me of “eating puppies” and other evil doings. Either way, I appreciate the fact that people are discussing these events.

Just to be clear to everyone regarding the facts …

FACT 1 – AES investigated. They determined that children were at risk.

Readers who disagree with Alberta Employment Standards are welcome to contact them and say so: 1‑877‑427‑3731.

FACT 2 – The complaint that sparked the investigation came from a parent who was concerned about a lack of adult supervision following an encounter with a drunken patron.

I have spoken to the parent and have verified this.

FACT 3 – Oakridge decided to fire the children rather than raise their wages, reduce their hours and/or provide adult supervision. They did this in spite of the fact that they have a $750,000 annual budget.

I have done my part for my community by hiring one of the children fired from Oakridge to work at my store at a rate of $12.00 per hour. If I could, I would hire all seven.

In my opinion the Oakridge Community Centre should rehire all of the children pay them minimum wage and obey Alberta’s labour laws.

It is never a good idea to disregard labour laws and/or withhold payroll deductions from the Canada Revenue Agency. Doing so is a sure sign of shoddy management and could, once penalties and interest are calculated, bankrupt the community association.

Thanks to everyone for reading my blog and for taking the time to respond. Have a pleasant weekend.

Change Comes to Oakridge

My wife and I bought our home in Oakridge in May of 1996. The first thing we did after taking possession was paint the interior. During that two week period, all we had in the house were painting supplies, a solitary chair, a loaf of bread, a jar of Kraft peanut butter and a stack of junk mail that was dropped off daily by the mail carrier.

One day, while taking a break and eating a peanut butter sandwich with my paint splattered hands, I opened a community newsletter called the Oakridge Echo. Within a few minutes, I understood what it was: a neighborhood publication intended to provide news and information to the community. It contained notices and announcements and other tidbits that were relevant to our new community of Oakridge.

While browsing the newsletter, I spotted a plea for help prominently displayed on Page 3. I can’t remember exactly what it said, but it went something like this: “Help! We have been running a Stampede Breakfast in our community for many years. It has recently come on hard times and attendance has been dwindling. We are thinking about cancelling it. If nobody steps forward to volunteer for the position of Social Director, this may be the last year we have a Stampede Breakfast in Oakridge.”

Although we had not officially moved into our new home in our new community yet, Grace and I picked up the phone and called the community centre to volunteer for the position. We were willing to serve as Social Directors. We didn’t know what that meant nor did we know what we were getting ourselves into, but we didn’t want to see anything that important fail.

That phone call was my first involvement with the Oakridge Community Centre. It began a relationship that started in May 1996 and continues to this day. During that 16 year period I have been on the inside and I have been on the outside. In general, I am treated as an insider as long as I drink the Kool-Aid and keep my opinions to myself. But the moment I become critical of management or suggest that things could be done better, I am pushed to the outside.

During that same 16 year period I have done many things for my community. I have served as president of the Weaselhead Society, as co-chair of the school council and as president of Oakridge Block Watch. I founded the Oakridge Tennis Club. I resurrected the squash courts and got people playing squash again in Oakridge. I served my time coaching children’s soccer, I introduced Oakridge to the great sport of pickleball and I volunteered to work in the count room until 3:00 am on a work night at more than 30 charity casinos.

In other words, I’ve paid my dues.

I believe that 16 years of commitment has earned me the right to speak out. Unlike other members of the Cult of Sandy at Oakridge, I understand that there is a difference between what is best for my community and what is best for the General Manager of the Oakridge Community Centre. While they may sometimes overlap, they do not always do so. And when they do not, it is clear to me which of the two is most important.

Over the coming weeks and months — relentlessly and without cessation — I will be making my positions on these and other issues clear to my readers in Oakridge and elsewhere.

I am not running for anything. I am not seeking the presidency of the association. I am not applying for the General Manager’s job. All I want is an opportunity to say what is on my mind and to encourage others to do the same.

Oakridge is long overdue for a change. As is often the case, I am simply acting as a catalyst. Once again, I am stepping forward — voluntarily — to help my community in a time of need.

AES Steps in to Protect Children at Risk in Oakridge

Over the weekend, Alberta Employment Standards stepped in to protect a group of seven children employed by the Oakridge Community Centre in southwest Calgary. This action followed an investigation during which it was determined that children were working under conditions prohibited by Alberta’s child labour laws.

Among other things, investigation by the government agency uncovered wages below the legal minimum, children working longer hours than is allowed and children working later than is permitted. Most shockingly, though, was the fact that these children were working without adult supervision for long stretches during their shifts.

Child safety is one of the primary focuses of Alberta’s child labor laws and adult supervision is clearly required of employers who wish to employ both children and young persons. The fact that children were at risk made the AES investigation at the Oakridge Community Centre a high priority. Instead of the 12 week period that normally follows a complaint, I am told that AES began their Oakridge investigation within 24 hours of receiving a complaint from a concerned parent whose previous complaints to management regarding a lack of adult supervision reportedly went unheeded.

How did Oakridge react? Given that they have a budget of $750,000 and a healthy annual surplus, they could have corrected this situation by increasing wages, reducing hours to numbers suitable for children and providing adult supervision, management at the community center instead took punitive action and immediately stopped employing children at the concession stand.

I will, of course, be commenting more on this later. But for now I want to make it clear that this knee jerk reaction is unacceptable. The concession stand must be kept open to serve the parents and players of the Southland Hockey Association (who pay 20% more for Oakridge ice than they do for City ice). At the same time the children who worked there should not be punished for poor labor practices or shoddy management.

The facility’s general manager lives across the street from the arena. Surely she can rearrange her day a little to ensure that these children have supervision during the evening when the majority of customers are in the building anyway. Given what she is paid as GM, I would think that it should be standard practice to have her in the building when usage it at its peak anyway. So there is no need to fire the children.

Firing them sends the wrong message completely. Firing them says: “You will only have a job if you accept low wages, long hours and unacceptable risk.” It says: “Complain about your working conditions and you will be fired.” What kind of message is that for children? It is akin to saying: “Don’t stand up to bullies. Let them bully you and have their way.”

But as I said, more on this later…

Campaign for a Better Oakridge

In September 2012, after serving on the board of the Oakridge Community Association for most of the past 16 years, after working loyally and tirelessly as an advocate for my community and after pouring thousands of hours and thousands of dollars of my own time and money into programs at the community centre I was handed an ultimatum by the Board of Directors. I could either resign or they would put me “on trial” for bad behavior.

Their evidence? A tiny sample of email, compiled by the General Manager, taken out of context and in no way representative of the thousands of emails generated during my 16 years of service to the community. Included in this sample were a few outright fabrications and several mind-bending distortions. Also included were some completely accurate selections that made it crystal clear that I disagreed with management and wanted to see some personnel changes — immediately!!

Could I have fought this petty nonsense? Sure. I could have gone through their little trial and tried to justify everything to a hostile audience whose minds were previously poisoned with gossip. But why should I? Why should a volunteer of 16 years be put on trial in the first place? Passion should be embraced, especially when it is coming from volunteers with a proven track record. Criticism should be embraced as well, especially when the goal is to improve the association and enhance community services.

I am an outspoken guy. I say what is on my mind. I don’t sugar coat things. I don’t use weasel words. This straightforward no-bullshit approach to life is what defines me. I do apologize if I sometimes offend people, but I don’t dwell on hurt feelings and I don’t allow the fear of hurting somebody’s feelings to prevent me from doing my job.

There are serious problems with how the Oakridge Community Association is being run. The problems start with the board and run all the way through the organization. On the surface, the association appears to be functional, but in fact it is completely dysfunctional when it comes to serving the community of Oakridge.

As it is today, the Oakridge Community Centre serves only two entities well: the Southland Hockey Association and the facility’s General Manager. The General Manager, of course, is served very well both in terms of compensation and working conditions. The Southland Hockey Association, meanwhile, is served reasonably well, but that is only because they are paying through the teeth for that service.

It is for this reason that I am today launching my Campaign for a Better Oakridge.

This campaign is not about getting anybody elected. I am not running for anything. I am done volunteering for my community. Been there done that — got kicked in the ass on the way out the door.

Rather, this campaign is about changing hearts and minds. It is about ideas. It is about creating awareness and provoking conversations. The Oakridge Community Centre is at the heart of our community. It is about time that people who cared about our community stood up to the people who run that place and demand that they do a better job of serving our community.

ISSUE 1 – FRATERNIZATION

It should be a hanging offence for the Board and General Manager to fraternize. By “hanging offence” I do not mean that anybody should actually be hanged, of course. I simply mean that the issue of fraternization should be taken seriously.

The General Manager of the community centre reports to the Board of Directors. This is an employee-employer relationship. Getting together for a glass of wine at the annual Christmas party or at community fundraisers is one thing. Taking weekend excursions and hanging out in the hot tub is another.

Board members who have close personal friendships with staff members should resign from the board. It is a conflict of personal interest for friends to be overseeing friends while spending somebody else’s money. It leads to a lack of critical analysis. It inflates staff wages and it eats away at the bottom line of the organization.

Fraternization is a major problem at Oakridge. When I sat on the board and looked at the faces gathered around the table I saw a bunch of friends who were hand-picked by the General Manager. As a result of this dynamic, I saw wage increases rubber stamped every year I was there in spite of the fact that there were no performance reviews and no way for dissatisfied customers to express their dissatisfaction.

ISSUE 2 – METRICS

Another major problem at Oakridge has to do with the lack of metrics. In other words, there was no way to measure whether or not our community centre was doing a good job serving our community because nearly everything was subjective. In fact, in the 16 years that I was involved the only metrics we ever discussed at length were membership numbers (which stayed flat in spite of increasing salaries) and grant money — other people’s money, which we were very good at getting.

I’m sorry folks, but there is a lot more to running a “community” centre than being good at applying for grants. If that is the only criteria against which we are measuring our General Manager, then we may as well hire a grad student. A grad student will work for a quarter of what we are paying our GM and they will know how to fill out grant applications.

In addition to measuring success, the association also needs a way to measure failures. The board needs a way to identify customers who are unhappy and find out why they are unhappy.

As most of you know, I own a store just down the street from my community centre. There is a lot of overlap between my customers and their customers. Every week last summer I had customers standing at my service counter complaining to me about the lack of service at the Oakridge Community Centre. The most common complaints were what I call service basics, the kinds of things that would kill a business that did not have the benefit of using other people’s money to stay afloat: nobody answering the phone, no staff present to serve customers, no clear indication where to spend money to get products and services.

ISSUE 3 – ACCOUNTABILITY

Finally at Oakridge, there is the issue of accountability. As some of you will have noted above, in the 16 years that I served my community, I never saw evidence of a genuine performance evaluation. Year after year after year, substantial salary increases were recommended and approved based solely on A) the amount of money that Southland Hockey Association agreed to pay in rent and B) the amount of money that federal, provincial and municipal governments agreed to give us.

The General Manager of our facility operates without effective oversight. She attends every meeting. She is present at every discussion. She surrounds herself with friends and she makes sure that she controls every aspect of the organization. In my opinion, the Board at Oakridge reports to the General Manager, not the other way around.

Rather than one overpaid General Manager who is absent and mentally disengaged for most of the summer, the community should have two managers. One should be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the facility. The other should be responsible for customer service. When one is on vacation, ill or otherwise unavailable, the other can cover for her. This is the way most community centres with arenas are run.

Having two managers (or one manager with an assistant) puts checks and balances in place that prevent any one person from becoming too powerful. It also ensures that the community cannot be held hostage by the one person who knows everything and does everything and insists on being compensated accordingly. And finally, it gives the Board a better opportunity to measure individual performance

Can our community afford this? Of course we can!! Look at what we are paying our current GM. Compare it to what other GMs are earning. There is plenty of money for two energetic young people who are familiar with computers, websites and spreadsheets. A more important question, though, is can we afford NOT to do this.

The level of customer service at Oakridge is atrocious. If you don’t believe me, come and ask the customers who stand in my store every week complaining about the fact that they can’t get anybody at Oakridge to take their money. Or, just ask me why I spent over $12,000 on court rentals in 2011/12 and why I will not be spending anything there in 2013.

JUST THE BEGINNING

My Campaign for a Better Oakridge is just beginning. I know that there are people out there who are dissatisfied with the way our community centre is managed. I know that there are people in the community who wonder why we don’t have programs like other communities. This campaign will tap into that discontent and transform it into action.

At present, the business of the Oakridge Community Centre consists of renting one sheet of ice to one major customer (Southland Hockey Association) for which one employee reaps enormous personal benefits. My campaign is about changing hearts and minds and about convincing people that we can do much more than this. If I can do that, change will become inevitable.

Kent Hehr for Mayor?

From: Darryl Raymaker
Sent: September 9, 2010 8:43 AM
To: Brent Johner

Subject: KENT HEHR FOR MAYOR

Hi Everybody.

Attached are an order form, bio and recent article about Kent Hehr.

I am supporting Kent to become Mayor in the next election and I hope you will too.

He is a fine, intelligent and energetic young man who will make a fine Mayor.

I am pleased to invite you to attend a fundraising dinner for him to be held on Wednesday, September 15 at the Chinese Cultural Center, 197 – 1 st SW beginning at 6 PM.

You can also send your cheques or cash to me or as per the order form for your tickets

My address is XXXXX.

The food will be great! Kent will give a rousing speech! And it is a most worthy cause!

I look forward to seeing you there! And it is all for the modest cost of $200.

We appreciate your help!

Darryl Raymaker


From: Brent Johner
Sent: September 9, 2010 9:03 AM
To: Darryl Raymaker
CC: Kent Hehr Campaign Office

Subject: KENT HEHR FOR MAYOR

Hi Darryl.

Ald. Bob Hawkesworth is an old friend. So I will be supporting him in this election.

If Bob wasn’t running, I would certainly have considered Kent.

However, the events of yesterday would surely have changed my mind.

The volunteers at the Oakridge Community Centre worked very hard to organize an all candidates forum.

They started planning for it in April, before Kent ever entered the race and before they knew how many candidates there would be.

Kent was invited on June 29.

His campaign team responded on August 5. No questions were asked about accessibility at that time.

Nobody bothered to check the site out until the day prior to the forum.

Then, instead of working with the volunteers to resolve resolvable issues, his team decided to issue a media statement and earn some free media at the expense of our volunteers.

As a result the community centre is now getting hate email and some of the volunteers who worked hard to raise money for recent renovations that improved access for the disabled have been reduced to tears.

Shame on Kent and every adviser who was behind this stunt.

Best regards,
Brent Johner

David Swann Has to Go

The day after David Swann was elected leader of the Alberta Liberal Party, I cancelled my monthly contribution to the Decore Plan. I further decided, on that day, not to renew my party membership when it came up for renewal at the end of the year.

A short time later when the Calgary Glenmore by-election was called, I refused to work for candidate Avalon Roberts — a woman I had supported in two previous provincial elections.

It was a tough decision for me, primarily because Donn Lovett, a man I respect, was her campaign manager. But I believed then, as I believe now, that David Swann is a flake.

Today, my friend Dave Taylor, MLA for Calgary Currie, left the Alberta Liberal Party caucus to sit as an independent. In explaining why he made such a dramatic decision he made reference to Swann often acting like he is “living on another planet”.

Good for Taylor! I will never forget David Swann’s decision to camp out in front of Stephen Harper’s office and undertake a hunger strike over Darfur. At the time, ALP Leader Kevin Taft, Dave Taylor and my good friend Craig Cheffins were hard at work trying to provide an effective opposition to the reigning Conservatives.

I have never forgiven Swann for that incredibly self-serving act of mock martyrdom. While everybody else in the provincial caucus was out working their butts off doing what their constituents elected them to do, Swann was reclining in a lawn chair in front of a federal politician’s office and making regular appearances on the evening news.

Granted, there are many other events in this man’s history that lead one inevitably to the conclusion that David Swann is a flake. But this event, more than any other, helped make my mind up.

It was a mistake to elect him leader in the first place. But it is an even bigger mistake to allow him to continue in role now that a credible man like Dave Taylor can no longer sit with him in caucus.

Stand Up for Oakridge Co-op against Terrorism

Somebody, it seems, has a grudge against my neighbourhood grocery store. For the fourth time in a month, a deranged terrorist wannabe has stuck pins into food in the deli and bakery sections of the Oakridge Co-op in southwest Calgary.

That’s my store. It’s my Co-op. Like many people in this area, I’m both a customer and a shareholder. So an attack on that store feels like an attack on my family.

Will this loser’s attacks stop me from shopping there? Not a chance.

Over the 15 years that I have been a customer at the Oakridge Co-op I have become connected with many of the staff on a personal level. Nina in the Kiddie Coral. Sunil in produce. Melodie, Mary, Luda, Kevin, Kathleen, Des, Andrew, Les and Adrian on the checkout line. These are all good people caught up in a bad situation that is far beyond their control.

I feel terrible about it. I can see what they are going through. In some departments, hours have been cut severely. Some of the poorest and oldest have been the hardest hit and are now having trouble making ends meet at home.

I have no intention of abandoning these people over a handful of stick pins. In fact, I would like to emphatically encourage everybody in Oakridge and the surrounding communities to take a stand against this terrorist and make a special effort to buy your groceries at the Co-op until he is caught.

Show him that our loyalty to the people who work at our Co-op is stronger than our fear of his silly little stick pins.

The Oakridge Co-op and the staff who work there are part of our community. They support our schools, our community association and dozens of local groups with donations throughout the calendar year.

They give boy scouts a section of their parking lot to raise money by selling Christmas trees every year. They allow girl guides to set up shop and sell cookies outside their front door. They donate all of the food for the Louis Riel School back-to-school barbecue in September.

They have supported our activities for years. Now it’s our turn to be there for them — and for their families.