City of WL 2011 Budget - Public Meeting #1(Updated)

On Thursday - about 50 people consisting of the general public, all of WL Council except Councillor Geoff Bourdon, the City's CAO, the City's Fire Chief, the City Manager of Water/Sewer and other City Staff came together to discuss the City Budget for 2011

The City's Director of Finance Pat Higgins lead all present through a PowerPoint Presentation going over the highlights of the City Budget for 2011.  The City is intending to hold another meeting once the 2011 Budget has been finalized.  Stay tuned here for the date of that meeting

After, Councillor Tom Barr (Chair - General Governance Committee) and City Administrator Brian Carruthers led a "Question and Answer" period. 

Questions discussed included:

* Station House Gallery Move Project
* Duncan Rd Improvements
* Cost over-runs for the New Fire Hall
* Alternate Garbage/Recycling Pick-ups (ie - once every two weeks instead of once a week)
* Dismissal of Staff in 2009, Severance Payout in 2009 and Staff Restructuring at WL City Hall
* Indoor Turf Facility
* Woodland Drive - item to be considered at WL Council's "Committee of the Whole" meeting on Tuesday

At some points during the two hour meeting, discussions became heated, between the public and the City's CAO, over Woodland Drive Water/Sewer and the Station House Gallery Move Project however the CAO held his ground and calmly explained the reasons behind moving the Station House Gallery & Woodland Drive Water/Sewer. 

Also - some expressed disappointment around waiting a long time to ask questions for Woodland Drive Water/Sewer and I think the City should at a future meeting ask if anyone has questions for Woodland Drive and have to leave right away so the questions can be asked.  (Reason this came up is that Mayor Cook is unable to observe/participate in Woodland Dr Water/Sewer discussions as she is a resident of Woodland Drive and has elected to declare a "personal conflict of interest" whenever this matter has come up before Council - either at a regular meeting or during Committee of the Whole discussions which she'll declare a conflict when the Woodland Dr issue comes before the March 15th Committee of the Whole meeting.  Also the City should ask everyone to turn off their cell phones or place them in "vibrate" mode at the begining of these meetings because people's cell phones ringing during the meeting became rather annoying for me as I tried to listen to the budget presentation from Pat Higgins (who did a great job presenting the budget by the way)

See the story from the Rush here

Update - See the story from Welcome to Williams Lake here