Bits 'n' Bytes - April 23rd edition

1) WL Council adopts 2011 Budget

See the Tribune article here.  However, it is one comment from the City CAO (B. Carruthers) that I'm disappointed in:

Rathor’s request was made at the eleventh hour, said Carruthers, noting that to accommodate any change the five-year plan would have to be rescinded, rewritten, reintroduced and adopted all before the May 15 deadline set out by the Community Charter

I'm disappointed that he didn't take the high road when disagreeing with a Councillor, and in fact, he should have steered clear of the media when it comes to talking about the Council debate to approve the 2011 Budget/2011-2015 5 Year Financial Plan.  The CAO and his Staff's job is to provide information to Council and it's Council that decides the budget and takes the "flak" from the public on it.  Criticizing a member of Council, even indirectly, is something that City Staff should steer clear of.  There is one exception - if Councillor Rathor had directly attacked Staff and suggested that they had a political agenda, as Quesnel City Councillor Thapar did to Quesnel City Staff at the April 4th Quesnel Council meeting, then Mr. Carruthers would be correct to be critical of Councillor Rathor but as this wasn't done - Mr. Carruthers should have avoided being critical of Councillor Rathor over his budget comments on April 19th

In fact, his statement to Council (as played on Shaw Cable Ch 10) was the appropriate one (recommendation to not use gaming funds for operations) and left it at that.  Also - if $392,000 is available for this year's budget (and I have no reason to doubt Councillor Rathor's information), why not use it to balance the budget with a 0% tax increase.  This is merely political will.  Also, there is exactly 23 days before the City is statutory required to submit its' annual budget/5 Year Financial Plan and adopt both the Budget/5-Year Financial Plan and Tax Rates Bylaw to Victoria.  More than enough time to re-do the budget, consult the public and adopt it prior to May 15th

2) Quesnel Council gives 3 readings to its 5 Year Financial Plan/Tax Rates Bylaws

See the Quesnel Cariboo Observer article here.  However, it is interesting to see Quesnel Council's Finance Chair (Councillor Shushil Thapar) vote against his own budget.  Will this have a bearing on Quesnel's civic election?  Time will tell but given his other public antics.....I wouldn't be surprised if he (Thapar) has a direct role in helping in the Mayor's race in Quesnel

3) HST Phone Town Halls

The Province of BC announced Thursday that BC Finance Minister Kevin Falcon & BC Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom will host HST Phone Town Halls throughout BC in the last week of April (Monday, April 26th) and ending Thursday, May 12th.  See the Press Release with instructions here.  The HST Electronic Town Hall for our region will take place on Wednesday, May 4th at 6:45pm


4) Williams Lake & Flouride

As my blog readers' know - a community decision was made many years ago to inject flouride, or
Hydrofluorisilisic Acid, into the City's water supply upon a recommendation of Health Canada which suggests a rate of Flouride of 1 part per million or ppm.  Since then, there has been 2 community votes (referendum) with the last one, to the best of my knowledge, being in 2005, to continue putting flouride into the City's water

On Tuesday - WL Council, meeting in Committee of the Whole, will receive a recommendation from both the City Manager of Water/Waste (Joe Engelberts) and the City's Water Advisory Committee which recommends that the City discontinue putting flouride into the City's water system, due to health risks to City workers and a recommendation from the World Health Organziation from the summer of 2010.  You can read the Staff/Committee report here with background documents here (WHO Report), here (Dental/Skeletal Fluorosis), here (Healthlinks BC), here (1999 Provincial/Federal Joint Committee on Fluoridizing water), here (Media Coverage on Fluoridizing Water), here (List of BC Communities that continue to put flouride in their water), here (What is Flouride) and here (Communications Strategy)

There are a number of issues to consider:

1) The City is having some difficulty to get the flouride necessary to place into the City's water supply and there has been and continues to be a health risk to City workers, given the flouride is an acid, but presumably the voters' were aware of this when the original vote was taken to put flouride into the City's water and the last two "re-votes" to continue

2) With a vote as late as 2005 - I personally believe it is too soon to go back to voters and ask them to vote again as this will be the second election cycle since we visited this topic.  The vote in 2005 was decisive enough.  The communications strategy is going to cost the City's water fund $33,000 to implement a public engagement strategy.  Given the tough times, I think that the $33,000 could be put to better use, like putting that money into the City's Water Fund Reserve for emergencies

Nonetheless - the debate will potentially put dentists, who last time, argued why putting flouride into the City's water is necessary vs those who argued why flouride should be removed.  If there is going to be a community vote this fall - this should be the last one for sometime as you should not keep going back to the voters' because the WHO or other groups comes out with a report stating the benefits to put flouride into the City's water supply is overstated.  With 2 votes in 10 years - I believe the voters' have spoken clearly and we need to get on addressing other matters that are more critical important

Finally - I hope to discuss this matter with the Water Advisory Committee Chair, John Dressler, so I can get a sense of why the Committee made this recommendation and advise further after my chat with him. 

Also - City Staff will inform Council that Council could, instead of a community referendum this November, ask Victoria for permission to repeal the flouride bylaw with any conditions that Victoria deems necessary.  However, if the flouride bylaw was adopted, via a referendum, then the decision to discontinue the flouridization of the City's water system should also be, by referendum.  Anything else is "undemocratic"