1) Local Gov't Awareness Week - May 16-22
At Tuesday's WL Council meeting, the City of WL CAO (B. Carruthers) announced, upon a question from WL City Councillor SPS Rathor, that this year's Local Gov't Awareness events at WL City Hall would be solely limited to hosting a meeting with candidates for this November's civic election.
This saddens me greatly as we have dropped an opportunity to teach the younger generation about local government, as the City did last year. In times past, even before the emphasis on local gov't awareness, there was always a meeting with candidates around local government election law and what to do and not do. Hopefully we'll return in 2012 to the practice around showing the youth how local government works and how it affects them and their parents.
Given the Cariboo Regional District is a "local government" for the rural areas, I'd like to see a partnership between the CRD and School Districts #27 + 28 around showing how the CRD Board affects them and their parents, given students come from a huge portion of the Cariboo Regional District, outside of Wells, Quesnel, Williams Lake, and 100 Mile House and that a tour of some sort at the CRD Boardroom with CRD Staff/Chair be done in 2012 or 2013
Also - UBCM released its 4th version for a guide to Local Government in BC - see here
Finally - last Friday (April 29th) - CUPE workers in Courtenay rejected an agreement with Courtenay City Council and set to strike. In a "war of words" - CUPE put out an information sheet with circumstances similiar to our own here (City Managers getting double-digit increases). See their "Financial Facts" here with the CUPE press release here
Question - With the 20% wage hike for certain City Managers in Williams Lake, will the local City workers union (IUOE) try the same trick, as CUPE, to get wage fairness for their workers in 2012? I wouldn't be surprised. I wonder by approved these double-digit wage increase for City Staff, what the current City Council have set us up for next year's negotations with IUOE (International Union of Operating Engineers). Guess we'll find out in about a year...the collective agreement expires July 1st, 2012
2) Building Permit Numbers (Year-end comparison) - City of Williams Lake:
The Cariboo Regional District reports to the end of March 2010, the City of Williams Lake had total construction value of $5,072,600. However, in March 2011 - the City saw a drop in construction value to $1,923,000 or a drop of 38% in construction value 2010 vs 2011. Obviously, you won't see the City promoting this in the run-up to November's election
3) 2010 Tax Burden in the Cariboo-Chilcotin
Recently - the Ministry of Community, Sport and Culture released its figures on the 2010 tax burden for an average home. From bigger to least - here is the average tax burden (Property Taxes & Fees/Charges)on an home in Wells/Quesnel/Williams Lake and 100 Mile House;
1) Williams Lake - $2,616
2) 100 Mile House - $2,284
3) Quesnel - $2,164
4) Wells - $1,378
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