At last night's WL Council meeting - Mayor Cook asked for and received permission for travel expenses to be covered for a meeting with Pat Bell (Minister of Jobs and Tourism on August 8th with regard to CCBAC (Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition).
She also noted that CCBAC is covering most of her expenses and that the CCBAC with Minister Bell is open to CCBAC members which caused Councillor Rathor to ask what the City might have to cover for costs that CCBAC might not cover. She didn't provide a clear answer. As Council needs precise information when approving or rejecting these kinds of travel or conference requests - I'd like to see the model used by the CRD Board which is when these requests come forward - Staff identify if sufficient money exists in the member of Council's travel budget and if it does not, then Council can make the appropriate decision to either charge the travel expense to another Member of Council's account or to decline approve the travel or conference expense. What Council should not do is give a member of Council or Staff "a blank cheque". Requests for travel or conferences should be coming forward with precise information and not the usual "Trust me" routine as I think local taxpayers' have been burned too many times with City projects where government says a project is for this much and will not cost us a penny more and we all find out later how much over it has gone
I was pleased to see Councillor Rathor asking these questions and continuing to do his due diligence as the most senior member of Williams Lake's Municipal Council
SBF
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