Saturday, October 1, 2011

Upcoming Local Gov't Items - Week of Oct 3-7

City of Williams Lake:

WL Council will consider a request from their CAO to endorse his bid for appointment to the RCMP Contract Management Committee which is an UBCM Committee.  See more details here however, as one reader pointed out to me, a number of things come to mind:

1) Why wasn't someone like Dave Dickson considered for this post, given his role as the City's "Safer Community Coordinator"?

2) The item from UBCM is dated September 8th.  This could have been presented to Council on September 13th or September 20th (at both meetings as a late item) but now Council is forced to make a decision on Tuesday (October 4th), given the deadline to submit a name to this Committee is Friday, October 7th

3) The CAO does not identify the cost for travel to the Committee meetings', although he does say the City of Williams Lake would be on the hook for those costs.  The Committee would meet 4 times a year, although the possibility to meet more in the first year of the new RCMP Contract (should BC renew its' RCMP Contract) is there - I question why he didn't put that figure in so Council could consider this as part of their decision where to nomination the CAO or another staff person to the Committee?

Cariboo Regional District:

At their meeting next Thursday - the Agenda Format has been revamped to include the times that items will be dealt with.  This is a good thing.  However, Planning Items has been moved to the end of the meeting.  When asked - CRD Chair Al Richmond says:

We had been planning to see if we could change the format for a while. This won't be without its challenges and I thought it might be best to try it with current board who are in a better position to evaluate it

However - at the September 15th CRD Board Meeting - the City of Williams Lake CRD Director (and WL Mayor) Kerry Cook publicly complained about the Agenda Meeting format and the fact that it doesn't work for her schedule and this, in spite of the fact that she has not one but two Alternates that can attend in her place.  Those Alternate Directors' are WL City Councillors' Sue Zacharias and SPS Rathor

For the record - the City of Williams Lake is only entitled to have One Alternate Director as it has One Director on the Cariboo Regional District Board, as per Section 786 of the Local Government Act as per below:

786 (1) The council of a municipality may appoint a council member as an alternate director.


(2) The alternate director may take the place of, vote and generally act in all matters for an absent municipal director, including a matter delegated to that director by the board.
(2.1) If there is more than one municipal director, the authority under subsection (1) may be exercised either
(a) by specifying for each municipal director, the council member who is the alternate director for that municipal director, or
(b) by appointing a number of alternate directors and establishing a system to determine which alternate director is to act in the place of any absent municipal director.
(2.2) As a restriction on subsection (2.1) (b), at any one time an alternate director may only act in place of a single municipal director.
(3) If the council appoints an alternate director, the municipal corporate officer must notify the regional district corporate officer of the appointment in writing.
(4) An alternate director holds office as alternate director until another council member is appointed as a replacement and the regional district corporate officer has been notified of the new appointment.
(5) If the seat of a municipal director becomes vacant through resignation, disqualification or death, the alternate director appointed under subsection (1) becomes the municipal director in place of the director whose seat became vacant until a new director is appointed.


Also - the CRD Board has considered Planning Items at the beginning of its' meetings since January of 2002.  If there were problems, then CRD Chair Al Richmond should have taken this to the Board as an Agenda Item and the Board made a decision, as a body, on its' Agenda Format, rather than the real public perception that the Board Agenda Format being changed on the say-so public complaint of one Director

SBF

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