Yesterday - I posted on WL Council's 4 Strategic Goals, as outlined at Wednesday's CRD Joint Town Hall Meeting, which you can view in full here
Again - those goals are:
1) Implementation of the Business Expansion and Attraction Task Force Recommendations with the goal of expanding the City’s economic base.
2) Implementation of the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP) and the Official Community Plan (OCP)
3) Partnering with First Nations on matters of mutual interest
4) Financial stability, with focus on long-term planning
Now - I looked at Goal #1 previously - which you can read here. There are a few goals worthwhile pursuing but simply "educating" developers on City policies/procedures will not elicit the kind of investment dollars we seek. If the City ask the question "What City policies/procedures are an impediment to you developing your properties in our City?" and have a thoughtful "give and take" situation - it would go a lot farther. Also - with regard to the rail car situation - it too would go further - if it was a joint process between Quesnel, Williams Lake and 100 Mile House as the whole rail car issue is not just a Williams Lake issue
On Goal #2 - implementing the ICSP/OCP is something this Council and future Williams Lake City Councils' would have had to implement, given the amount of public input into the ICSP/OCP, but an OCP is just a "vision" and the ICSP is something that is contemplated over a long period of time (over 10-20 years) and certainly by then, Councils' change and certainly peoples' idea for the community change which is why the ICSP was intended to be a "living document" which is long term financial plan can not be done beyond a 5 year period, given the legislative constraints, but in any event, once a 10 or even 20 year financial plan is adopted by a sitting Council, a future Council can come along and say "this is our new long term financial plan", notwithstanding whatever the public says at that time to the sitting Council of the day
On Goal #3 - Partnering with First Nations is the right thing to do, given the political atmosphere and of recent court decisions. However - I question whether it is a good idea of a Youth Safety Committee when the current Junior Council could be asked this same question and I have no doubt that they could/would put many positive/useful ideas forward for consideration
On Goal #4 - I'll be reviewing these, one by one:
• Competitive tax rates - Council will have to be careful with this one, given residents' pay close to 40% of the total property tax bill and based on comments I've received in the last few days - there is absolutely no appetite for perpetual tax increases, unless it relates to the very core basics (Police, Fire, Water/Sewer or Snow Removal). Also - Council will find, I believe, tax shifting to be extremely tricky to handle especially if it means, say, a 0.5 or 1.0% tax shift from Major or Light Industry to Residential. In theory - an idea worth discussing but tax shifting won't matter to residents unless when tax shifting, City services are on the table to be cut to ensure the tax shift proposed has little or no tax impact, after the homeowner grant is applied
• Adequate reserves - again, a good idea but Council will have to find a way to accomplish those without burdening too greatly the taxpayer to accomplish this goal
• Investment in infrastructure - good in theory but if Council can link how good infrastructure is good for taxpayers' (relates to basic rather than "feel good" projects) then it'll receive voter support, if not - Council may have a challenging time this term to accomplish this goal
• Management of debt - with $18 million in debt on the books between now - 2030: Council will be hard-pressed to do anymore borrowing in this term, in addition Council/CRD Directors' for Areas D, E and F will have a very large hill to climb in order to receive voter assent, especially as it relates to the future of the Sam Ketchum Pool - a conservative estimate puts the replacement of the pool at between - $10 to $15 million and there may or may not be appetite for voters' to borrow that amount, especially if no grants from Ottawa/Victoria are forthcoming in the short term (2011 - 2014 term of local government)
• Cost-efficient operations - I believe the time has come to ask: Should we look at contracting *all* City services except the basic core ones (ie: Water/Sewer and Fire) and that is a question that needs proper investigation - pros vs cons & a "cost benefit analysis" - ie: cost to contract out all City services minus core services vs maintaining the status quo
• Transparent financial planning - while Mayor Cook and her Council have made a good start with the Open Budget Meetings (reminder of Tuesday's Budget Meeting #2 at 6:00pm in Council Chambers), they still have a long way to go including:
* Meetings at 7pm, instead of 6pm - imperative that the process can stand up to any scrutiny...
* Have a dedicated Facebook page to allow residents' to input to Mayor/Council and City Staff directly on the Budget (ie: Budget ideas, etc)
* Allowing a period of time (15 minutes) to provide oral input prior to Budget Meetings of Council
* Surveying of City residents - both in the City and those on the rural City/CRD Fringe (via Survey Monkey - a free survey program) about Budget ideas (status quo of services, increase or decrease services or new community projects) prior to giving initial direction to City Staff on the forthcoming budget
No comments:
Post a Comment