At last night's WL Council's Budget Meeting #3 - it was more of a professional meeting, rather than the Jan 31st Budget Mtg
Mayor Cook did a wonderful job at chairing this meeting...
Mayor Cook should also be congratulated for not only agreeing to hold the meeting at 7pm but holding the 'Public Comment' Period at the end of the meeting, as per the Budget Meeting Agenda although I do have to admit 3 people showing up is disheartening but one solution may be not only use of Facebook and maybe even use of Survey Monkey (free survey)to engage City of WL residents' on the budget process in the fall when the City starts its' budget deliberations but also consider use of the "Imagine our Future" process to develop the yearly budget and look at the budget exercise as more as a "community-building" exercise as a budget truly speaks to the community priority's, through its' elected officials
I do agree with Councillor Rathor that Council should sharpen its' pencil and remove $300,000 from its' 2012 Budget and eliminate the 3% tax hike, which includes accomodations at the 2012 NCLGA Conference in 100 Mile. There is no real need for members of WL Council to have hotel rooms in 100 Mile House when they are 1 hour away. CRD Area 'D' Director Deb Bischoff tells me that she intends to commute between WL-100 Mile. The cost to charge mileage would be less than hotel room charges for members' and that's for starters... we could look at expenses for the Station House Gallery move, the development of the overpass down by the former Praxair site... (down by Surplus Herby's)
Reminder - the next budget meeting is Tuesday, March 13th
5 comments:
Let's do the math on the mileage... 50 cents a km. 200 kms round trip to 100 Mile means $100 per day in travel costs.
Are you saying a hotel room in 100 Mile is going to cost more than $100??? I find that hard to beleive.
Not only that but you are wasting 2hours of time each trip that could be spent actually doing something in 100 Mile to benefit the taxpayer.
This statement of declaring they are driving to save the taxpayer money is bunk..pure bunk.
Thanks for your comment...
So, according to City documents, each of the 6 City Councillors & Mayor Cook are charging $300.16 each for hotels to attend the North Central Local Gov't Assoc meeting in 100 Mile House or $2,102.12 in hotel bills if all members of WL Council attend the NCLGA AGM
Meanwhile - if all 7 members of WL Council simply just drove between WL-100 Mile instead for the NCLGA AGM (given its' a 2 day conference), the total cost would be $1,260. As I've said before - Deb Bischoff - CRD Area 'D' Director already plans to do so and I'm hopefully WL Council will consider doing the same and help save taxpayers' some $$$
Again - thanks for your comment
Steve
I should explain my math...
So - that's 90 kms (distance from WL-100 Mile) * .50/km times 2 (round-trip per day) times 2 (NCLGA Conference is 2 days) = $1,260
Also - my source of my information (Pages 84-91) is at
http://new.williamslake.ca/files/1/doc_2012%20January%2031%20Budget%20Package.pdf
Ever heard of car pooling.
Anonymous #2...
Thanks for your comment and good eye...
With 2 vehicles (assuming all members of WL Council attend the 2012 NCLGA AGM) - it would cost taxpayers for round-trips (WL to 100 Mile House) - $630
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