Saturday, January 19, 2013

WL Council Bus. - Jan 22nd

For those in Williams Lake - your City Council will consider the following matters:

a) Local RCMP Inspector Warren Brown and Safer Communities Coordinator Dave Dickson to appear before WL Council to give an update

b) Jan 18th letter from CRD Area 'F' Director Joan Sorley - read here (Editor's Note -- City Staff indicate that a Staff report is forthcoming for this item and is not available, as of this writing)

c) Report of the Acting CAO re: Mediation to resolve impasse for CRD Rural Fringe (Areas D,E,F) Fire Protection.  (Editor's Note -- again, no report as of this writing.  Also, I don't expect the CRD to agree to mediation until after Feb 12th when the CRD Directors for Areas D,E,F meet with their residents' regarding the current survey that is out for completion.  After that, we should have an indication if CRD Residents' are willing to go another round with WL City Council . My guess -- CRD Residents' will tell their elected officials to tell the City to shove it and build an ind. Fire Department and thereupon costing City taxpayers' $500,000+ in annual fire protection revenue which would translate into an immediate 5% tax hike unless Council decides to implement drastic service cuts that total $500,000 or a combination of a tax hike and service cuts that total $500,000+ and that's before Council decides on what they want to accomplish in 2013 and keep in mind, the 2013 Budget already has a $300,000 deficit that needs to be fixed for the 2013 Budget  to be fully balanced

d) Residential School Commemorative Project & Monument in Boitanio Park - read here

Finally - WL Council will receive its' Cheque Runs from Jan 4th, 10th and 17th and an interesting cheque was sent was to "Young Anderson".  They are a law firm in Vancouver that specializes in Local Government Law.  Given the invoice dated Jan 8th, 2013.  It is a very sure bet that they acted for Williams Lake in the recent court case of Cariboo Regional District v. City of Williams Lake where the BC Supreme Court gave the Cariboo Regional District a 120 day (4 months) temporary court injunction requiring the City to provide fire protection to CRD Rural Fringe residents' in Areas D, E, F.  The cheque amount was $12,691.45 which now sees both City/CRD taxpayers paying lawyers $27,691.45 so far to fight this issue in Court and I don't think that it is the end of it.  It is conceivable that both CRD/City of WL taxpayers' could be on the hook for as much as $50,000 before we are done here.  Not exactly a good use of taxpayers money, I would argue

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