Former Williams Lake Mayor (and heavily rumoured Williams Lake Mayoral or Councillor Candidate) Scott Nelson was in attendance. See picture below:
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| BC Premier Christy Clark with Scott Nelson and the Ford Family |
When asked yesterday about his political plans for this November's civic election in Williams Lake - Nelson stated "Stay tuned!"
Finally - I was disappointed to read Premier Clark say this, in reference to the Ernst and Young report relating to pay for senior municipal staff:
“In the provincial government. we’ve been working hard to ensure we’re managing down our costs . . . We need to pay attention across government, whether it federal, provincial, regional or municipal at how much money we’re spending and how we’re controlling what we’re spending,” Clark said.
I find that offensive on two fronts:
1) Local governments DO NOT work for the provincial government although their powers do derive from Victoria and this flies in the face of the Community Charter which says local governments are a "order of government within their jurisdiction". In talking with Cariboo RD Chair Al Richmond prior to this past Tuesday's Williams Lake Council meeting, the Ernst and Young report and the concerns of UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) has been directly conveyed to Cariboo-North MLA and the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Coralee Oakes
2) Human Resource (HR) matters are incredibly complex and certainly can't be fit into "dollars and cents &a 30 sec sound bite". If local governments are re-elected with higher local government labour costs, then that's between the local government and their electors...
I truly hope Victoria rethinks the conclusions in the Ernst and Young report and when local governments gather in Whistler next week for the annual UBCM Convention, this will be one hot topic of debate/discussion..
~SF
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