Included in this week’s city council agenda package was a strangely worded memo that gives some insight into how the City of Vernon operates. In the memo, the city’s finance manager Kevin Bertles asks councillors if there any new priorities they would like in the budget for 2008 – given that it’s an election year. Now one would hope that budgets are based on more than just scoring political points in the upcoming election, but in case they’re not, we decided to look at what council promised the last time they ran. This might help remind them which “capital projects that staff should include in their budget preparations” and what “maximum tax increase (council) considers acceptable for this election year.”On the pamphlets from the 2005 election the buzz phrase seemed to be “controlled growth.” Virtually every member of the current council promised to control growth and keep development from having a negative impact on neighbourhoods. Speaking of neighbourhoods, council promised to spend more on improving infrastructure for existing neighbourhoods, not just on new development. Most of council also promised to bring more affordable housing to Vernon’s downtown and work with the RCMP to reduce crime on city streets.
Mayor Wayne Lippert and Coun. Barry Beardsell promised more open meetings and public debate. Lippert went so far as to promise to move meetings to the evening and minimize in camera sessions. So given these promises, what projects should council undertake before the next election? Council should set up a signature park at Swan Lake as Coun. Patrick Nicol proposed in his platform. There are still several million dollars for new parkland burning a hole in local government wallets. The city needs to do more to find land for light industrial growth as Lippert promised. The most obvious solution would be to carve up the airport and shift the runway north of town.
Coun. Juliette Cunningham made reducing the reliance on cars a priority but the city has made no firm steps in that direction. This despite the money set aside in a transit reserve. Also sitting in a reserve account, a non-interest bearing reserve account, is more than a half million dollars for affordable housing. Council needs to use this money, because the longer they wait, the less value they can purchase with it. Council should also change course and pour more money into improving services in the city’s more established neighbourhoods and not just into sewers and roads linking up to outlying resort developments.
These are just a few of the promises councillors made to get elected. With 16 months to go before the next election, they have a lot of work to do to keep their many pledges.
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