COW MEETING Monday Aug 27 Shortest on Record.

In the shortest COW meeting that I can remember we were treated to a fine presentation of the purchasing procedures and controls by Shannon Shannon followed by an equally informative add on presentation on First Responders from Fire Chief Lysholm. This program has been in operation for only 1 week and their first week activity shows the value to the community that this initiative will bring.

Several agenda items were postponed until the afternoon as in the Appointment of representatives to the Library / Civic Building Advisory Committee or to a council meeting with full representation (Nichol absent) as in the case of the POLICY – QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD.

Letter dated August 8th , 2007 from Rose Carson, Chairman of Policies and Procedures, Community Advisory Board, re: Requesting Council consider a meeting with representatives from Correctional Service of Canada, Community Corrections Liaison Officer, RCMP and Okanagan Halfway House Society was received for information and Council decided not to formally meet with this reconstituted Advisory Board that seems to have been re-formed as requested by Corrections Canada several months ago. This committee that was to disband after the initial CAB report of Oct 2005 is still using letterhead that makes it appear that they are still running under the authority of both Corrections Canada and the City of Vernon. The decision to receive the letter only was unanimous.

Council then moved onto discussion on: Remuneration for NORD Directors and consideration as to whether NORD should be requested to require that each municipality be required to pay their own directors as opposed to NORD paying for the directors.

This motion was passed Unanimously to request that NORD put off any remuneration increases for municipal Directors until at least January of 08 (Although 09 was preferred) and for each individual Municipality to be responsible for their Director's remuneration at NORD and GVSC.

The question of whether Municipal Director's remuneration increase from $1523 to $6240 was retroactive was still not clear if you read the NORD administrator's 'clarifying' memo as regards to point 8. It does appear that the meeting stipend increase from $102 to $135 will be effective the date of the Bylaw which is Aug 8, 2007.