COW Meeting Musings Jan 28, 2008

The Jan 28th COW meeting was one of the best sessions that I have attended as it addressed several of the issues I have been blogging on for the past several years. Staff reports and recommendations stood out as they stepped to the plate with sound strategies and reports that will be vented through public input or at least the present Council. Decisions will have to be made by the Council but in my opinion the pathway for sound progressive decisions that will have long term financial implications have been provided for by the staff.

• After short debate on the Report of a meeting with the Administrator Leon Gous and Lakeview Casino about possibility of an upfront matching annual contribution to a Social Responsibility which was turned down by the Casino rep., staff was instructed by resolution to prepare a report on the use of business licensing fees to accomplish this objective of a majority of Council. (Only Coun. Gilroy of the 5 council members, {Baumbrough and Cochrane absent} voted against this.) Stay tuned for results in 2 weeks.
• The Transportation Demand Study was well presented by Transportation Specialist Lorne Holowchuk and wrapped up by the always impressive Long Range Planner Kim Flick in her summery and request to go to public input. The Controversial Western Bypass was part of this presentation and was well explained. The price of $560 to $630 Million was eye popping. Public input will start in Februrary with adoption of the policy expected in Early March.
• The DCC rate change was given approval in principle and will go to 3 readings at the next council meeting. Public input will commence immediately and hopefully the bylaw will be going to the Province shortly after 3rd reading. The proposed increases are long overdue and the waiving of DCC's for "Low Income Housing" specifically placed in the bylaw is finally going to happen. I have been calling for a $1 DCC charge for this type of housing for over 4 years and this staff and Council have done better. The report by Jeremy Kinch, Mgr. Plan, Dev., & Eng Services was well detailed in its written form and his verbal explanation to Council was extremely proficient and professional.
• The last Note of interest came with an add on item to the Agenda. The Nord budget was the subject of much discussion and reference was made to a possible 7% increase at NORD. Council decided to discuss this in more detail at the Finance Committee meeting hastily scheduled for this Thursday.
• At the same time it was revealed that the $716,638 that was part of a disputed overhead charge with NORD had been negotiated by the 3 interested CFO's (Harris-NORD, Lord Coldstream and Birtles- Vernon) and the result that will be presented to Council for approval was a compromise figure of $374,700 for 2008 plus fees for service for specific charges that were formerly part of the overhead calculation. The estimate of what was left on the table was not revealed but it will be when the Treasurer puts up an estimate for this years budget. $374,400 will reduce our Vernon residential tax levels by 2.41% in 2008 with each $155,000 further recovered equal to 1%. There is some concern that NORD's offsetting budget charge will be coming out of reserves which would be simply a return of our own money. This would be true unless the reserves charged are water reserves which form the majority of these disputed overhead charges. If this is so then since these are user pay based reserves they would be valid.