Glen Morrison Tuesday, 09 June 2009 107.5 KISSFM:
Coldstream council is stunned with an about face on the city's bid to devolve the regional water system. Mayor Jim Garlick says at the last NORD meeting, all affected players, including the city reps, were in favour of mediation to resolve things. Monday night District council got a letter from the city that included a passed motion calling for expensive arbitration. Garlick says, "I don't know where Vernon is coming from on this. It seems very staff driven because the elected politicians, they made it clear that they supported it (mediation) at NORD." Garlick calls the decision "silly" and makes him think they're returning to the days when the city was at logger heads with every surrounding jurisdiction. Vernon mayor Wayne Lippert says the city is frustrated at the lack of progress. "We're still open for having discussions but there's been a lot of money spent on consultants and facilitators to date. This is just another way of helping keep the feet to the fire." The city has been talking about pulling out of regional water distribution for more than a year. Rural area reps say devolution of the system could be devastating for farmers as their water rates would rise considerably.
1 comment:
Coldstream Councillors and Rural Reps, I'm pretty sure where Vernon is coming from. They still want your water, they just don't want to deliver it to you anymore.
Greater Vernon was/is like a bad marriage without a pre-nup – smaller partners signed over desirable assets to the water utility, which gave the largest partner, the City of Vernon, what it was running out of: WATER. The astute reader knows that more water equals more development, and more development increases the city’s taxbase. More city water customers living closer together in dense new developments are far easier and cheaper to service than those pesky rural residents living miles apart. Although the City didn’t bring new water to the marriage, it now insists a divorce should be granted – from distribution only – while still laying claim to the regional water supply. This is necessary, apparently, for the stated reasons of “a lack of coordination” and “confusing governance structure”.
I'll tell you what is confusing: the City of Vernon. What kind of partner are you? “Tell your friends to bring the marbles, then we’ll play as long as I want, and after that, I am not giving you any marbles back, I am taking them all home myself?”
Polson Park is the same story. The City does not want to be your partner when it comes to spending the insurance money from the grandstand fire. When it’s time to share, the City will keep all its marbles.
Here’s a question for Mayor Lippert: Supposing there really is a lack of coordination, why is it only with distribution, and not with supply?
Perhaps Rural Vernon and Coldstream should ask for a similar divorce so they can form their own water supply utility and sell water to City, who can then be paid to deliver it.
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