One city councillor says 2.5 million dollars is too much to pay for a downtown park. Bob Spiers says that could be the final bill for developing the former Vernon Medical Clinic site on 31st Ave into a walkway connecting the civic complex and Cenotaph Park. He says it dosen't make sense to him, and he will not support that kind of expenditure for a park. Spiers says he always thought parks should be financed through NORD and GVSC. Mayor Wayne Lippert says the site could also include other uses like retail and residential, adding its premature to say it will just be a park.
Peter McIntyre Tuesday, 26 January 2010 06:43107.5 KISSFM
Peter McIntyre Tuesday, 26 January 2010 06:43107.5 KISSFM
Vernon will work towards less pesticide use on city owned land starting this year, but the plan to add residential properties in 2012 has been put on the shelf. Councillor Mary Jo O'Keefe says a bylaw to restrict the cosmetic use on private land would be almost impossible to enforce. She says it'd also encourage tattle tale neighbours which she says is a really poor way to have city bylaws, particularly as they're hard to enforce. The city will wait to see what the province does with a restriction on pesticides before expanding to private land. In the meantime, staff will develop a program to educate residents about use of the chemicals.
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Don Quixote Note: At the resumption of the Budget Debate held after the regular meeting was completed the Council by a 5-1 vote (Coun. Baumbrough was absent for both of the above votes due to illness) to approve $199,500 towards detailed design work and construction for the first phase of the redevelopment of the Vernon Medical Clinic site in 2010. There is an estimate that completion of the actual project will cost an additional $400,000.
As a 1% tax increase is equivalent to $242,063 this $199,500 expenditure this year represents .82% of the tax burden for the residential and business taxpayers. At the conclusion of the budget sessions at 7 PM last night the tax increase was approaching 2.10%.
Actual Concept Plan and Costing details available on P.124-126 Agenda Package
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Don Quixote Note: At the resumption of the Budget Debate held after the regular meeting was completed the Council by a 5-1 vote (Coun. Baumbrough was absent for both of the above votes due to illness) to approve $199,500 towards detailed design work and construction for the first phase of the redevelopment of the Vernon Medical Clinic site in 2010. There is an estimate that completion of the actual project will cost an additional $400,000.
As a 1% tax increase is equivalent to $242,063 this $199,500 expenditure this year represents .82% of the tax burden for the residential and business taxpayers. At the conclusion of the budget sessions at 7 PM last night the tax increase was approaching 2.10%.
Actual Concept Plan and Costing details available on P.124-126 Agenda Package
2 comments:
Unreal how many tax dollars have been spent on landscaping projects over the past year - $250K for Swan Lake, $400K+ for Spirit Square plus another future $500K to upgrade that parking lot next to the "square".
Now we find out that not only have we spent FAR too much purchasing this particular property (not to mention those other lots downtown), we also must spend even more to knock the building down and then what does Council want to do with it.... put in even more landscaping?
Councillor Spiers is correct about the regional parks function. But then, Vernon is only in when it suits Vernon.
Council, there must be a better way to spend our tax dollars... like working together with our regional partners to solve the water situation? Bring your issues to the table and get it sorted! All the dollars we could have saved on landscaping would solve the water issue.
And for Councillor O'Keefe, who finds it a "poor way to have city bylaws" that rely on neighbours informing on each other:
Uh, sorry to inform you Councillor, but this is exactly how Bylaw Enforcement works (other than for parking enforcement which has little meters to report infractions).
Go ahead and ask staff for confirmation if you don't want to believe this Blog commenter.
There is no proactive bylaw enforcement, only reactive to complaints. Thus, enforcement of almost every City bylaw requires tattle-tale neighbours.
Despite Vernon's bylaw army, there are simply not enough enforcement staff to send out and discover unreported bylaw infractions.
This council has lost sight of reality-other communities are cutting back on staff and expenditures but Vernon is doing the opposite.O'keefe does not have any ability to control expenditures as illustrated when she was employed by the Reional District as tourism manager a number of years ago, and others make out that fiscal restraint is necessary but don't follow what they say
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