Wheels spin slow at city hall

Nov 29 2006 EDITORIAL
It’s often said that the wheels of bureaucracy turn slow, and that certainly appears to be the case with the City of Vernon. On Monday, there was no decision on a funding request from Okanagan Symphony despite the fact that the North Okanagan Regional District had sent the matter to council back in October for consideration. As a result of this, not only will the symphony not know if it has the support of NORD’s largest funding partner, but there’s the potential the regional district won’t be able to deal with the matter until early January. If the shoe was on the other foot, the city would be screaming that NORD is creating unfair delays to its budget process. It would be easy to just blame Coun. Barry Beardsell, who kept council from debating the matter Monday. Policy states that the subject of a presentation will be dealt with at the next meeting unless there is unanimous support to address it at the same session. Beardsell was unwilling to grant unanimity. However, Beardsell is not responsible for the NORD referral sitting around since October. Why didn’t staff or the city’s three regional district representatives bring it forward in a more timely manner? One has to wonder why other municipalities, such as Lumby and Coldstream, have been able to deal with it quickly? Defending the delay Monday, Beardsell said, “There’s a thousand requests for financial matters and we have to take them into the equation.” But isn’t that the case for the other municipalities? Obviously the symphony’s request for funding to go from $6,008 to $42,057 is excessive but at least the organization deserves to know where it stands.