My Priorities for the Next Term

Two Referenda

Voters in Kimberley have two opportunities in October to cast their votes in referenda. The first is during the municipal election with a question about the sale of the Sunmine. The second is the provincial referendum on electoral reform.

 I am hopeful that the result of the referendum on the sale of the Sunmine to Teck will be positive and we can move forward with the transfer of this asset.  I have been concerned for some time that the maintenance costs for the one megawatt installation will not be covered by its revenues and the taxpayers of Kimberley will end up subsidizing it.  Once the solar farm is owned by Teck we will be able to tax it as a utility and provide a revenue stream for the municipality.

I am also hopeful that voters will support electoral reform and allow us to move to proportional representation.  I believe this kind of system will help us ward off the kind of populism that resulted in the election of Donald Trump in the US.  Many people feel disenfranchised and believe their votes are wasted or useless. A system of proportional representation will lead to the establishment of new political parties and a more varied electoral landscape which should empower a wider range of citizens.  There are two questions on the provincial ballot and the first is the most important.  If you do not know what particular flavour of proportional representation you prefer, leave the second question blank and just vote for change on the first question.

New Sewage Treatment Plant

The City has received funding to design a new wastewater treatment plant and when that design is complete we will be seeking federal and provincial funds to help us build the new facility. Increases to the sewer utility fees have already been implemented to raise our portion of the funding. We will now need to make our case to the senior levels of government in the hope that they will provide over 80% of the total cost which is currently estimated to be over $30 million dollars.

Kimberley/Lois Creek Flood Mitigation

The City recently received some $150,000 from the National Disaster Mitigation Program to design a new channel, retention pond and storm sewer system for the water flow beneath (and in bad flood years, over) Coronation Park.  We need to ensure that the design we come up will successfully prevent flooding and enhance the aesthetics of the area and then we need to find the funding to build it.

New Light Industrial Lands

During the debate around the Official Community Plan and the controversy over the Marysville bench lands, just about everyone agreed that finding more brownfield land for future light industrial development would be a good thing.  City Council has committed to meet with Teck and the Ministry of Environment in an effort to acquire such land and I want to make sure that process moves forward in the first year of the next term.

Short-term Rental Framework

We have had some informal discussions at Council about the growth of the short term rental industry which uses the Airbnb model.  Many other communities have been wrestling with this issue and I think it is important that we now move forward with some kind of licensing framework that allows the model to continue but levels the playing field somewhat with more traditional accommodators.

Branding Updates

We have done some great work in the last few years (thank you Story & Co. ) on the way we brand Kimberley. It will be important in the next few years to keep investing in updates of the brand and not let it grow stale.

Negotiating New Collective Agreement

Our collective agreement with Steelworkers Union Local 1-405 will expire in early 2020.  It is going to be important that we successfully negotiate a new agreement that recognizes the important contribution all of our unionized employees make to the success of the City while at the same time ensuring that the new contract is affordable for City taxpayers.  Always a balancing act.

Forest Fuel Treatment

It appears that having the two worst forest fire seasons in BC history in the last two years has prompted the Province to take the issue of fuel reduction and fire prevention more seriously. A new Community Resiliency Investment Program was announced this month which will help fund fuel treatment activities around communities. It is not yet clear if the new program is an improvement over the old one however, as there seems to be a $100,000 maximum which is less than we have been receiving in the previous years.  Kimberley has done a good job in the past with thinning and fuel reduction projects around town but we need to do more of them.  Council must be ready to partner with the Province on projects that reduce the risk, make fires easier to contain and at the same time preserve some of the recreational and aesthetic values that make Kimberley a good place to be.

Flat Tax Shift

Kimberley is one of five communities in BC that has a flat tax, and ours has historically been the largest ($786 per property in 2015).  Where a mil rate tax is based on the value of your property, with more expensive homes paying higher taxes, a flat tax is the same for every property regardless of its value. A few years ago City Council decided to start shifting the flat tax back to the mil rate tax by reducing it by $80 per year.  In 2018 the flat tax sits at $546 for each improved property. (The flat tax on empty lots has not been changed and remains at $310).  While concerns have been raised about the effects this shift on the willingness of folks to build new homes in Kimberley, we have not yet seen an appreciable impact and I would support further reductions in the flat tax.  Reducing the flat tax over the next few years is one way for City Council to support affordable rental housing. I believe the majority of homes in Kimberley that are available for long term renters are the older, less expensive homes and those have been higher taxed because of the flat tax.  Since landlords would tend to pass tax increases on to their renters, shifting the flat tax will help keep rents down and make rental housing more affordable. 

Support for non-profits

The life and culture of every city is greatly enhanced by a vibrant non-profit community. This is even more true in small towns, where municipal governments don’t have the staff and resources to deal with all the social issues that we face. Organizations like the Food Bank, the Arts Council, minor sports groups, Healthy Kimberley, Wildsight and many others are essential parts of what makes Kimberley a good place to be. In the last term I help write a policy that formalized how grants to local non-profits are given out.  I will work to ensure that the policy continues into the future and our vibrant volunteer groups are supported.

Continued development and updating of bylaws and policies

When I was first elected to Council I asked to see our list of policies and was shown a dusty binder with paper copies dating back several decades.  I started pushing at that time for a review and updating of both our policies and bylaws and we have made a good deal of progress in the last 7 years.  Lots of outdated bylaws have been rescinded and we are now more systematically reviewing and refreshing both policies and bylaws.  That process needs to continue.

Urban Deer

We have been wrestling with the urban deer issue since I first was elected to Council.  It is a complicated issue and Councilor Oakley has worked very hard for a number of years, as chair of the Urban Deer Committee, to try to find a way to humanely reduce the number of deer in town. I still believe numbers are too high and we need to get the population down to something that the habitat would have supported before the town was built, perhaps 30-40 deer in total.  We are currently doing relocation trials to gather more information about how deer react to being moved out of town, and I hope that this will lead to a larger scale relocation when the Province gives us permission to do so.