Friday, August 17, 2012

Here we Go Again! Time to Get some Action from our Provincial Government


In about a month the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Convention will be held in Victoria. The convention has three main purposes. The first and foremost is for individual councils to meet with provincial ministers and lobby them for important issues to be resolved, projects to be approved, and funds to be granted. The second is to form a ‘local government’ united front in dealing with provincial policy affecting local governments, such as, for instance, use of Crown land or how water is protected and distributed to users. The third is networking opportunities and learning best practices through a series of workshops on momentous issues that are affecting municipalities and regional districts throughout the province.

Council is preparing to attend and has requested a number of meetings with a few ministers. Usually, not all of them are approved by provincial officials but we try to get as many as we can.

In the past, the District has been effective in dealing with these meetings and much has been accomplished. We hope to do the same this year but the political atmosphere and the economic difficulties we are living in may be somewhat limiting. Notwithstanding this, our new Council (for a few of them this will be their first UBCM convention) is determined to make a difference for their community.

The District has requested meetings with Minister Chong (Community Development – formerly Municipal Affairs), Minister Lekstrom (Transportation and Infratsructure), Minister Thomson (Forest and Land), and Minister Polak (Aboriginal Reconciliation). The topics range from the current construction of the new Highway 97 stretch from Winfield to Oyama, to funds for an expansion of our current Sewer System Plant. Let me just review a few of these topics of discussion.

Sewage Treatment Plant. We have known for the last two years that the District’s Sewage Treatment Plant is almost at capacity and needs to be expanded sooner rather than later. The cost of the expansion, which will double the current capacity, is in the order of $6 million. Last year, the District applied for a grant to the Provincial and Federal governments for two thirds of the total cost, but it was unsuccessful. We thought it was going to be a no-brainer but the money went to the City of Cranbrook instead. We know that money is limited and the funds are oversubscribed and so, although we were disappointed, we also understood that provincial priorities, when it comes to these grants, takes into account a much larger picture. So this year we have applied again. The Regional District is also contributing to the project and has allocated at least $750,000 for the septage facility component. But we definitely need the $4 million from the province and the feds. Minister Chong’s department handles these applications and we have had numerous meetings with her in the past to show her our leading edge long term infrastructure plan, one of the first and best in the province. We hope this year is the year. Failing that, we will really need to think hard at options that we do not really want to go to, such as, for instance, borrowing. We’ll keep positive and be confident that, this time, the grant will be approved.

The new 8km stretch of Highway 97 will be soon completed and with that the current portion of highway along Wood Lake will be given to the District. We have been asking for assistance in planning for the transition from the province to the District of this beautiful piece of asset. The questions are: will the old section of highway be given to the District in a decent shape (in other words, will the province do some repair and safety work before it gives the stretch to us)? Will they help with the maintenance initially (the cost to the District could be between $100,000 and $150,000)? Will they want the road to continue to be such or are we allowed to do something with it as well? This is a beautiful piece of infrastructure with a huge potential and Council will begin public consultation on the vision and use of the soon to be acquired asset. But in the meantime, those questions need to be answered. We asked before but we have not received any real answers. Let’s hope we do this time.

Finally, the concern of water protection continues to be an issue when Crown Land rights are shared with private individuals for recreational purposes. The concerns are many: water is used (often without specific protection mechanisms) by private lease owners to the possible detriment of expanding reservoirs for public uses, and with that, the rights of the Okanagan Indian Band to a protocol on surety of structures and protection of natural resources, mainly water, in the same area.

These are all complex issues that take time to unbundle and be solved. The work that is done at UBCM is not quick but it is a patient labour of puzzle piece fitting. We just hope that, for some of these, the picture is almost complete.

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