Nelson’s residential tax increase this year will be 2.5 per cent, not three per cent as previously announced by the city.

That’s because the city has just received a $137,000 grant from the Columbia Basin Trust that over two years will help pay for a new emergency operations centre for Nelson. Before the grant was announced that amount had been listed as a 2018 shortfall to be made up by taxes.

“(This will mean) having a staff person and getting the policies and processes we need to have in place so we have a proper evacuation plan for the City of Nelson,” the city’s financial manager Colin McClure said.

Currently, Nelson is part of a larger emergency management office run by the Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK). McClure says the city has decided it needs to have its own.

Nelson’s emergency management office will be located in the city-owned government building on Ward St. and will be headed by fire chief Len MacCharles.

“The RDCK does a very good job in running their Emergency Management Office,” MacCharles said. “It is just that they have a lot of demand on few resources. Nelson has a lot of unique characteristics that need special attention: a hospital, multiple care facilities, and during the summer in the day our population probably gets close to 20,000.”

Before moving to Nelson, MacCharles was Calgary’s emergency program manager during the 2013 flood and was the incident commander at the infamous Slave Lake fire 2011.

Some of the CBT money will be used to help Nelson withstand a wildfire.

“We”ll conduct some wildfire mitigation efforts,” MacCharles said, “making sure our critical infrastructure can withstand a wildfire, harden a number of things around the city so we are in a better position.”

The new lowered property tax increase will mean a $41 annual increase for an owner of a $393,000 home.

Nelson Star