What a disappointing effort by our council to tame the budget deficit.
I did not think that we could get away without a tax increase but I was expecting a much better effort at reigning in costs. A golden opportunity has been missed. This is the beginning of their three-year term faced with a big deficit and a public appetite to contain costs – this was the perfect political climate to make some real change.
The elephants in the room are the Fire Department and Rivercorp. Having a full-time staffed Fire Department is a luxury that we can no longer afford and Rivercorp should be dismantled and brought under city hall as a couple of staffers. The current CEO of Rivercorp makes $107,000 per year and was unable to muster a presentation or concrete budget numbers for the Feb. 14 Finance Committee meeting. Also, now that we are part of the BC Jobs Plan Pilot we will have focused economic development resources provided by the BC Government. (I am sure Rivercorp will take credit for whatever that process might produce) Both of these issues needed to be addressed and were not. It has been described that this budget vote came down to those looking to ‘Maintain Services’ and those looking to cut. However, council has actually voted to expand services – namely the Splashpark and the Robron All-Weather field. I understand that the capital costs for these projects are coming from elsewhere, but the ongoing maintenance will be a further addition to the lists of costs to the city moving forward. I love this city and want the best like everyone else, but this uncertain economic situation is not the time to expand services. Council, in my opinion, has let us down.
Mike Fowler
Campbell River
