It is great to see common sense prevailing in a couple of decisions that were made recently, especially when they have a significant impact on 100 Mile House and area communities.
The most recent common-sense decision was made on March 1 when the Interior Health Authority (IHA) determined in-house laundry services would be retained in the small rural hospital within its boundaries, including 100 Mile House.
A little over a year ago, the IHA floated the idea it would be able to save money by privatizing laundry services at its hospitals.
The savings would come at the expense of the people running those laundry services who would lose their jobs.
The Health Employees’ Union brass immediately went public with IHA’s intention.
They noted there could be a lot of problems if the laundry service went to out of province because there could be transportation issues, including linen contamination, loss of quality, lack of availability if there was a problem during the collection, delivery or cleaning processes.
However, the biggest issue was the loss of jobs that would be felt the most in the smaller communities.
In 100 Mile House there were four full-time jobs on the firing line.
Each of those jobs could possibly represent a family’s primary bread-winner, or even a much-needed second income earner in the household.
The potential of those families having to move because they lost their source of income would negatively affect the communities they live in because we can ill afford to lose any more families.
The District of 100 Mile House council jumped on board the opposition band wagon because it wants to keep as many jobs as possible.
Eventually, a common-sense decision was made.
The other issue has a much longer history – back to 2010 when the assessment rates for rural tourism property skyrocketed.
At that time, rural tourism operators were eligible for reduction in assessed value of $150,000.
While the assessment increase was happening, the tourism industry was taking a big hit in revenue generation.
Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett saw the problem and starting the process of trying to convince her government to give the rural tourism operators, who only operate businesses for two or three months, a more reasonable assessment reduction, so they could hold onto their property and their livelihoods.
Cariboo Regional District chair Al Richmond tried to push a resolution seeking assessment relief through the Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention three or four times without success.
However, a common-sense decision was made in the B.C. Liberal 2016 budget, and effective for the 2017 tax year, the reduction in assessment will be upped to $500,000.
