This year’s meeting of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities appeared to be full of controversy and disagreements between the province and local government, but Mayor John Dooley says it wasn’t combative at all.
City of Nelson staff, councillors, and Dooley were in Vancouver last week to meet with a variety of ministers and other executives to discuss issues such as policing, transit, health care and housing.
“It wasn’t as controversial or combative as the media made it out to be,” Dooley told the Star.
“In fact, I can recall attending UBCM meetings when I was first elected — it was a war. That was around the time that the Liberals were elected and they changed health care and highways, and they downloaded this that and the other.
“They made a huge number of changes. It was like one knock ‘em down, drag ‘em out scrap after another for years. It’s definitely softened up over the last three years or so.”
Issues such as the municipal auditor and BC Hydro’s smart meters made the headlines of major newspapers, but Dooley said a half dozen smart meter protesters outside the meeting gave the media “something to hang their hat on.”
Dooley said the cost of sending city staff and councillors to the UBCM could be nearly $20,000, but he feels there is value in attending the meetings.
“I don’t see it as an opportunity to get a lot of things done there, but it’s a really good opportunity to introduce your message, your ideas, your wants, your needs and your suggestions,” he said.
“And next week I’ll write a letter to every person that we met with and say ‘these were our topics, here’s what we’ve heard from you, and we’d like to follow up with a further meeting.’”
Unlike mayors near Victoria and in the Lower Mainland, Dooley said Nelson doesn’t have easy access to meetings with ministers.
TRANSIT NOT ONLY AT NELSON’S TABLE
During the meetings in Vancouver, the city was able to meet with BC Transit to continue talks around changes to the transit system and the plans for regional integration.
Recent changes to Nelson’s transit system have been met with public protest, including packed council chambers.
“It was kind of ironic because in conversations with BC Transit and other municipal mayors that have a transit system we realized they’re all facing similar challenges,” said Dooley.
“The costs are escalating, the ridership is not going up. Even though it would appear as though there’s a connection to transit for many people in the community, in many cases it’s more of an emotional connection than it is an actual ridership connection.”
At the special council meeting on September 19, council moved to adopt BC Transit’s changes which include no service to Perrier Road, the elimination of service to the Waldorf School and reduced summer service, which will become regular service.
“We just made the changes to our transit system literally in the last few months, and now other municipalities are heading down the same path with BC Transit,” said Dooley.
“Hopefully our first step in the municipality is leading to the next step in the regional area, which will actually realize a better transit system at the end of the day, one that’s more frequent, more efficient and more affordable.”
Municipalities like Saanich on Vancouver Island face similar changes as they work to integrate their transit systems with the City of Victoria, and Dooley said many will be looking to Nelson as they move forward.
“The Nelson model that we’re working on and the integrated model for the region, is actually going to be used by BC Transit as an opportunity to demonstrate what’s happening in the Kootenays might be a template for other areas as well.”
STRENGTHENING THE POSITION OF KLH
Even though health care doesn’t fall under the municipal jurisdiction, Dooley met with health minister Mike de Jong and the board chair of the Interior Health Authority to discuss hospital renovation and the retinology clinic.
“Health care may not be our responsibility, but it’s our moral responsibility to our community because it’s an important piece of what makes up a community and our quality of life here, so we feel we definitely have a responsibility for it,” he said.
The arrival of the new CT scanner to Kootenay Lake Hospital is an upgrade to the service provided, but Dooley said several other upgrades are in the works.
“We wanted to make sure they were kept on the front burner and not the back one,” said Dooley about the meeting with the minister. “The new emergency wing shifts the whole make up of the front entrance to the hospital. Part of that project was the new emergency room and that leaves the new area, which is currently reception, open to additional renovations. We obviously want to see that move forward as well.”
The renovations would include upgraded office space and technology, including better communications.
“Nelson is very well positioned to take advantage of a lot of telemedicine programs being offered right now and we would like to see that more deeply integrated into our hospital,” he said.
“It is currently happening but we are in a position to be a major player in that area. With the new CT scanner we think it’s more important than ever to have that telemedicine opportunity at the hospital. All of the offices for the administrative staff at the hospital need a lot of upgrades.
“We want to continue to move projects forward step by step as we can afford them for the betterment of not only our community but the surrounding area for the delivery of health care.”
Other upgrades to the hospital include replacing single glaze windows to improve energy efficiency.
“Recently we spent a lot of money on a new air conditioning system. Well, you’re just throwing good money after bad if you don’t upgrade your walls and your windows as well,” he said. “There are a lot of projects sitting there that we want to just keep putting in. Every time we get one completed we want to shove another one so that the ministry is aware that we’re not done yet. We’ve got a long way to go but we’re committed to it.”
Dooley also wants to see the retinology clinic move forward at the hospital.
“We have a specialist coming in now to work there and we’d like to be able to retain him,” he said.
“The hospital foundation has committed the funds for equipment and we would like the ministry to come in partnership with the regional hospital board. That’s what we’re working on right now and that is an important piece for our hospital.”
Dooley was pleased with the response from the ministry and said that because many of the projects are relatively small, they are easier to fund.
“Going forward they’re in the $2 million to $4 million bracket and those are manageable projects. They’re not only manageable for the ministry and Interior Health, but they’re also manageable for the taxpayer,” he said.
SOMETHING WITH THE WATER
Health authorities throughout the province have conducted water audits and introduced new water quality standards, but Dooley said the standards introduced by the Interior Health are inconsistent with others in the province.
“The requirements they’re asking us to deliver for water are much higher than other regions,” he said. “We can’t get an answer from them as to why that is. The science doesn’t support their levels of quality, and we’ve had a water system operating without any problems for 100 years here.”
If the city attempted to meet the requirements of the health authority, it would cost the municipality anywhere from $15 million to $20 million to do the upgrades.
“We’re not asking them to lower their standards. What we’re asking them to do is to recognize systems that actually work well and that they may need some upgrades but not to that extent — that’s almost a completely new water system,” said Dooley.
MUNICIPAL AUDITOR ISSUE NOT AS HOT AS THOUGHT
The province announced at the UBCM meeting that they would introduce a dedicated auditor to oversee municipal spending.
Media coverage of the meeting indicated the decision created a lot of upheaval, but Dooley said in the end municipalities tried to look at how to make it work.
“There’s always an emotional response to these issues and the emotional response right off the bat is ‘It’s none of their business. We’ll run our own the way we want and we were elected to do this and that,’” he said.
“But then the common sense response has to kick in eventually and that is ‘Is this a good or a bad thing? Is it helpful? Are there helpful parts to it? Are there ways we can work with them to make it better?’ and that’s really what we got to at the end.”
Dooley indicated that he thought the decision was being driven by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses.
“They seem to think that municipalities aren’t spending their money right or shouldn’t be spending money or we shouldn’t have government as far as they’re concerned,” he said.
“The ministry in their wisdom seem to think we need a municipal auditor and we’re not opposed to the idea but the make up of it is important. They need to recognize that we have our own autonomy as well.”
The Union passed a resolution that the municipal auditor’s office have an advisory board made up of businesses and municipal politicians.
“We don’t want the cost of that operation to be passed on to the municipalities either,” said Dooley. “If the ministry wants it they can have it but we want to make sure that they’re going to pay for it.”
OUT OF THE RCMP FRAY
Unlike other communities of its size in the area, Nelson has its own municipal police force, and unlike communities who have policing provided by the RCMP, Nelson does not receive government subsidies for policing.
Concerns around funding for RCMP and municipal police forces were addressed in a meeting with Minster of Public Safety and Solicitor General Shirley Bond.
“In our case with the municipal police force we get no subsidy,” said Dooley. “Say a municipality our size with a similar amount of policing from the RCMP: our budget is $2 million and their budget is $2 million but 20 per cent of their costs can be subsidized by the feds, but we don’t get 20 per cent subsidies from the province.”
Dooley said the RCMP contract is a “quagmire” with the provincial government because even though the contract hasn’t changed over the last few years, the way they’re doing business has changed “substantially.”
“They’re passing on more of the costs of policing on to municipalities,” he said.
Little progress was made with regards to an equitable funding formula. Dooley said the province believes money the Nelson Police Department collects from tickets should offset costs.
“The province seems to think for some unknown reason that the fact that we get revenue from tickets that we issue for speeding and so forth should help offset that, but in fact it’s a long way from offsetting it,” he said.
“If we could give tickets out on the highway we might have more success than we do in the municipality. Most people tend to obey the law when they’re in the municipality, so our ticket revenue is not as high as the province would like us to think it is.”
The province also addressed the idea of a provincial police force to replace the RCMP.
“The provincial police force is definitely in their back pocket. But there again there’s a huge infrastructure that goes along with it.”