Charge for Water Use and therefore Sewer Use

For decades all our building have had water meters that go unused or documented. Water is a critical resource and should not be a flat fee. Water use equates to sewer use. Don’t raise flat fee rates by 5%. Charge for actual use. For properties without meters charge the average plays 20% to incentivize them to install a meter. A house with a swimming pool is charged the same water rate as a cabin- just wrong on so many levels.

Reduce some Excessive Services

Many of our services are exceptional and even excessive: Snow clearing of streets could be reduced to significant snow falls. Few towns our size clear streets as often. Our plows do rounds when there is little or now new snow. This would also reduce fuel consumption and GHGs. Annual tree lighting should be reduce for expenses and energy consumption. Look at all services and determine ‘wants’ a versus ‘needs’.

More effective use of the current budget

Increased taxes are not required if the current budget is more effectively used. Council can direct RMOW staff to work across departments to solve issues. For example, the $10M allocated to RMOW for fire management should NOT be spent to cut trees (fuel thinning or fire breaks) because this exacerbates the effects of climate change (heat, flooding) resulting in more GHG emissions for air conditioners and more tax payers' dollars spent on flood control, directly through increased insurance and indirectly through RMOW spending. Rather, the $$ should be focused on direct mitigation of fire ONLY along the border of infrastructure by installing perennial herbaceous plants to retain humidity yearround and sprinklers (only to be used when there is a fire) sourced from rainholding tanks, augmented with more firetrucks and support for fire fighters. With Hwy 99 as the escape route, we need to focus on solutions that are onsite, cost-effective, and proven to work elsewhere. The wiildfire mitigation program should be combined with FireSmart so these federal funds, and provincial fire-related funds are used before local taxpayers funds. The taxpayers funds should instead be focused on educating and actioning the need for firesafe building materials, working with local landscapers and monitoring efficacy of fire mitigation steps including those I have suggested above. I will present other examples in a letter to council.

Regional transit should be planned from Pemberton to start. Too too many single occupancy cars from Pembie every day.

Better transit from Pembie a must

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