Earlier this month local households received the latest instalment of their municipal tax bills along with an encouraging newsletter from council outlining the district's "new and important initiatives and accomplishments." Before we crank up the volume on the trumpet fanfare and break out the bubbly, let's do a quick reality check.
In an effort to create jobs and expand our tax base, the Squamish contingent, led by our mayor, hit the ground running in Shanghai last September. Since then, aside from a few formal follow-up meetings, details about the China trade agenda have hovered between sparse and non-existent.
We have been informed that the District of Squamish (DOS) has endorsed a "new approach" to economic development. In theory, hiring an Economic Sustainability co-ordinator should work. In reality variations of that job description have had limited success since the early days of the wobbly Squamish Sustainability Corp.
Council is delighted municipal taxes have been held to a meagre 2.54 per cent increase because of "efficiencies and innovations resulting from the Service Squamish Initiative." For some reason the double-digit utilities hike with which the district has already saddled taxpayers is not mentioned in this newsletter.
A robust 28 per cent of the budget pie is consumed by Protective Services. We get good value for our investment, but what happened to council's gesture to track local Mounties attending "police incidents" along the Sea to Sky Highway?
When that motion was passed in 2009, it was suggested that the DOS was in fact subsidizing a provincial operation up and down the corridor from Whistler to Lions Bay. Two years later, taxpayers are still waiting for that tracking report.
Back in 2002, our local courthouse was closed as a result of provincial cutbacks. For a few years the district lobbied to resurrect a court facility in Squamish without success. With a new administration in Victoria and a provincial election pending, the time may be ripe to revive that proposal. How much money would be saved if RCMP members were not required to travel to the far reaches of North Vancouver to testify? Certainly their time on the road could be channelled into more productive law enforcement activities.
Meanwhile, last November the community policing station, a much-needed RCMP presence downtown, was shuttered for security upgrades. Seven months later that highly visible, district-leased property remains closed for business on this council's watch.
Fire and Rescue, another key municipal service, successfully recruited a large number of new volunteers and hired one additional firefighter. That's good news for local residents and bodes well for a department that has had its share of turmoil, including the ouster of the former chief under a barrage of recriminations. The bad news is that less than two years after they were hired, Chief Tom Easterbrook and Deputy Chief Mike Adams have resigned. Both have voiced their displeasure over council's decision to postpone the Fire Rescue Master Plan until 2012.
Despite these shortcomings and unanswered questions, if we consider organizational changes and major infrastructure studies, the district is on the right track. Taxpayers have even been promised a sustainable service delivery strategy. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
