On Thursday, October 31, 2019, at 9:00 AM in the Council Chamber, Municipal Office, 380 Campbell Street, a Special Council Meeting will be held for the purposes of reviewing 2019 Quarter 3 Reports and the 2020-2024 Financial Plan. Tofino residents and businesses are encouraged to attend budget meetings to make Council aware of your priorities and to learn about the process. District staff are available to answer questions, and to distribute your feedback to Council. In general, the annual budget process is as follows:
- August: All Departments submit proposed Budgets
- August-Sept: Detailed Budget Review by CFO, CAO, and each Department
- October/November: First Budget Meeting*
- January: Second Budget Meeting*
- January/February: Public Consultation* (Open Houses, Feedback Forms, Presentations)
- March: Final Budget Meeting* – authorization to prepare Financial Plan and Annual Tax Rates Bylaw based on Budget discussions
- April: Introduce Five-Year Financial Plan and Annual Tax Rate Bylaws*
- Before May 15th: Adoption of Bylaws*; submit to Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
*All meetings are open to the public and advertised in advance.
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5 comments:
Hope everyone can attend these meetings. Particularly the Budget meeting. the Bus proposal open house and the Sharp Road rezoning. We have to get some respect for the taxpayers of Tofino. It has been missing in action or should I say inaction.
Why aren't there referendums for the huge expenses the public is saddled with paying?
I will offer the opinion that there aren't referendums because town councils and regional district boards don't want referendums. Here a few examples
1) Tofino just passed 4th reading of a bylaw to borrow 16 million plus dollars for the Waste Water Treatment Project. Normally borrowing bylaws proceed by way of either "referendum" or the so called "alternate approval process". Referendum is self explanatory and needs little elaboration, the electorate gets to vote. The alternate approval process can be used whereby the council passes the borrowing bylaw and it s up to the electorate to "oopose" through a sort of petition process requiring 10% of the electorate to sign. If they do, this forces a referendum.
However in the case of the case of the Waste Water Treatment Project. This is a "mandated" project which basically means the council is required to do the project as a provincial requirement, and can there for avoid a vote of the electorate. The interesting thing here is the law as I read it says the council "may" proceed and is "not required" to use either the referendum or altermate approval method but they are still making a choice to avoid those methods. Now I believe council is hiding a little bit because they want to act like they cannot use the referendum process or, that they cannot choose to use the referendum process Which I believe is false. What all this means is that they want to spend the money badly enough that they will avoid any such opportunity for the public to stop it. But hey I am just an amateur at this. If you really want to find out pass the hat and collect about $100,000 and you can challenge it in the Supreme Court of B.C
I guess the proof is that Victoria avoided a sewage treatment order for many years. because the politians fought it, although it was going to cost their citizenry about 1/5 per person as Tofinos project is slated to cost us. In Tofino the politicians want it in spite of the consequences. The obvious conflict between the province mandating the project and not adequately considering where the money is to come from, has be the subject of numerous learned papers and reports.
As far as the proposed Bus is concerned ACRD is proceeding by the alternate approval process which means that you have to work and get the opposed vote out to meat the threshold of 10% of the electorate to force a full referendum.
So councils and ACRD have a choice to make. The choice is between assent of the electorate or trying to avoid the assent or perhaps assuming the assent of the electorate or contending that the referendum is so expensive that what the hell lets just go full wild hog That is how I see it. So no referendum for you Chump. Just shut up and pay up.
What will happen if Tofino opposes the Bus Levy and the rest of the areas affected support it? Do we get to opt out? Because our assesments are double the rest of the region it will cost Tofitians double. How can that be fair? They can simply out vote us?, compelling us to pay double? Whoa, this thing is starting to smell. Who got us into this. Don't we have a say on the regional board?
Quote from the District notice: " Tofino residents and businesses are encouraged to attend budget meetings to make Council aware of your priorities "
However, consultations and input from the public are not even considered until as late as Jan/Feb, when all the boxes have already been filled in and all the choices and decisions have already been made. There's then very little time available to go back and re-do anything before the final meeting in March.
I'll remind folks of last years "request for feedback", where 50 responses from the public were received by council, 100% opposing the proposed budget and tax increase. So please explain to me why folks should waste their time and energy attending these meetings and petitioning council, when we'll only be treated like stupid dirt, ignored, and have our taxes raised yet again by an administration that considers itself above listening to the will of the citizens.
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