 | Friday, July 24, 2020
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | If I had a billion dollars (I'd buy you some medium-term stability for regional transportation systems) | | |  | | | There was plenty of social media tumult (is there any other?) over a bunch of municipal issues this week: Vancouver’s latest vote over a big tower, Summerland’s mayor taking a direct stand against racist paraphernalia in her community, questions over what municipalities could do to reduce the recent surge of COVID-19 cases.
But the most important piece of news came in a little-mentioned press release by the province on Wednesday afternoon — guaranteeing up to $1 billion more in support for transit and municipalities affected by COVID-19.
It will have a huge impact, as it ensures people won’t see huge cuts to core city services and public transportation, despite the big loss of revenue to TransLink and municipalities. “We know cities and our transit systems have been under incredible stress,” said New Westminster Mayor and TransLink Mayors’ Council Chair Jonathan Coté.
“To finally get a bit more clarity in terms of funding support puts us in a much better position to plan.”
Coté said that because B.C. avoided a worst or even medium-case pandemic scenario so far, financial losses aren’t catastrophic — more than 70 per cent of New West residents had paid their property taxes weeks before the deadline.
Like most cities though, they’ve still seen a big hole in their budget ($12 million, in New West’s case) due to the closure of buildings and programs that typically generate revenue.
“There’s still a lot of a lot of uncertainties, even thinking about [when] things are running, what is going to be the demand levels?” said Coté.
“What are going to be the new health protocols that are going to have to be in place? We’ll have to make appropriate adjustments as we work through that, but I think having support from the provincial government will help us get through this transition period.”
Of course, the budget being provided for that “transition period” will only last until the middle of next year. And cities and TransLink will still have some minor cuts to contemplate, particularly if they want to be more conservative in the face of COVID uncertainty.
But that extra billion dollars will mean you’ll likely hear a lot less about cuts and cancellations to municipal services in the months ahead.
One of those situations where no news is good news. | | |  | | | 1. Vancouver | After several weeks of well-documented delays, Vancouver moved forward on a number of issues this week; fully approving an independent auditor general and narrowly approving a tall rental tower on a 6-5 vote chief among them. But it will be a unanimous motion asking the Vancouver Police Department to ban street checks that will get the most attention in the months ahead — because it will be up to the independent Police Board to implement or not.
Read more | | | | |  | | | 2. Summerland | The Okanagan community of around 10,000 people got national attention when Mayor Toni Boot decided a dollar store selling confederate bandanas was unacceptable after a racist incident in town, and tore them all up. The store owner's response has been, to put it mildly, all over the place — including trying to press charges on the mayor, and claiming the bandanas were part of a COVID-19 response.
Read more from InfoNews | | | |  | | | 3. Port Moody | No, municipalities don't have too many responsibilities these days when it comes to COVID-19 prevention methods — but they can deal with some of the spillover effects of the pandemic. See: Port Moody, which says with more people doing staycations, surrounding parks are full to the brim, so they're upping parking enforcement and fines as a response. Whether it changes behaviour is to be determined.
Read more in the Tri-City News | | | | | |  | | | 4. Kelowna | As the epicentre of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, Kelowna is exploring ways to limit large crowds, even though their options are limited due to provincial control. Meanwhile, this week the city was one of the first communities in B.C. to release their homeless count figures from the provincewide collection done in March — but with everything that's changed due to the pandemic, those figures won't be a great indicator compared to previous counts.
Read more in the Kelowna Now | | | |  | | | 5. Sayward | We're not sure what's going on in the small Vancouver Island community of 300 people. But when you've had four mayors in four months, no explanation as to why any of them left, a chief administrative officer who has also quit, and the first council meeting in months featuring a councillor allegedly standing up with clenched fists at one point, it's worth wondering why the province hasn't stepped in to provide some guidance.
Read more in the Campbell River Mirror | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | That's it for us today! Check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions, you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
