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A Vernon politician is urging taxpayers to speak out on what he sees as soaring wages at city hall.

A public input session on the city’s 2009 annual report will be held Monday at 5 p.m. in council chambers. It includes remuneration paid out to members of council as well as staff.

“I’m hoping people will read the report and give their input on the future of the city,” said Coun. Bob Spiers.

According to the report, $18.8 million was directed towards earnings, expenses and allowances for employees in 2009. Of that, there were 63 that took home more than $75,000 in earnings.

The gross number of employees in 2009 was 299, compared to 267 in 2008 and 241 in 2007. The net cost of salaries, wages and benefits was $15.6 million in 2008.

There were 41 employees who earned more than $75,000 a year in 2008.

Spiers says the increase in employees has far outpaced population growth in the community.

“It’s like a straight line to the sky,” he said.

“Seventy-eight per cent of the net taxes are going to salaries whereas it was 60 per cent in 2005.”

Spiers continues to push for a core service review, saying it would determine if there is a better way of providing services to residents of Vernon.

“Our workforce has to be examined. It’s our biggest expenditure,” he said.

“The only way you can sustain something is to have revenue coming in and the main source of revenue is taxes.”

The City of Vernon’s 2009 annual report is available at www.vernon.ca.

The province has cut the number of areas it funds to fight West Nile virus.

And while the Central and South Okanagan areas remain on the list, the north Okanagan has been dropped.

According to Central Okanagan Regional District spokesman Bruce Smith, CORD has received $274,500 to fight the virus, an amount that includes an additional $45,000 so CORD can monitor and treat areas on the Westbank First Nation land.

In addition to the Central Okanagan and Okanagan-Similkameen Regional Districts, the Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver were kept on the funding list for this year.

The change was made because the province says it wants to concentrate on the areas deemed to be at highest risk from West Nile virus, a disease that is carried by mosquitoes and can be transferred to humans.

Last year, the provinces first two cases of the virus found in humans were detected in the South Okanagan.

Smith said locally there are 10,000 catch basins used to check and treat for West Nile virus in mosquitoes, most of which are located in Kelowna. Others are in Peachland, Lake Country, West Kelowna and the two electoral areas of the regional district.

Now there will be one set up on WFN land as well, he added.

In the Central Okanagan, the regional district operates the mosquito control program on behalf of its member municipalities ad the WFN.

Concerns have been raised by representatives in the North Okanagan about leaving that area off the funding list as mosquitoes know no boundaries when it comes to their movement. They argue a valley-wide approach is needed and one-third of the valley should not be left out.

While the Central Okanagan and Okanagan-Similkameen Regional Districts deal with West Nile virus measures differently—regional district staff and summer students are used here and a contractor is used down south—Smith said the two regional districts do share in an advertising campaign to raise awareness among private property owners in both areas.

The provincial funding pays for mosquito control only on public land.

Last year, Smith said, funding extending that to Crown land in the area was cut.

The BC Scrap It Program offers qualifying vehicle owners incentives to scrap their older vehicle. The incentive values are based on the greenhouse gas reduction that occurs when an old vehicle is scrapped and an incentive is used as a replacement.

Incentives valued at $2,000 or more are offered for the incentives with the highest greenhouse benefit. These incentives include very low emission vehicles, transit passes, or the transit pass / bicycle combination.

The Central Okanagan Regional Board has authorized the allocation of transit passes as an incentive option for participants in the BC Scrap-it program. Up to 150-three year passes for the Kelowna Regional Transit System (Regional District of Central Okanagan Board Meeting– November 24, 2008) would be available. The new province-wide Scrap-it program is co-funded by the Provincial Government and the BC Scrap-it Society and replaces the local Cash for Clunkers program, which provides incentives when owners of older high emission vehicles permanently take them off the road in exchange for more environmentally friendly modes of transportation. The Society will pay half the value of the transit passes provided to program participants that choose this option.

NOTE* Transit passes are $53.00 per month for an adult ... so $53 over 3 years an adult transit pass is worth $1,908.00
http://www.bctransit.com/regions/kel/fares/

so 150 transit passes worth $1,908 = $286,200

They are only going to help 150 people out of how many people who live in Kelowna?  $286,200 or even half that, would have helped buy a few carpooler vans for Westside Roaders or other rural areas who maybe want to chip in and help pay for the vehicle to share to and from work rather than paying fuel and wear and tear on their own vehicles.  It is a 45 minute drive for some and carpooling would have made a bigger difference and would have helped more people.  Maybe a special insurance system could be worked out by ICBC for vehicles with say RDCO as the owner but the actual drivers have the responsibility.  Maybe just drivers with their own insurance on their own vehicle would be permitted to drive and this persons own insurance would cover damage to RDCO's vehicles if there were an accident? Maybe people without vehicles and insurance could tag along for the ride?  Maybe the person driving pays less and the person without insurance pays more?

The cost of sharing a car from Zip Car Co-operative Auto Network in Vancouver.

This note below was posted on the Scrap It Programs website Jan 17, 2009:

Rookie Westside Coun. Heather Pilling has been forced to resign from office for releasing confidential information to the media.

She told the Capital News that it wasn’t her intention to leave office early, although she was not planning to seek reelection this year for personal reasons.

Meanwhile, Pilling wouldn’t repeat the information that landed her in hot water.

According to a radio station, however, Pilling said that council had approved a 16.4 per cent wage increases, plus 22 per cent benefit improvements for management staff who had been with the district anywhere between three weeks and nine months.

The decision was made at a Sept. 30 in-camera meeting, she said.

According to B.C.’s community charter, a councillor must keep confidential any information discussed during an in-camera meeting until such time as council passes a motion to make the information public.

The district referred all media comments to Westside Mayor Rosalind Neis, who could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

Note from okanaganlakebc.ca
Isn't that nice that council voted pay raises of 16.4% and 22%.  To top it off this councillor is being kicked out for letting out councils secret of this pay raise before it was to be released to the public.  There should never be secrets.... what for???  Eventually the information will come out, so why can't everyone be told when it happens?  Ludicrous!  I am really upset at the older generation who permitted such an undemocratic government to develop like it has with secrets and in camera sessions.  There are such high wages paid to staff.  Should there be such a wage gap between the members of the board and staff like that?  Do you feel staff are overpaid in some instances?

Mr. Frank Campbell’s letter has inspired me to write this letter so that his question can be answered: How many accidents have happened at the intersection of 32nd and PV Rd.

In mid-July, I asked the ICBC Statistics Department if they could please advise me how many accidents they had on record that have occurred at that intersection. The answer came back a few days later that “Fewer than 10 in the last five years." I phoned Patrick Nicol and gave him the information, but I believe by then the decision was made to go ahead no matter what.

Now, my question is this. Who on the nebulous “city staff” came up with the idea that there was some inherent and immediate danger traveling through that intersection?

What kind of information was imparted to council to convince them to consider such an undertaking? I, along with how many others who live in the area and who have traveled through there, can hardly believe that after all the public outcry and inconvenience being perpetrated on the adjacent properties how the city council has the audacity to go through with their plan to construct a roundabout. Someone around there must be benefiting from it because no one else seems to have a problem with it.

If this is an example of what our “staff” does, I’d like to suggest they don’t have enough work to do if they have to create this kind of upheaval in the community.

I, as a taxpayer, believe the city council owes the public a clear explanation as to the particular reasons they insist on going against public opinion.

My understanding about the way government works is that the councillors are “hired” by us taxpayers to represent our interests. It is our tax dollars being wasted on building this unnecessary disruption to the lives of many, and I believe we have a right to an absolutely clear reason for their going ahead with this after so much opposition. If not, well – this should be remembered when the next election comes along.

Linda Bricker

We see a world in turmoil and disintegration as greed, corruption and denial dominate our political, corporate, economic and financial leaders.

This institutional rot permeates every facet and level of our society.

There seems to be no corrective solutions allowed to be put forward by a still sane and aware minority of people.

The mass media, dominated by a handful of profit and power-oriented moguls, has effectively blocked public awareness on crucial issues.

The common people of our country have virtually no ability to decide the course of their lives.

Traitorous, ignorant, out-of-touch political leaders sell off our common inheritance as if it was just another market product.

Our very lives are being put at risk as our ability to provide even the most basic necessities of nutritious food and adequate shelter is being made more impossible by the day. Tyranny is overshadowing our lives.

Through all of this, people are slowly awakening to this nightmare.

The inevitable chaotic scenario that seems imminent is frightening to contemplate, as the wealthy will fight to protect its privileges from a deprived, marginalized mass of people.

Eventually, we must pass from this madness.

But I think the transition will be terrible. I envision much violence, irreversible damage and no certainty of a desirable outcome.

Don Nordin