Committee of the Whole

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

We'll call the meeting to order and we'll begin by acknowledging our friends and neighbors, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

This meeting is being held under the auspices of Ministerial Order M192 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health officers' orders.

This afternoon and this evening, the public will be able to weigh in under public participation and the question period portions of the agenda.

The phone number is on the screen should you like to call in under public participation.

This afternoon's public participation will come up very quickly, and the evening one will obviously be shortly after seven o'clock.

The number is 778 402 9227.

And when prompted, enter conference ID 190 335 445 Pound.

And at the appropriate time in the agenda, I will announce the last four digits of your phone number.

I'll ask you to mute your live webcast to avoid feedback, ask you not to use speakerphone to ensure sound quality, and ask that you unmute yourself by pressing star six.

And if you can give us your name and address, and then you can give us the benefit of your views.

And the chat feature is the same thing if you can give your name and address into the chat feature.

This meeting will be recorded by participating in this webcast.

You are consenting to being recorded, and the recording will be available on the town's website for future access.

And we do have here in council chambers, we have four members of council, and then councillor Rogers is also here, but he's here via Microsoft Teams and joining us virtually.

And so with that, I need a motion to approve the agenda.

Okay, the agenda.

Uh Ryan has asked that we put that on to this evening's agenda so he could participate in the call or hear the call.

Oh so put that on for sure.

Either under well, why don't we put it under parks?

I mean, that's probably where it should be.

So we're gonna move the piece of correspondence 7a, the off-leash dogs into the parks component of the agenda.

Okay, okay.

With that, I'm happy to move on.

Okay, thank you.

So moved by Councillor Mattson, seconded by Councillor Lemon.

All in favor, opposed, that's carried.

Okay.

And then we have minutes from March the 9th.

Submitted option.

Moved by Councillors Lemon and Matson.

All in favor, posed, that's carried.

There's no petitions and delegations.

So we are at public participation now already.

Um so we'll just have a brief pause, a not long one, maybe just in case anybody wanted to call in them the real meat of the meeting, I think, is this evening more than this afternoon.

Well, actually, there's a lot on both.

So is are there any callers on the line stuff?

Your worship, currently there are no callers.

Yeah, thank you.

And is there anyone on the chat feature?

Thank you, Mayor Screech.

We have no chat comments this afternoon.

Okay, thank you.

Well, I think we'll move on.

Um and we'll go to Protective Services and Councillor Lemmon.

Thank you, Your Worship.

Uh I have no report.

There's no business arising.

And uh Chief Hurst, would you like to speak to us regarding the fireworks bylaw?

Thank you, Councilor, Mayor and Council.

Uh, before you as a report, um some time back, council requested a review of our fireworks bylaw.

Um just to give you a brief uh history, uh, the discharge of fireworks during Halloween um is um regulated, however, the sale is prohibited in the Town of View Royal, as in the rest of the Western communities.

Back in uh 2018, um sorry, uh prior to 2018, there was a bylaw created to prohibit the sale of fireworks and control the discharge in View Royal.

Um I was asked to do a review of the bylaw with our neighbors in Calwood and Langford to determine if the bylaw was still effective or there were any issues or it should be revamped or revisited in discussions with those communities and then reviewing our statistical data for the bylaw.

Fire hasn't received any complaints regarding fires or injuries as a result of fireworks discharge, and our bylaw department hasn't received any complaints.

That's not to say there hasn't been complaints, but uh we haven't received anything uh in those two departments.

Generally, the bylaw is working well with respect to obviously the sale and the prohibiting prohibiting of sale.

Uh, however, the discharge people are still able to buy fireworks through Costco or online, and that's really what's created the issue here is you can now buy fireworks just about anywhere and have them delivered to your home.

So limiting the sale on the West Shore is nearly impossible at this point.

Um, no one in the region has made any moves to adjust their bylaw to prohibit the discharge.

And after reviewing it, it would be nearly impossible for us to actually regulate the discharge and control the discharge.

I think we've realized tremendous success um with the fireworks courses, the safety courses, in having people uh who are going to discharge them, discharge them safely.

And I think that's been evidenced by the fact that we haven't had any injuries or fires in the in the last several years.

Um, but a complete revamp or um a more stringent bylaw uh just wouldn't be prudent at this time based on the the past year's evidence.

And the report is before you.

If there's any questions, I'm more than happy to answer those questions.

Questions?

Council Madison?

So we had any complaints through to the RCMP on fireworks and through all.

That's a good question, and I would I would defer that to my colleague.

Um the authority for uh the firework if if there were a complaint and there were a seizure, that would fall under the auspices of the RCMP.

We don't have the ability to seize.

I'm pretty confident the RCMP probably received fireworks complaints or the discharging of fireworks complaints at Halloween or or leading up to.

Um and I would defer to the inspector if he he might have some.

I don't think he'd have the numbers, but he probably has a sense that they do receive complaints.

But in View Royal, we we received none from the fire department, none in the bylaw department.

Any other questions?

Oh just yeah I mean we obviously we certainly get uh complaints throughout the year about uh fireworks oftentimes it'll come in um sometimes it comes in with gunshots uh and other times they appear more specific that it is fireworks, firecrackers and that we go to uh investigate oftentimes they they're out of trouble, they believe that it's fireworks, but I'm not 100% sure if it's gunshots or fireworks but we certainly we do uh we attend all those calls and um you know I don't think we're gonna go uh we're gonna go avoid that okay there's great I how many permits do we hand out?

Do you have an idea of like roughly how many this this past year we handed out six six discharge permits and i believe the year before it was it was three or four between colwood langford view royal highlands machosen we offer the course and probably 50 to 60 people take the course and then permits permits in view royal is very low it's usually what's happening is a neighborhood will get together they'll get one permit for uh for a neighborhood combine their fireworks and then let them go not dissimilar to handgun regulations, we're not going to be able to control the the the people who are going to abide by the rules are going to abide by them and they're not the ones that are causing the problems.

It's the it's the ones that buy the fireworks outside of Victoria and then just discharge them at well throughout the community.

Because it it does seem like in the and I and I know why you're saying but but it certainly seems like in the last couple of years that it's been worse right in in terms of the numbers going off.

And I've certainly had and I think council has as well had more negative feedback from issues to do with people's pets to birds to um and again I mean I don't know how you manage it but I mean it's yeah.

Yeah it you know it's one of those and and I we really we we discussed this at length with my colleagues and and we all agreed.

I mean, we could put in a full prohibition of discharge and the sale, and I there's just no way to enforce it.

As long as people can go online and order a thousand dollars worth of fireworks and have them delivered to their doorstep.

We have no way of controlling where they're coming from and when they're being discharged.

Um, we figured our best approach was to actually help people discharge them safely if they're going to.

And at least we with a permit system we know where they're being discharge, and those permits are sent to the RCNP on Halloween night, and then they have an idea of where they are in the community.

Just like Fentanyl.

Yeah, I had no idea you could just order fireworks online.

Yeah.

That was that was kind of the um things were going well until until that happened, and then one large box store.

You could just you could pick up the phone and order them, and that kind of uh that really handcuffed us because it was pretty quiet for a couple of years up until that happened okay so all right uh question John oh John sorry counselor yes thank you very much um Paul refresh my memory um how often or how long is the training course valid for uh do they have to take the training every year and how long are the per permits valid for the permits are valid just for the the day of discharge the course is uh it's about one hour and it uh lasts it's a three year it's a three year course and then you would have to retake it after three years.

This year with we actually moved it to online, which was quite successful.

And uh that's a it's good for three years.

Yeah.

I certainly I I agree with um uh the mayor.

Uh the amount of uh use and any all the days of Halloween um including Halloween, uh it seems to be that much more um prolific.

And uh there is a one resident around the Glen Airly area that uh will let off fireworks that's very extensive um last 10 or 15 minutes that causes uh considerable concern for the uh the residents uh in around uh Christie Point.

So uh and your your point's well taken about online purchases.

Uh I've looked into that, and the good news is that the shipping of uh fireworks is not permitted through Canada Post, so the um expensive couriers have to be used, and that could be considered a bit of a deterrent.

Yeah, unf unfortunately if you just drive north of the Malahat, yeah, drive 20 minutes north, you're you're into the Wild West of fireworks sales.

Sure.

And you can get anything you want.

Sure.

A further question, uh chair.

Is have we done any work in trying to um uh help or ask the wild west to uh uh also consider our uh bylaws and restrictions to make it more consistent and harder for those uh to bring down over the Malahat?

How do we do that?

There there hasn't been any discussion with any other municipalities outside of the CRD.

I think it would have to be a province-wide regulation to to really have any cause and effect.

It would it would certainly be uh nice if the cowage and um Cobble Hill, anywhere from Duncan South, um if those folks would uh be willing to do so, uh may not have to be a regional, but um I wonder it'd be curious to find out if they are considering similar um uh restrictions like us.

Okay, we're good.

Thank you very much.

Well, we had a question from Councillor Matson.

Oh, sorry.

Oh I'll just comment on David's motion.

Okay.

Okay.

Do we have a second or sure?

Okay, comment.

Yeah, just you know, I haven't seen enough issues with fireworks to for for it to require more staff time in terms of you know if it becomes an issue, then do something more.

Right.

But other than that, it seems to be under control.

Right.

I suspect um some residents aren't aware of the permit system.

No.

And I suspect some might be, but just don't.

Choose choose to ignore the said permit system.

Yes.

Anyway, um, thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Off with you.

Paul, can you do me a favor and I'll open that blind when you go back?

It's not easy.

Thanks.

Just just yet.

Just Inspector Preston.

Mayor, thanks for having me.

Hi.

Mr.

Um, just to go over some brief uh statistics for the last quarter.

So thus far, uh the first three months in uh January, February, March, the RCP responded to uh 849 general occurrences in uh View Royal, which is a 16% or 119 file increase from from last year at this time.

Wow.

Um we have a nine percent increase uh in in violent crime uh in the area.

And uh a decrease of 21 percent in property crime uh over last year at this time.

The can I ask it, was there a theme to the increase the 16 percent i i can't uh i mean i i like to blame everything on covet but uh i really don't know that there's any one specific thing it's just not a lot not uh uh enough data there you know three months period to say yeah there's we got a we got an issue here um the uh i mean it's it's great to say that there's a 21 percent or a decrease in property crime that's uh that's always a good thing to say uh 55 general occurrences up at the hospital um of interest.

There were three assaults uh that were reported, three sexual assaults actually that were reported.

One in february, two in march, one uh patient assaulting a staff member, a patient um assaulting another patient, and then a allegation that a doctor had assaulted a patient as well.

Lots of the calls up there, you know, mental health act, check well-being, um, abandoned 911s and assaults.

Kind of those are the common common themes up at the hospital.

Um, dealing with obviously lots of mental health issues when we deal with the hospital oftentimes, unfortunately.

Uh, the Great Canadian Casino, obviously, it's been closed uh for most of the time here.

Um, there's eight eight calls for service in those three-month period, and then a lot of that would just be uh probably people trespassing.

And they they remotely watch that.

I think it's from Richmond.

Um, they have their their camera system.

So as soon as they see people milling about or trying to break in, or you know, parkades or what have you, they give us a call.

So um, in the grand scheme of things, nothing earth shattering there, but there was eight calls for service over the last three months there.

Uh 28.

We actually had a decrease in mental health uh calls over the last three months, which is great.

Uh great to see.

Decrease of 33 percent, uh, 14 files.

Um, so there's only 28 for the for the View Royal area for for uh those three months.

So we um we've been making sure that the members have been provided designated areas in each uh municipality, the seven municipalities that uh we're responsible for.

We continue to make sure that police presence uh visibility is a uh certainly a very much at the forefront of our minds and a priority.

Um, the traffic enforcement uh Corporal Jacobson, he's got a full team now, so it's uh corporal and three constables that are fully staffed and they're which is much needed because we are getting more and more traffic complaints as the West Shore gets busier and busier.

So it's nice to have them fully staffed.

They had a 90-day IRP here recently, I think it was the last couple of weeks in V Royal.

They also on March 2nd, there was a prohibited driver who was arrested at the six mile shell with a prohibited weapon, fentanyl and methamphetamine.

March 26th, an impaired driver was stopped on Burnett Road, and vehicle was impounded at that point.

And probably most concerning was uh a couple days ago, April 12th, where we had uh a report of an indecent act uh at the V Royal Elementary School where an adult male uh allegedly exposed himself to young girls around 3 15 in the afternoon so our uh GIS or serious crimes is uh taking custody of that and we're looking into that so that's the the crux of the last three months here um I know you wanted to talk about uh I'll let you ask a question there.

Yeah well you have a question to the report?

Yes I do.

Okay.

Uh you said there was a 9% increase in violent crimes.

Uh just describe what like define violent crimes uttering threats assaults um typically it's assaults or uh uttering threats, those those types of things.

Okay.

Is that like, you know, within family or uh it's it's a wide it could be anything from domestics to um you know, just off the top of my head yesterday there was uh a road rage incident where somebody punched another person because they were mad at them through a construction zone or what have you or you know, last we had uh domestics last night, uh all sorts of things.

So it could be it can certainly be a wide range.

Is that sort of Langford people going home causing trouble in our areas?

They say the same thing uh over here.

So yeah.

I don't think I have any specific.

John, we have a question to the report.

Uh no, thank you.

Okay.

Um, I I contacted Inspector Preston after last week's meetings at last week and told him we may well be interested in some information about sex trafficking and sex tourism, as per the um the information we received from Ms.

Peters last week.

And uh I think he's come with some information.

Yeah, just you know what, and and um I think this has also made his rounds because I had similar questions from um one of the counselors in Callwood.

Okay.

And they're talking not about so much sex trafficking.

I perhaps they were referring to that, but they were actually talking about trafficking in persons, uh, which is kind of there's two distinct things there, but um they they fall in the same umbrella.

Um, so I'm happy to report there's certainly been no trafficking in persons uh report since 2018 um in this uh in this jurisdiction.

Uh sexual services, communicating, procuring uh over and under the age of 18.

There's been no no reports since January 18, or sorry, January 2018 to present uh in this particular area.

I mean, we're we're very well aware of um you know Rock Bay and some of the areas downtown where prostitution is prevalent, um sex trafficking is prevalent, um, you know, probably underage trafficking is also present.

It's just not as um overt or present uh uh in this particular area.

In terms of sexual exploitation, in June 30th, 2018, Lankard, we had a uh report of uh sexual exploitation, and that was a report of a male pimping young girls.

The file was concluded that there was no evidence to proceed with uh with charges.

So it was unsubstantiated, which means at that point we couldn't say it was happening, or we couldn't say it wasn't happening.

We just there was just not enough evidence to to proceed with uh with charges or a further investigation after we we actually took took on the investigation.

Uh July 23rd, 2018, um, a report of an altercation and accusations that an older male was driving a 15-year-old uh female in his SUA SUV and trying to hire hookers and trying to give her drugs, again insufficient evidence to proceed with that file.

And again, this is uh 2018, we're referring back to.

Um that one was in uh Langford, May 12th in Machosen.

We had a foster parent charge with sex assault, exploitation, and interference in making child pornography.

Um, and so the victim was a foster child at that point.

Um July 7th, 2020, in View Royal.

We had a um an anonymous allegation that uh a known public masturbator attempted to lure two youth males into the bushes at uh Prior Lake to have the masturbate with him.

No victims were identified, unknown uh who made the allegation, and uh the soc, the subject of complaint, um, actually later denied the allegation.

So again, we we don't know if if it's it was unsubstantiated.

We couldn't say enough if there was somebody that was threatening the uh subject of complaint or or what have you, or how that allegation came to be, but it was in your jurisdiction, and and we weren't able to substantiate um anything on that.

Um we do get you know sexting and and those types of complaints.

We get tons of child child pornography, um, distribution.

Um I know my friend Ari gets his uh his department as well.

Um it's it's becoming a real issue of uh child exploitation through the internet.

Um, as not so much as the physical on the street, but certainly the uh the selling, the making and the distributing of uh uh images, it's absolutely sickening.

It's it's asinine to to if if people actually understood how much there is out there.

Um we've got a team of our GIS investigators that constantly have files on the go, constantly.

Every day I go up there and we have a sign that's literally outside the uh the office there that said, you know, basically warning um child porn being viewed because we have to view the images, unfortunately, um, to see how many images, who they're being distributed to.

And then Crown makes a determination, sometimes based on uh how many images and to what degree the images were, you know, what age groups.

And so it really has it's unfortunate that we have to go to that uh into that depth to get that because there's no doubt that that's uh causing some mental health uh issues for our membership having to watch this stuff or um view these images all day long.

But um this isn't a one-off, it's uh it's a significant problem.

And area chiefs has recognized that this is a problem, and they I know that a lot of them they they don't have perhaps the central sanites, the oak Bays, um uh even I think Big PD, they don't quite have as many resources that they could put to that.

We're fortunate uh here.

We've got eight GIS investigators and they investigate everything from you know child child porn to attempted murder, egg assaults in that in between.

So we do have the capability, and we also have an in-house analyst that uh a digital analyst that can break into all these computers and uh we don't have to farm that out.

So we do have the capability of doing a lot of the stuff in house, and um it is like I said, it's crazy how much uh how many individuals are actually in this involved in this.

It's gross.

It's it's simply gross.

No other word board.

Um how does how how does it get into your hands?

Uh is it by a complaint of somebody who is believed to be, or is it international rings that you are connecting?

Oh, good question.

Um typically we so we have in Green Timbers, we have uh a unit there, our ice unit there.

They actually they they surf, they they're on there basically surreptitiously, they're they're on the internet floating uh in these circles.

They're able to identify individuals that are distributed, they can they can put um basically a marking on some of the imaging, and then when that imaging gets transferred or on the internet, it gets flagged.

And those images then are we we figure out um whose computer it's on, which um at an address, and so then we have to write a warrant because we know that that person is is sending that image off your computer, off their computer.

And so then it's quite a bit of work because then we have to write a warrant for that residence to try to seize the computer that has sent that image.

And so they'll send that to the POG, so the police of jurisdiction.

So they're sending them to Sanich, they're sending them to Victoria, they send them to OK, Central Saint, and everybody else.

Um, and then from there we investigate.

Now sometimes you'll also get the ones that hey, I stumbled on, and uh, you know, so and so in my house is you know, watching child porn or or what have you, but a lot of times it comes in from our central uh team that's in uh Green Tambers in in Vancouver that does that for the province of British Columbia.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Just I guess.

Councilor Roman, Richardson.

John, yeah, yes, thank you.

Question.

Um I'm wondering about the dark web.

Is that um uh a significant issue and uh how easy or difficult is it for um uh law enforcement to break into that and and deal with those that realm um how hard how hard is it for us to to yeah is the is the dark web um uh uh you know uh a significant problem in in terms of being the source and and being difficult to track uh where it's coming from and uh are you then able to track who's um accessing and downloading?

Yeah, and it so again, kind of um what I was saying before is the IP address.

We're able to track the IP address, and that's kind of the start point for the investigation saying, hey, there's an IP address at this you know particular land address that's distributing um child porn.

Because it's and then we see track from there.

Right.

So it's the IP address coming and going.

Yeah, and the images that are flagged and marked.

Um just quick on anything that keeps you uh keeps you up at night.

What's what are the big the big issue for you in view?

Just knowing just knowing the fire department isn't up at night.

That's the that's the only thing that keeps me up at night.

Anything else we're going to do.

I just had a quick comment.

I there's a lady in in Northview Royal who who wrote me quite a long note.

I should have forwarded it to you, but I don't know what what happened exactly.

But there was someone um fast asleep behind a bus stop.

Clearly passed out she thought he was dead.

So they called the RCMP and they responded quickly.

The ambulance responded quickly and everything, you know he was taken away.

But what really impressed her was the fact that someone from the RCMP called her back about 45 minutes later and just said, you know, we hope hope everything's fine and if you have any other concerns except her let me know.

And it's she was just blown away with that sort of extra touch.

But yeah.

You know that's uh it's it's coincidental timing.

I actually brought it up with a member last night that uh he went and dealt with a file and he knocked on the door tried to um let the individual know in person she wasn't home then uh phoned her later wasn't home and concluded the file and we have six operational support uh retired I think I've told you about these staff before these operate these old retired members I shouldn't call them old I'm live here too hey uh but uh we have uh six retired members there that um two a day that work there and I I've harped on them and it's worked out fantastic.

When the members for whatever reason can't get a hold of um the individuals, they leave a message for the reviewers and they'll call the next day.

And they've had some incredible feedback saying, hey, thank you so much for the call.

They're not even a lot of them aren't even concerned with the outcome.

Right.

Just the fact that you took the time to someone followed up the respect to call them back.

So I appreciate that comment there.

Yeah.

Good.

Good.

We're good.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

See you next time.

Thanks.

See you next month.

So that's it for you.

That's it for me.

So moving on to finance and admin.

And the first thing we have up is the citizen budget online engagement results.

Uh yes, your worship.

Well, if you would like a quick um overview of the report, if you wish.

Otherwise, I'm here to answer questions.

Okay, thank you.

Let me see what folks would like.

Do you want a presentation on it?

Or everybody good?

I'm good.

Yeah, I think it was fairly self-explanatory in the report, Don.

It was interesting to read the comments.

Certainly.

More more than I I think actually than the questions, maybe.

There was there was more in the comments.

I kept on thinking that um Councillor Mattson must have filled it out because there's one person who regularly kept saying, right, I can't, I was trying to find it, but it was something like times are tough, cut, cut, cut, or something like that.

You watched the same movie I did, I guess.

Are there any questions for staff?

Yes, your worship.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

This is an interesting process that we went through, and I realized we were using a boilerplate methodology from some company.

That uh more information, more context, uh particularly given uh the extensive work that staff did in and council deliberations on uh identifying uh the issues in this uh this year's budget and and being able to provide that uh as as a base, as a like I say, a preamble.

Um the there was no summary of the the budget documents, which were pretty hefty and and challenging to go through and that might have um also uh solicited some discussion and some consideration as people went through the uh um the survey I was um I was trying to think of what keep the same meant but I've been gathering it meant uh zero tax increase is that um is that staff's understanding or members understanding that that's what keep the same meant zero percent uh uh if if I may, your worship, um so yes, um I I I do appreciate your comments about about the preamble.

It is always difficult to you know kind of understand exactly where people are at and make sure that you know people are getting the information where and when and how they want to receive it.

Certainly, you know, in the budget document itself there was a more extensive um preamble that they that might have helped.

And I know the first page of the citizen budget um uh tool did have links to these documents.

Um so then to you know, so so you know, that's uh certainly always room for improvement.

Absolutely.

Um to answer your question about what keep the same meant, um uh my understanding um and what I I'm I was hoping would be conveyed was that um you know, here's the budget, um looking at this budget document would you keep it the same as what was proposed in this document or would you increase it or would you decrease it?

So this is this is what we're talking about.

We're talking about this budget.

How do you like this budget?

Would you make any changes or would you have different priorities?

Oh that's okay that's certainly not my my impression and um hmm yeah all the more reason then for the preamble um because it I really understood that to be an and uh the the few folks that I knew took it uh were thinking uh that it simply meant a zero percent increase um because um you know you you saw that it was um you know they had the range of uh one two three four more one two three four five uh less so uh I think there might have been some confusion in that and it would probably be helpful next time to uh be uh a lot clearer but I I think reaching out to the community was uh was really good and like uh the mayor said the comments were very helpful yes yes I agree and um if I may remind council uh this uh engagement with citizen budget and the company that provides it Othello was a two year pilot program we don't have plans uh as yet in in the future budgets to to repeat this, but that would be certainly at uh council's direction.

Thank you.

I may have my numbers wrong because I was I just looked at this and it said something like 77 out of 880 people who reviewed or looked at the website only responded to the survey, which is kind of disappointing just in terms of the numbers.

But I for for an issue that's coming up later on, I did want to point out that uh uh the top three issues that receive the greatest attention from Reroyal are asked to select which ones it should be.

Uh affordable housing is way down in the list, just for today's discussion.

That's nine percent versus Yeah, although as as also pointed out by staff, it's very important to realize that these aren't scientific findings.

It's a random survey.

Right?

Oh, I yeah, but I'm just as reliable, probably as a CFAX poll without trying to cast too many aspersions on it.

I rely on CFAX polls.

I just wanted to point out that no one really cares about affordable housing.

Yeah, well, I don't think that's true, though.

That's why I made those comments.

But anyhow.

We'll dispute that one later.

Okay.

Any questions for Don?

Go ahead.

Although there's I didn't like how many people responded.

I think the way the report's set out in terms of you know, with all the charts, etc.

Uh, you know, good information and good job on doing that.

Thank you.

It's certainly interesting in the comments to get, you know, the thoughts of what's concerning some people, even though they're not really many of them aren't really budget related, but it gives some good feedback on on things.

Clearly, we need to get it out there that we do actually plant quite a few perennials throughout the town as well as annuals.

Um, something we need to work on.

But anyhow.

Okay, so we just need a motion to receive.

Sure.

My I will my one last comment is look as if our our our that environmental group has got all their members to fill in and I thought that as well.

Yeah, yeah, yes, that crossed my mind.

Yeah.

So receipt is moved by Councillor Matz and seconded by Councillor Lemon.

Thank you, Don.

That's carried.

Welcome.

All in favor.

So next we have item B, which is the 2021 to 2025 financial plan approval.

There is a staff recommendation there.

I was wondering whether I can't.

I'm happy to move staff recommendation.

My concern is do we have anybody out there actually watching this who needs to see what we're doing in terms of to get a sort of an overview of the budget at this point in time?

Or okay.

I think it's do we have an audience out there, or is it just many times?

But if there's anyone in the audience, they might not have.

That's my only thought.

Yeah.

I mean, I think in general the budget is out there pretty well, right?

Through the the previous process and it's been in the newsletter and um so and we did have multiple meetings that people were prepared able to watch.

So I don't there's nothing, I mean staff could do a brief presentation, but I'm not really sure.

I mean, it's just a recap of what we've what we've decided.

I mean, I don't need one because we've seen it, but I don't know if there was if there were people out there watching.

That was my only concerned about future tax increases based on what I've seen here.

Yeah, I agree.

And we so we certainly had that feedback.

And next year we're gonna have to um that people seeing that projected high increase for next year, the eight percent is gonna be a problem.

So perhaps not today, but we always have this discussion about we have services that people like, etc.

But the reason we're having an eight percent increase is because we have a lot of services, which I think uh are are at a level that's higher than in other municipalities.

So I don't know, do we start looking at what we're currently doing to reduce the costs, or do we just move forward with an eight percent tax increase?

Because it seems like every year we have increases we have we can't we we can't really reduce.

You know, we've been able to defer them, but then they come back the next year.

So you've got instead of a two percent that year, you get a four percent the next next year.

So some of the deferring we've done comes back to Honda.

So I'm not sure, you know.

Somewhere along the line, we need to have that discussion in terms of how to actually reduce our expenditures.

Well, I mean, staff did bring back last year, right?

At every committee of the whole meeting for four or five months in a row, they brought back specific departments' budgets and gave us the opportunity to go through them and and chat about them and and what could be done.

And there wasn't a whole lot of discussion.

I mean, basically, they were received for information, um, but we can certainly have that exercise at some point again in the you know the summer or the fall, so that before the yeah, just not clear.

I'm not even sure if we need to have that exercise, we just need to have the discussion to see whether it's council.

Yeah, but that that that was specifically why those came back was to see if there was any interest in cutting the service levels basically.

And there didn't appear to be.

I mean, I I think we need to obviously discuss next year.

I mean, next year's forecast increase is largely based on refunding our our reserves, and it's also before any new revenue, so it's it's hard to know where it's at.

But um, I don't disagree that we need to to look at how much we can shave that down for next year.

I comment your worship.

Go ahead, Ken.

Well, we don't have any motion on the floor, so I mean get councillor Mattson, I think, did move it.

Second.

Did you?

Okay.

So it's moved moved by Councillor Mattson.

Okay, seconded by Councillor Lemon.

Go ahead, John.

Yes, thank you.

Um I I appreciate the staff support.

I particularly enjoyed uh or um um appreciated the um uh page four of five, uh if you like the green table.

Uh that was really um useful to see the percent changes of possible tax increase uh before and after um our deliberations and and the challenges of what we were going to consider as a tax increase this year and the implications for the following years.

So uh I appreciate staff um presenting this table.

It was it's really succinct, and I think it probably is a guidepost that we can look at again a year from now.

Right.

Everyone good on my left.

Yeah, I'll save my 2022 comments too.

We're dealing with it.

Yeah, I mean we we could certainly and you know, before staff start preparing the budget in the fall, we could put it on a committee of the whole agenda for discussion for sure.

So we we can make we can make sure that happens.

So okay, I'm gonna call the question then on approving the 2021 to 2025 financial plan.

All in favor, opposed.

That's carried.

And now I'm sure this is going to be an interesting conversation on the tax rates.

Don?

Yes, your worship.

And thank you very much.

In that this is we this uh we do want to make sure we take our time and go through this carefully.

Um I have presented, uh I have prepared a presentation for you today that I'm hoping as we go through will will help us um you know kind of get our minds around what can be a very complicated um exercise um to to to break it down into basically what pieces we can have some influence over and what pieces are uh perhaps less or uh not as well uh influenced.

Well we have loads of time so don't worry about time okay I I will uh I will certainly uh you know try to try not to not to rush um and and take my time let me just make sure I I'm getting everything set up here for myself.

So what I want to go through um just now is uh spending just a little bit of time, you know, kind of going through uh let's make sure we're all kind of using the same language and understanding uh you know the same things about what's involved in setting property tax rates and property taxes themselves.

So we're gonna look at that.

We're gonna look at our property assessments, and I and I did uh want to take the time to look at that this year because we find ourselves in a little bit of an anomalous year, since I've been here at least, which isn't it was been over only what four or four years or so.

Um, in that you know, typically assessments kind of in all the classes go the same direction.

This is quite a different year, and and you'll you'll see that as we go through this.

We will look at the regional context as we have done in in prior years, and then we're going to go through each of the descriptive the scenarios and make sure that we understand what's being proposed or or looked at in each of the scenarios.

We're gonna look at the results of those scenarios and then it will become up to council to make the choices the very I think sometimes hard choices that council has at what to do next.

So I've I've kind of thought about setting municipal tax rates a little bit like trying to do one of these sliding tile puzzles.

I'm sure you're familiar with these you know I think it's the 2D version of a Rubik's Cube.

Um, where in this case, in our case, some of the tiles are kind of stuck in one place or are difficult to shift.

In any case, you can immediately see that when any one of the tiles slide, it affects the position or order of the other tiles, and all of the tiles are restricted by the boundary of the puzzle edges.

So, kind of keep this in mind for this.

This is kind of an anomalous analogy for our tax rate setting exercise.

Property assessments are determined by BC assessment, operating under the Assessment Authority Act and other relevant legislation to provide a stable base for property taxes in BC.

BC assessment operates as an independent provincial crown corporation governed by a board of directors and accountable to the province.

It is important to understand that the town of View Royal has virtually no influence over the property assessment values, which is actually a good thing for property owners since the property taxes that are based on these assessments comprise a significant significant part of View Royal's revenue each year.

You wouldn't want the fox watching the henhouse.

So properties in BC are assigned a property class, like class one is residential, class six is business, and it's based on the property's type or use.

Municipal zoning doesn't necessarily determine the property class, but it may be a factor in some cases.

And do note you'll see later on that we will provide information for subsets of the residential class for information, i.e., single family properties, strata properties, but keep in mind that for tax setting purposes, there can only be one residential tax rate.

Assessments each year include the reclassification of properties or any change in status, such as when, and you know where I'm going with this, the ownership of a property changes from a taxable to a non taxable owner.

So when the province purchased a significant property on Hallowell Road, the assessed value was removed from the assessment role because the province is a non-taxable owner.

This had a significant impact on our property assessment base, over which Bureau Council had no direct control.

Just to keep in mind that VC assessment provides the completed assessment role in January of each year, and that's what when we discussed taxation at the budget time, we're basing our estimates at that point on the completed role.

However, tax rates are based on the revised assessment role, which it goes through their process of appeals and so forth to get to the revised assessment role.

And uh the assessments that um are today's tax rates are based on that role.

So property assessments is one of the tiles that Bureau Council doesn't have the option to do a whole lot about.

In our discussion today, you'll hear reference to the average or representative property.

It's important to understand that this measure helps us understand the impact of any tax rate setting exercise on a given property class or individual property, but it isn't a perfect assessment, it's kind of just the best we have, and and you'll see that uh a little bit later on.

You might hear the term tax burden.

In this context, when we talk about the tax burden, we're talking about the relative amount or percentage of tax revenue that is levied on any given property class.

So it's the amount of revenue coming from any of the specific property classes like residential or business.

Excuse me.

So for example, if the residential class burden is, if we say it's 70%, what we mean by that is that 70% of the total tax revenue is coming from properties in the residential class.

The tax burden shifts with changes in assessments or tax ratios.

We're going to talk about those too.

One of the questions that council will face in our discussion later today is what to do when the assessments in one class decrease and in another class the assessments increase.

Should the tax burden remain the same as it was in the prior year?

Doing so might negatively affect the properties in the class with the declining assessments and benefit the class with increasing assessments.

So don't get too flustered with what I'm saying with increasing and decreasing.

We're going to see this in examples in a little bit.

Municipality are determined through the financial planning process.

The budget workshops in February and the whole kind of process with financial planning between then and now.

At budget time, when we talk about the tax increase needed for the current year, at that stage, we're talking about the estimated overall tax increase that all property owners collectively will contribute to the budget.

This year during the February budget workshops, Council approved an estimated four and a half overall tax increase, which results in adding about $365,000 to the tax revenue compared to 2020.

This step is required prior to setting the tax rates as it is one of the base inputs to the rate setting process.

In fact, legislation requires the financial plan bylaw to be adopted prior to adoption of the tax rates bylaw.

So council determines the attributes of the tax revenue requirement tile through the financial planning process, but for the tax rates discussion, we assume that the amount of tax revenue required doesn't change.

Legislation requires BC assessment to classify properties according to type or use as discussed.

It also allows the municipality to set different rates for the different property classes.

It can set different rates for different purposes as long as the relationship between the rates stays the same.

So the relationship between the rates is a concept that is important to understand.

That is what is meant by tax ratios or tax multiples or tax rate multiples.

So anytime we're talking about tax ratios, we're talking about multiples.

The residential property class is always the base rate and has a ratio or multiple of one.

All other tax rates are expressed as a multiple of the residential base.

So if the business class, for example, has a ratio of 3.5, 3.5, it means that the rate applicable to the business class is three and a half times the residential rate.

You can easily determine the multiple or ratio between the rates by dividing the rate applicable to the property class that you're concerned about by the residential rate, and that'll give you the multiple.

It then becomes quickly apparent that every assessment dollar in the business class in this case would be worth three and a half times the residential assessment dollar.

The tax ratios then become a tool available to council to achieve certain objectives by adjusting the multiples accordingly.

For example, if all other municipalities in the surrounding area had a business class multiple of three and a half, for example, and council wanted to attract more business to the municipality, they might think about reducing the business class multiple.

Since if all other elements were equal, businesses in that class would pay less taxes with a lower business class multiple.

However, just like the sliding tile game, any change to one multiple will affect the amount of taxes collected from the other property classes.

A reduction in one class multiple will shift the amount of taxes away from that class to all the other classes, since the total amount of revenue needed, just like the size of the tile tile puzzle, doesn't change.

So the focus of the rest of today's discussion is on the components of the property tax setting process that we can change.

Just to recap, BC Assessments provides the assessments independently from View Royal.

The average or representative property is calculated using the assessment counts and values within each property class, and these are two tiles that View Royal Council has very little, if any, influence over.

The tax burden will change when the assessed values change between classes or when the tax ratios or multiples change.

Council also determines how much revenue will be raised through taxation through the financial planning process, and at this stage in the process, that amount has been determined.

So those two items in the kind of orange color, View Royal Council has some opportunities to influence those components of the tax rate setting process.

Today's discussion will focus on the relationship between the property class tax rates as expressed by the tax ratios or multiples.

By looking at several scenarios, this is the one piece of the puzzle that council has choices about.

So let's talk about our property assessments context.

I I think I more than once already have referred to this year as a little bit of a perfect storm.

I I think you might agree.

And and and on how much of it has to do with COVID, I I couldn't tell you.

But certainly we do have multiple reasons why this year from a tax rate setting perspective is quite different from some of the years that we've had in the past.

So we talked a little bit about the average property as a measure not being a perfect tool since it doesn't really exist.

Let me let me demonstrate that to you.

For example, the average single family residential property value on the first line of this table, it increased from 769,000 in 2020 to nearly 809,000 in 2021, which is an increase of just over 5%.

The strata property residential average value increased only 2.4% from 486,000 to nearly 498,000.

So a residential property will be classed as either single family or strata, but the experience in the increase in assessments is quite different between two and five from strata to single family.

However, the overall residential class assessment, the assessment value for the class as a whole, increased by 3.25%.

And that is the measure that we need to use to evaluate or predict how a change in tax rates will affect the other residential properties.

We're going to do some math a little bit later on, and you won't need a calculator.

I know you can do this math in your head.

Now, when it gets to the business class average, I really hesitate to refer to a business class average at all since there is such a broad distribution of assessment values among only the 122 property assessments in this class.

So, you know, while we do know that the assessments for the business class went down a fair bit, we're not going to use the business class average or representative property in the same way that we might for the residential class.

We will instead look at specific property examples when evaluating the various scenarios.

What is important, I think, to understand in more general terms is that the direction of the change in assessments diverges between the residential and the business class.

Residential?

Yeah.

Okay, Counselor Mattson has a question.

Certainly.

Certainly.

Go ahead, please.

I'm just curious what happened to business?

I mean, why the huge drop?

Yeah.

Yes, and and I think there, I think there are multiple reasons for that.

Of course, I am not the assessor and I can't I can't provide you a definitive answer.

I I do have two answers for that.

Um, one is the loss of the property on Hallowell Road to the province as a non-taxable entity.

That was responsible for a reduction of about $3 million in or at least $3 million in assessed values.

Probably more than that.

But then the other thing is, and you will see on the attachment to I think it's Schedule 6 on your report that the casino also had a fairly significant reduction in assessed value.

Now, was that related to COVID?

I can't help but think that it was.

Thank you.

That's the best that I can do with that one, I'm afraid.

So so while business class assessments went down, residential assessments went up.

That is different than I think we have experienced here before.

Before we have experienced differences in the amount of an increase between classes, but not a divergence like we have this year.

So then let's just quickly look through, and these um the next three slides are attached to your agenda package as well, just to make sure we understand how View Royals multiple multiples historically have compared to the regional context to the other municipalities in the region.

The first slide here, and I know that you won't be able to read the numbers specifically in the slide, but I will walk you through.

This slide describes the business tax ratio for capital regional district municipalities over the last five years.

It's hard to see I realize probably from where you're sitting but the faint blue line blue dotted line shows that the median over time over the over the five year period for all other CRD municipalities is around 3.1 so about three times the residential rate.

The provincial multiple and that's applied to rural areas and certain other property tax entities you know such as the Capital Regional Hospital District is at 2.5, and that's shown faintly in the gray dotted line.

View Royal's business class multiple.

So the the chart, the blue and gold chart at the top right, is View Royal's business class multiple, and it has been fairly steady at 3.6 over the five years and 3.55 for the last two years.

The chart in the bottom right corner shows that View Royal is about middle of the pack with its CRD municipal neighbors for the 2020 business class multiple.

So a little bit more than two times the residential rate.

The provincial multiple that is applied to rural areas and other property taxes is shown in the gray dotted line again, and it is a multiple of one, so it is equal to the residential rate.

View Royal's recreation multiple has been increasing on purpose.

Its recreation class multiple over the last five years, going from 3.3 to 4.7, and this is at council's direction.

The chart in the bottom right corner shows that View Royal is near the top compared to its CRD municipal neighbors for the recreation class multiple in 2020 at 4.7.

Did you have a question space?

Don, just hold on.

I just wanted to know who was included in the recreation.

That's it.

Primarily, yes.

Yeah, so I just wanted to make sure that I think the 19th whole whole of the golf course.

Yeah.

Fort Victoria.

So how did that get included?

Well, that's in the recreational tax ratio.

That's why there's that's just that's all that the recreation tax ratio is for View Royal, is not even all of Fort Victoria, but most of it and the 19th whole of the I think that it's residential, but it's recreational.

Yeah.

I just want to make sure everyone was on the same page.

So that's you can you can see that since 2016 we have increased that ratio, although we didn't do anything with it last year.

I actually thought we had done a little bit.

Anyhow, sorry, don't carry on.

Um that's fine.

I may interject.

I I and and I couldn't be held to this, but I'd have to double check whether um Craigflower Manor might also be uh some part of Craigflower Manor maybe in class eight, the recreation class as well.

Okay, uh moving on.

Um uh I did I was able to find statistics from the provincial um website um that uh showed taxes as uh uh on on a per capita basis, which I thought would be an interesting way to look at it.

Um we need to understand that this calculation doesn't include user fees like water, sewer, and garbage, but it does account if other municipalities have not only property value taxes that float with assessments, but also parcel taxes, you know, frontage, excuse me, frontage taxes or that sort of thing.

So the median amount of taxes per capita over the last five years for the other 12 uh capital regional district municipalities is $681, while View Royals is $138.

So according to the median, if that's if that's an appropriate measure, we are lower than the median for the other municipalities in CRD.

In 2020, the taxes per capita was $550, which makes View Royal rank fourth in 2020.

Do you worship a question?

Is the um the water rate?

Councilor Rogers, go ahead.

Yes, thank you.

Um, I know that we get our rates uh separately through the the Wonder Fukua Water Commission, but the other municipalities may uh have that as a I don't know, is it would the water rate be uh an impact on this table here for the per capita?

No, uh Councilor Rogers, uh it does not.

This strictly looks at taxes.

Um there is a chart in the budget document that does compare taxes and fees per household.

Um that's a that's a different calculation, and that would include the water charges both for View Royal and the other municipalities, and View Royal ranks fifth in that calculation.

Thank you.

So now we're going to get into the scenarios.

And some of the scenarios are uh you know the scenarios that we bring back every year because they they seem to be of interest to council and some of them we we try to address what is going on at the time.

So we did try a couple of different things here.

Naturally I'm I'm sure that if you had 10 more people talking about this, you would have at least 10 more scenarios.

But we do have, you know, we try to keep it simple and try to um you know, bring back something that we think you know would be amenable.

In order to see what effect of any the effect of any change is, we need to change just one thing at a time to look at how that plays out in terms of the effect on other classes, on the tax burden of the classes, or the ratios, as the case may be.

So by saying that, I'm saying that these scenarios kind of of all of the moving parts, it only moves one part at a time, but that doesn't mean that the right scenario, the right solution at the end of the day, doesn't combine one or more of these to the extent that it's actually possible or makes sense.

So let's talk about scenario A.

This scenario A assumes that the multiples that were set through last year's tax setting exercise remains the same.

We will need to increase the tax rates because the amount of revenue that we need has changed and the assessments have changed.

In this case, the rates would need to increase for all classes by 3.69%.

This scenario allows that the assessments to determine the tax burden.

Remember, that's the amount of revenue from each class.

Or and you know, specifically, since the residential class is our largest class, you could compare the residential class tax burden with all of the other classes.

So, you know, that that seems that we're treating all the classes the same.

But when we look through the the impacts that this has, you can you can see that it may have some impact on some classes that it might surprise you.

It seems like it would be the same, but the effect of the shifting of the assessments shifting the burden from the business class to the residential class makes a difference at the end of the day.

So we're going to look at this in greater detail.

Scenario B starts kind of at the other end of the calculation and says, let's increase the tax amount on the average property from each class, and let's increase that tax amount by the same percentage for each of the classes.

It effectively maintains the tax burden for each of the same for each class at the same level as last year.

So if the residential class contributed 70% last year, let's keep them at 70% of the new total amount of revenue required.

In order to make this happen, we have to manipulate the tax ratios until we get the desired effect.

It is important to understand that this scenario ignores the change in assessments in any class.

So it's basically saying we don't care what the assessments did.

What we're going to do is we're going to collect the same amount of money from each of the classes as we did in prior year, even though some classes have more assessments to share the load, and some classes have less to share the load.

So far, so good.

I think so.

Yeah, and seeing noddings of heads.

All right.

I know this is fun stuff.

Scenario C is um a scenario that I brought back this year because I've brought it every year.

I think it is of interest to council.

Um maybe this isn't the year for it, but but um you you'll you'll see why as I go through.

So scenario C is um it's kind of council's interest in looking at the commercial sector through the light industry class five and business class six and reducing on purpose the multiples for that class.

So we would reduce the multiple for light industry to 3.1 and for business to 3.3 from what they are today at 3.3 for the light in light industry and 3.

almost 3.6 for the business class.

So you know that's a very simple scenario is just saying keep everything else the same all we want to do is reduce the multiples for those two classes.

Scenario D is the compromise.

I'm calling it the compromise solution.

It recognizes the smaller business class assessment base and increases the multiple by just enough so that the average class six property has a 0% increase.

While this does allow some of the tax burden to shift to the residential class, it does recognize the reduced business class assessments and kind of moderates that effect of what's happening with the assessments between scenario A and B.

Are there any questions about just what the different scenarios are before I go on to what the results turned out to be?

Everybody's still awake.

Counselor Rogers, you guys, I'm fine.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

I think everyone's good, done.

So this is actually a graphical representative, a representation of similar to the numeric chart that you have in your report.

It's on the kind of on the last page of the report before the attachments, the appendix.

It it it it it similar to similar to that.

So it in in combination with if you were to look at schedule B attached to the report.

So so yeah, schedule 5, it's it's kind of a condensed and a graph, a graph graphic representation of Schedule 5 that evaluates the relative impact of each scenario on the three classes that are most of interest, our most significant classes.

You know, if you were someone who have uh have a home in the residential class, and on schedule five, if you look, if you were to look at the line that is the total residential line on that table in schedule five, you would pick out from each of the scenarios the amount of dollars per hundred thousand that was the lowest.

That would be your preference for choosing a scenario.

So if you look at the at the total residential, uh the impacts of all the scenarios on the total residential class, you would see that scenario B at $10 per 100,000 of assessed value would be your preferred choice because it's the lowest one of all of the four scenarios.

So I've put a green happy face for that one.

I realize nobody's really happy about tax increases, but it's the it's the happiest of all the faces.

The next one that you would, if you couldn't have scenario B, then if you were in the residential class, you would probably choose scenario D.

So I've colored that one yellow, going, meh, it's not the best, but it's not the worst.

So that $14 per $100,000 of assessment increase, you know, you're kind of like, okay, I can see that.

Your third choice would be scenario A at $17 per $100,000 of assessed value increase.

So I've colored that face orange and put a slight frown on him to say, wow, you do have other choices.

That's that's not my favorite.

And then the one that I'd like the least, I've put a red unhappy face to that scenario, scenario C, because that assessment increase per hundred thousand of assessment is $21.

So I've done the same for each of the other two classes.

Uh yeah, the business class and the recreation class.

And so you can see that what's happening here is that scenario A allows the assessments to shift the tax burden, keeping the tax ratios the same.

The more assessments from one class equals more taxes from that class, and the reverse is true.

So that's why the tax increase for the residential class is higher than for the business classes, because that's where all of the that's where the assessments, the assessments shifted that burden to the residential class.

Class B in contrast purposely shifts taxes to the business class, which because this is a game where if somebody it goes down, somebody else is going up, or the or if somebody's going up, the other one's going down.

So scenario B purposely shifts taxes to the business class, which benefits the residential and and other taxes, other classes.

The business class is not happy because there are a reduced total assessments over which to spread the load.

So you will not get a scenario where there's all three green happy faces, unfortunately.

Scenario C then reduces the tax ratio for the business class and the light industry class following prior years trends, which transfers even more of the tax burden to other classes, especially the residential class.

So you know my suggestion is while this is a trend that council has followed or been been you know been interested in in the past in a year when business class assessments are already reduced, this might not be the year to do that.

Scenario D is the compromise.

It shifts some of the burden back to the business class, but not as much as in scenario B.

So the increase to the other classes are less.

So yeah, you're not going to have a scenario where everyone is equally happy because a decrease in one class means an increase in the other classes.

Are there any questions about this slide?

Counselor Levin.

Yeah, thank you, Dawn.

So just in the real numbers, looking at scenario D, am I to understand or do I understand that if if we went with scenario D, the average residential property, and I don't know what the average is, would uh bear a tax increase of $99, where business would not and recreation would bear $46.

Is that what we're talking here?

In what the average would pay?

It it would be um the $99 for the average residential property.

And we're gonna get to that.

I I really do hesitate to predict what a business class property will pay because uh there is there is no there is no average business property.

Um that that is why we do provide um you know the attachment to your report that lists some of our most um you know our largest assessment business class assessment properties to help you understand what is going to happen with those.

Counselor Matson.

I know we've just been changing one thing, but in scenario D, is it possible to uh shift some of the costs from business over to recreation since our goal was to move things to recreation.

Certain certainly that would be a matter of increasing the multiple.

And yes, that would have the effect.

I can't I can't speak in specific numbers, depending on where you know where it went, but um you know, certainly that would have the effect of moderating the effect to the other classes.

Certainly.

Anytime you shift, you increase the multiple for a particular class, what you're what you're going to be doing is shifting taxes away from the all of the other classes to that class.

Certainly.

So so if I may, I I can show you in the next slide the multiples.

Go ahead.

So I'm sorry.

No, go ahead.

I don't think there's any other questions right now.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So you can see here that the first row of of this slide shows you what the 20 what the multiples were in 2020 and exist right now.

So 3.3 or so for the light industry, 3.55 for business, and 4.7265 for recreation.

That is our multiples as they were in 2020.

Scenario A, as described previously, keeps those multiples exactly the same, doesn't change them at all.

Scenario B forgets whatever is going to happen to the multiples and instead looks just at the average property and says, Let the multiples be whatever they're going to be.

Our objective is to make sure that each average property increase is for each of the classes is the same across the board.

And you can see what happens to the multiples when we do that.

Because you know it is fairly intuitive if business assessments went down in order to raise the same amount of revenue, let's just say, as we did in a prior year, we're gonna have to increase the multiple.

So in scenario B, the multiple goes to 3.9 for the business class.

It does increase for the light industry class as well, and the recreation class, it's not much of a difference.

So you can see the effect on the multiples that that scenario has.

Scenario C is is pretty straightforward.

It just says we are going to re reduce the multiples for the light industry class and the business class to the values you see there, 3.1 and 3.3 respectively.

What that does, of course, anytime, as I said, is if you reduce the multiples, what you're doing is you're shifting the tax burden or the amount of taxes paid away from that class, somebody else has to pick it up.

And in this case, that's going to be the residential class.

Scenario D, you can you can see you know the changing multiple there being the multiple for the business class.

You can see it's not exactly halfway in between, but it's somewhat in between scenario A and scenario B, a 3.6933 for the business class.

So certainly, you know, it is unfortunate.

I I do you know understand a strategy of trying to attract business by lowering the multiple for the business class.7.

Um, but certainly that that is the option that we're looking at here.

Don, well, just out of curiosity, and it may not, it may be hard to answer on the fly, but say if council chose to put the recreation at 5.0, just for argument.

What sort of bearing would that have on the business one?

Would that get us down a little bit closer to where we were?

3.690.

Probably.

Just judging from the relative size of those assessment classes, I would suggest that you know it for starters, it's not going to have a huge impact on the recreation class, and it's going to have an even less impact uh um on the business class.

It will have some um it but but um uh you know i i i can't tell you right now what the multiple might be for the business class if we did that um it would certainly be less than 3.69 um would we get to three we're we we're not gonna get to 3.55 by doing that uh for the business class I don't believe um uh hard for me to say exactly okay no fair enough okay a comment your worship um yeah thank you um I think similar to what uh you and um counselor mattsner are suggesting I would be interested in in increasing the recreation up to five point five or 6.

And I do note that um the Craigflower Manor uh is tax exempt.

Yes.

Although it may not be on for the sake of our assessments this year, it may not actually be.

That that remains a little bit unknown.

But yes, you're right in in theory that we're not going to be collecting any taxes.

Yeah.

So considering um how well Fort Victoria is doing right now.

I don't disagree with with you.

I'm I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with with six, but I I don't disagree with you that somewhere in in between is is um not a bad idea.

Yeah, worth considering.

Thank you.

Just if any of those numbers.

Even if even if you did say six for recreation, I've no idea what that really means to them.

So it's it's like unless you can see the numbers that go along with them, some of these things that it's really hard to have that discussion because you don't know how fair six would be in terms of total dollars versus you know five point four, you know.

Well, you can get an idea from these numbers, but no, you're right.

You don't know the specifics.

So I don't know if staff could easily do that.

On here, the numbers?

Well, well, in the actual staff report, not in Don's presentation, but in the staff report, she does have the the different homes and some businesses and and some of Fort Victoria, the Burnett Road ones or Fort Victoria.

Okay.

Um the one 127 Burnett.

Okay, and then the casino is is there as well.

So it gives you an idea.

So Don, there does there seems to be some interest in, so I mean what I'm hearing from council that scenario D is the one that we're interested in moving forward with.

Mm-hmm.

Uh your your worship, um, if I may just uh quickly finish the presentation.

I have three more slides.

Yeah, um and and and then certainly uh you know a resolution or direction uh would would be very much appreciated.

Yep, go ahead.

Okay.

So uh w uh as as council is very interested in the individual properties.

Um you know I I I just point this attention to, and this uh doc this uh graphic is also included in our budget document.

Um, this is from BC assessment, and it does presume that there is no budget increase and that the multiples don't change, but it still gives a general idea of how to predict an individual's property taxes.

Um and and and you can see in your schedule six, um, you know, the actual we've taken actual assessment values and played out each of these scenarios.

So for each property, we first look at whether the assessment for that property change is is lower, similar, or higher than the class average.

So the residential class average as described before is 3.25%.

So if the assessment for 2021, if the change in assessments for 2021 is 0% for residential property, we would expect that property to get a tax increase that is less than the scenario predicts for the average property.

And of course, if the 2021 assessment change is let's say 7% for a residential property, we would expect that property to get a tax increase that is more than the scenario predicts for the average property.

And here is that example in numbers.

Just say it's three it's three percent of 3.25, but my assessment increase was zero compared to 2020, the difference is negative three.

I can take the scenario D prediction of a 6% increase, subtract the 3% that is the difference between my assessment increase and the average property increase, and I can guess that my tax increase is going to be about 3% more than it was last year.

So about $50 versus the $99 that scenario D predicted for the average property.

The converse is that if my if the average property increase assessment increase is 3%, but my increase was 7% and the difference is 4%, I can actually add that 4% to what scenario D predicted for the average property.

I'm going to experience a 10% increase of somewhere around the $160 mark versus the $99 increase.

That if my assessment was exactly the same as the average one I would have experienced otherwise.

So then, yes, we we are looking for direction so that we can bring back a bylaw to council, a tax rates bylaw for adoption, finally, and it does have to have readings at two different meetings.

We will need a special meeting of council on May 11.

The legislative deadline for the tax rates bylaw is May 14.

And that's my presentation, and you know, happy to uh answer any further questions or um take your direction.

Okay, thank you, Don.

So, council, what are your thoughts?

I mean, do I see sort of general consensus that scenario D is is the one that you wish to pursue?

Is that fair enough?

I'm getting noddings of heads here.

Councilor Rogers.

Yes, thank you.

Uh yes, I I agree with D, but with the provision that we increase the uh recreation.

Okay.

So Don, there seems to be interest that we would go with scenario D, but uh when you bring it forward that we would have increased the recreational.

And so I suppose the the question is increase that to which you see Highlands has the highest rate in the region, I think at six.

Yes.

Um I think that's why your slide said earlier.

Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

So in in scenario D, if we increase recreation, would that be pulling from residential and business or just one or the other?

I I'm sorry, can you can you say that a question again?

Jared, Councilor Lemon was just wondering how it would have whether it would affect both business and residential.

And I and I said just somewhat marginally, as we had just sort of said a bit earlier.

It will affect all of the other classes to one extent or another, to some extent or another.

Yes.

In principle, I like the idea of shifting a bit over.

Okay.

So should we should we agree on then uh say five point four for argument's sake and and direct staff to bring scenario D with the the multiple change to 5.4, sir?

Uh your worship, we could table that and have the director of finance um provide some more information at this evening's meeting if you wish.

Sure.

If that's is that doable easily enough, Sean or Don?

Sorry.

Yes, I I I th I think I could.

Um I could just prepare one slide.

If you were to see two scenarios, uh which multiples would you like to see the recreation class increase to?

Six.

Five point five and six, yeah.

Five point five and six, sure.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, well that's great.

So then we'll tack that on to the beginning of the this evening's meeting.

So we we won't make any recommendation for now.

We'll just leave this open and and come back to it.

Thank you, Don.

There's a lot of went into doing that, and that was a very thorough, comprehensive um presentation, which is great.

So thank you.

Thank you.

A lot of work.

Yeah.

Moving on, we have um a recommendation for Ken today.

So move.

Recommendations moved by Councillor Kowalewich.

I'll second that.

Seconded by Councillor Lemon.

Did you want to have any questions or hear from staff or anything on it?

No, it's yeah, there's not much we can do about it.

Yeah, it's easy to do.

Makes sense.

Hopefully, next year we can have a wild party again.

So okay, and then a call question.

All in favor, opposed.

That's carried.

We have the action list update from the first quarter.

Move receive.

Second.

See receipts moved by councillor Mattson, seconded by Councillor Kwalwick.

Kim.

Thank you, Your Worship.

I just wanted to make one comment about one of the items in the list.

Uh, and it has to do with the um the totem poll.

At the Portage Linear Park, we um we have a resolution on the books from a couple years ago directing staff to contact the um band that has responsibility for the carving of that poll.

And we've uh we've been in contact with them, but they have yet to give us any advice as to what their wishes would be in terms of refurbishing the pole or allowing the pole to just uh return to the earth, so to speak.

And in the absence of that advice, I have put in the the list that is complete in the absence of any communications otherwise.