Committee of the Whole

Okay, thank you very much.

We'll call the committee of the whole meeting for April 12th to order and begin by acknowledging our friends and neighbors, the Esquimalt and Songhees people whose ties to these lands continue to this day.

For the public, you'll be able to phone in twice today under public participation to speak to items that are on our agenda.

And so once this afternoon for anything that's on the agenda this afternoon, and then at seven for anything that's on the agenda this evening.

So you can dial 778-402-9227 and when prompted, enter conference ID 987 910 590 Pound.

And at the appropriate time in the agenda, I will announce the last four digits of your phone number, ask you to mute the live webcast to avoid feedback, ask you not to use speaker phone to ensure sound quality, and ask that you unmute yourself by pressing star six.

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

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.

Thank you very much.

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

So we'll just add one um one item new business under parks, um, Welland Legacy Park.

Okay.

So that's Welland Legacy Park under new business under on parks.

Yes, please.

Okay, and a motion to approve the amended agenda.

So move.

Second.

Thank you.

Moved by Councillor Rogers, seconded by Councillor Lemon.

There's the minutes from March the 8th.

All in favor, opposed, that's carried.

Thank you.

Second.

Moved by Councillor Rogers, seconded by Councillor Kowalewich.

Any comments, corrections?

No.

All in favor, opposed, that's carried.

So we are at public participation period.

We got there quite quickly.

So that'd be for anything on the agenda this afternoon.

Do we have any callers on the line, staff?

Your worship, we have no callers at this time.

Okay, thank you.

So I think we'll move on to that, and I'll hand the chair over to Councillor Lemon for Protectors's services.

Thank you, Your Worship.

And uh, we have in the room Superintendent Preston.

Good afternoon, Councillor.

Mayor.

Good afternoon.

Thanks for having me, Mr.

Um, I'm here to discuss a number of things here today.

First, um, I think I'll just go over the uh the March update here in terms of calls for service and what type of calls we had during the month of March.

We had 251 calls for service in the uh View Royal area during uh that month.

Constable Brewer uh has uh um is teaching dare, um just so you know, at the elementary school here in View Royal during the month.

Um, just a sample of uh files, a very random sample from our uh media gal that uh produced this for me.

Um one of the calls was a complaint uh called a report that their neighbor had been stealing patio chairs in the 200 block of uh Craigowan.

Uh the theft was caught on surveillance, and the complainant requested documentation only at this time because the neighbor decided to return the chairs.

We had a uh crime reduction unit was patrolling in an unmarked vehicle and located uh a vehicle the Manitoba plates.

Police checks revealed the plates belonged to another vehicle.

A subsequent traffic stop resulted in arresting the driver for driving while prohibited, and the driver has an extensive criminal history.

A witness called uh in an intoxicated mail, leaving the pub on a motorcycle.

Our members were able to locate that mail at home.

We had an ASD demand, um, which resulted in a fail.

The mail was actually brought back to the detachment for a breathalyzer, which he failed and he was released on an undertaking.

So normally what happens, uh the reasons that we would bring somebody back would be that they're grossly intoxicated, they were in an accident, or they've had a similar charge in the previous five years.

And there is some leeway to that, but typically the individual obviously has a pattern or a history for us to bring them back in those circumstances.

To other reports received of similar nature in the West Shore area.

We had a complainant call to report to online crypto fraud, which they lost $9,000 to.

The complaint engaged with an online company called uh True North Bit, uh, which is an online search revealed is a scam.

Uh attempts to speak with the company obviously were negative.

A complainant called in to re uh report an ongoing physical and sexual abuse from their husband in the six mile road area.

Statements were obtained that and the husband uh has been subsequently arrested and released on an undertaking.

And finally, a uh a family disturbance uh was reported in the Kislingbury Lane.

I hope I repronounced that.

Kislingbury.

I'm sorry, yeah, that's uh that's the one.

Officers attended and spoke with all parties.

A male was identified.

Um they had a warrant out uh standing for his arrest.

He was arrested, and drugs were were located on his possession, and he was released on an appearance notice.

Our traffic section has been committed to monitoring the school zone, especially during peak hours, with the exception of spring break this month.

We also did speed watch at the View Royal Elementary.

We issued 10 tickets, 13 mornings in your area.

And we also attended 10 collisions in your area during the month, which I thought was uh fairly high to be honest.

But um it's a bad month for collisions.

So that's uh you know, I hope that's helpful.

That just gives kind of a real widespread of everything from kind of a nuisance complaint to pretty pretty serious complaints.

And if you um want, I'll certainly continue to do those types of uh updates for you in future.

It's interesting.

Um so, in terms of our uh annual report, I'll just highlight a couple things here.

That uh our file load in 2020 was uh 23,047 calls for service in the uh West Short attachment.

And this year we had 24,043 files in 2021.

Sorry.

Uh so we were up nearly a thousand files uh uh for the year, 4.3% increase.

View Royal had the um actually the highest number of incidents per per thousand uh persons, 300 reports per thousand uh people as a percentage.

Um all fairly similarly aligned.

Uh Callwood uh had a little bit uh lighter reported incidents, but very close to actually Langford's uh call for service there.

Uh check we touched.

Would any of those have been hospital related?

Would that have driven our yeah absolutely some of those uh um yeah 100% okay um no different than you know um certain beaches or the you know um gold stream av or the the soccer stadium like you know there's various places that are kind of hot spots for us uh yeah okay uh check well being calls were the most time consuming calls of all types um with 1590 calls uh or sorry hours spent on these types of calls followed by domestics suicidal persons uh assist police fire ambulance and traffic incidents.

Traffic uh calls were uh 8.7 percent of all calls for service uh throughout the year.

On average, we spent uh this kind of speaks to your point, counselor uh two hours per apprehension uh at the hospital.

So out of all the the calls for service, um there was set we responded to 735 calls for service that related to suicidal persons, and officers spent 979 hours attending those types of calls.

Um, but kind of the what I would take away from this was that we had 371 apprehensions last year, and you know, on average after the apprehension and all the other stuff that comes with it, it's still a two-hour wait at the hospital.

Um, in total, West Shore uh RSMP issued 2,621 written warnings and uh 1,773 violation tickets.

So our members are out there they're engaged with the uh you know the public um it's I think it's a fairly um reasonable balance between written warnings there and and tickets and before I proceed to the next thing maybe maybe I'll open up is there any questions pertaining to the annual report or those calls for service that I reviewed any questions colleagues Councillor Rogers hey uh thanks for the report um it is a uh certainly a concern what was interesting was um uh when we had uh community feedback on our on our budget five year budget plan uh one of the comments was with respect to Czech well being and um with the idea that bringing in other resources aside from the police to uh to do that um i wonder if um you know is that wishful thinking um you know does the is it is it better that uh um a uh police officer go to check do a check well being or could that be handled by some other agency uh uh specialist that's such a a great question um you know is it somebody that's suicidal with a knife is it somebody that's got a history of violence?

Is it somebody that's unpredictable by drugs?

Or is it um you know a little old lady that's uh uh sad because her uh you know husband died recently?

So, although there is some calls, oftentimes we're not able to substantiate how the call is going to go or what the call is until we're on site.

What I think is notable is the potential for partnership with mental health practitioners.

We all want that.

Uh there's uh we're not we're not mental health practitioners.

Um, we never went to school to be a mental health practitioner.

Yes, we've had some training in it.

Yes, we get better.

Um, as any police officer would attest to year, you know, year after year, you get better with de-escalation, you get better with uh your human um resource skills, your uh interpersonal skills, but uh the opportunity to put to partner, and I think that's where you know we need you um um mayor and councils to push the government to to provide funding for that um health is a provincial responsibility and so i would love uh and that is one thing that we are looking at kind of in our five year plan is to look at um identifying a couple members perhaps not next year uh or so not this year but perhaps next year um for a mental health team a designated team in addition to um so you know our partner teams in in victoria and sanitic but a dedicated team here that would work with um health practitioners i know there's a pilot project going on with victoria right now.

I'm not sure if sanitic has the same going um but we're certainly open to it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I can see that.

Um, and and i i guess that's the question for the um various municipal leaders on on the board, as it were, to um uh to coalesce and and bring about uh that pressure and and that funding.

And it's not only check well-being, but it's you know, I would imagine it could have something to do with um you know suicide issues as well as going to the hospital and having resource there, so you're not spending two hours.

Well, then the legislation has to change for that to happen, which you know again we'd be fine with entertaining all sorts of options.

Uh but you know, I remind you of the dangers.

I think in the last two weeks we've had two RCP officers, one stabbed in the face, one stabbed underneath with a hook knife underneath his uh armpit in the interior, and we had a police-involved shooting um in Campbell River.

Um, and I would suggest, although I can't confirm that there are a lot of these incidents, um, you know, oftentimes you're dealing with mental health and drugs, and uh the unpredictability of that, you know.

Um, I think it's easy to say, well, let's get a mental health person to uh to deal with with those types of calls until it goes sideways.

Um, and you know, just as they don't uh we don't have that type of training with mental health, they perhaps don't have the same type of training that we have.

Yeah.

And it seems also um um we're not fortunately.

I don't think we have that the same problem as in Vancouver, but the the uh the escalation of stranger attacks, you know, with similar situations of individuals that you know suddenly would create you know that that random I think we're seeing more and more of that in Victoria, which will certainly have a ripple effect out here.

Yeah, yeah, indeed.

Um, and I guess the the other question there was um uh a page of page 17 it talked about cases for victim services and there were there were broad numbers but um what would be helpful for for me to understand is um just like you've done in other parts uh you know give us statistics uh based on per thousand population so you know when when we have uh breakdown of municipalities you know the um and the cases for victim services you know how what is that case per thousand in URL, so on.

So that just rather than roll numbers, it puts it into perspective, just like Gary, you know, we've seen that first.

I can ask the analyst uh to to look at that and see if that's achievable.

Yeah, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

No problem.

Yeah.

Thanks.

So one more thing I was uh wanted to discuss is so as we've been moving forward, Machosen, as you know, has gone over um 5,000.

So they're responsible for policing.

I've told you before that this detachment without question is the most complex detachment, likely in the country.

Uh 100%.

We've got seven communities, we've got two muni overs, uh which we call muni overs is uh municipalities over 15,000.

So you pay uh 90 90 percent of policing and 10 percent is covered by the federals uh federal side.

We now have two muni unders, which is uh 70 percent.

You obviously enjoy a 30 percent discount.

We have the highlands, which is a provincial detachment area, and we have Songhis and Esquimalt, which is um again a provincial slash federal responsibility.

So there's not too many communities.

In fact, I I know none that complex across the detachment in terms of structure and funding.

It is important as we move forward here, and I think we've we've made great strides over the last few years and in terms of getting along collectively.

And I think I've also told you that you probably have the most efficient, financially efficient and resource efficient detachment that I know of in the country as well, because you're you're able to share all these resources.

I think an important part of that is being able to maintain that level of cooperativeness, and that uh I think there needs to be some tangible numbers.

And so, you know, what are those numbers?

There is absolutely nothing out there that I'm aware of, and anybody else uh that I know of in the country that can tell me here is the you know the gold standard for metrics in terms of police, uh police resources.

Um, you guys have given um certainly a number of resources in the past year, which is greatly appreciated.

I'm not here asking you for any more resources.

What I am asking is that we look at the level of service right now, and unless you're telling me that you know we're way over policed or you're way under policed, uh, that we're pretty happy with the level of service.

I can tell you that with an extra thousand calls uh for service, we do need more members on frontline.

To that end, Machosen now has to pay for policing.

Um if we use the same ratio uh that you're paying, which is uh right now you're currently at one to eight sixty-seven, and if we use a one to eight seventy-five ratio, um, they would owe six bodies.

Uh the province is going to claw back one of their bodies because they're no longer responsible for that.

So we would be net gaining five new resources in the area.

Those would all go onto the front lines because I do have 10 members off right now, and many of those are stress related.

Um, and it's been recent.

You can just see that the file upload is obviously increasing.

The types of calls are getting a little more mental health related, uh, a little more serious.

So, anyways, to the uh to the point is uh I want to have something a little more tangible, a little more black and white uh to keep the partnership in good standing.

And so, you know, what we use Kim was able to give me the CAO, was able to give me a two 2.5% projection is what you guys anticipate your growth rate to be, which means next this year, 2022, there would be no actual ask for another additional body.

2023, there would be no ask.

And based on your your 2024, you would um at a 1875, then you would be required to provide one more body.

2025, you would not be so for, so probably every three, four years.

I guess it all depends.

Like I uh explained to Mr.

Mayor earlier.

You know, if you if you approve a project for 875 people, I guess you need to know that that that comes with the police officer.

Um, so in terms of average rates uh across the the province, the police resources of British Columbia, and you're welcome to obviously go online and have a look at it, you'll be able to see that uh the average for municipal RCMP municipal agencies five to 15,000.

The average cop to pop ratio is one to 724.

And when you look within there, similarly aligned communities to you, it is Lake Country in obviously near Kelowna there, and they're one to 870, and their crime stats and caseloads are very similar to you.

Ladysmith, again, very similar, they're one to eleven hundred.

There is no consistency across the board.

So, all this to say, if we look, if somebody's trying to find this magic silver bullet, um, please let me know if you find it, I'd love to see it.

Uh, but I would love to have that consistency across.

I know um, in terms of Langford, they obviously use more police resources.

So they've agreed at this point here to a one to 750 ratio, and again, that's based on kind of where they're at right now.

They're at one to 763.

They've agreed that they would get that number to one to 750, so that again, everybody's paying their fair share.

There's no pointing fingers at each other saying you're paying more than than anybody else.

And basically, every as the population um goes past 20,000, so for the next until you guys hit 20,000, you would stay at one to eight seventy-five.

And every five years, you can you know revisit this uh five year plan or four years.

I mean, you can obviously pull out there's nothing um tying council to do this, but I'm saying in good faith with each other, um, and this is kind of more of a councils, all the councils should be together, but I seem to be kind of the conduit between all the councils.

Uh after 20,000, uh, between 20 and 25,000, then your your ratio would go to 850 and 25 to 30,000, one to eight twenty-five, and so on and so forth.

So Lankford's 40 some thousand people, they're at one to seven fifty.

When they hit 50,000, they'd be at one to 725.

Just again, you'd be able to I'd be able to give this to you, but uh in in black and white, so you'd be able to see it.

But it would provide consistency.

I know I have the support of uh Lankford, I know uh the mayor of Callwood has expressed his support, um, asking for your support, and this way that I can go to the province and Machosen and tell them that this is the going rate for buy-in at uh West Shore detachment, which I know many counselors have expressed um concern at what they're contributing to this relationship, and I want to make sure that it's everybody's paying their fair share.

I'll stop there and pause there.

Is there any questions?

It's a lot to take on board.

I would like to see this in black and white.

I mean, it's it was helpful to you know, but I'm I'm trying to you know equate 750, 850, and and bounce, you know, I'm kind of bouncing all over the place.

But um, I think uh in in principle, yes, uh it's um it's defensible, and yes, we need to have a common across the board understanding.

Mayor, what do you need from us apart from us being at this table?

I I think probably we should discuss this with Kim.

Yes, but but I think what Todd would would like, which as John just said, I think is supportable, is is just a motion going on record that we would support that.

But I think we should should have the conversation with Kim before we did, yeah.

And I had spoken to Kim about this.

And yeah, you guys should obviously have that conversation with.

I know he's supportive of something like this.

And then similarly with the uh municipal employees, a one to three ratio, which we've had for the last three, four years, and all the CAOs have agreed on that ratio and all that good stuff.

So um it's it's just it's absolutely impossible.

And I know that if we don't do something like this, a fracture will come between the municipalities.

And the only way I can pick a number, um, you know, and kind of establish is looking at other municipalities.

And then, you know, right now, you know, if you're happy with the policing service you're getting, if you think you're way over policed, you know, we can pull back off community policing, we can pull off traffic servers, you know, whatever you want.

It's you tick the box, you tell me what you want.

Um, I'm not telling you that you're grossly understaffed.

I we are a little understaffed for sure on the front lines.

Um, but every every police agency in the world will tell you they're understaffed.

Um like I said, I think you can get away with having less cop to pop because of the partnership and because you can share those resources.

Had you been a standalone detachment, you your cop to pop would would likely be substantially higher if you wanted this level of service.

Um can you maybe put it down in an email, Todd?

Absolutely.

And fix with some of the numbers that John's looking for and send to Kim or I, and then we'll we'll get it on an agenda.

Yes, and the only other point to this is the fact that we're asking for a new building as well.

And again to have metrics, something tangible how do you measure who's paying for what in a building when you don't know who how many bodies are each going to have in that building in the future.

Good a couple of questions and and certainly I look forward to getting that information and moving ahead with it.

When is Michosan um required or um two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago so when I talk about this wow this is why it's crucial.

Um we couldn't we couldn't really act on this until we knew that they were over.

And I heard loud and clear from counselors at this table and from mayors at this table and mayors at other councils and uh and counselors, you know, they want them to pay their fair share.

Um they want the province to pay their fair share.

And actually by doing this, um literally everybody it would be the first time everybody were all the numbers would essentially um pretty much line up.

There's a couple things we'd have to reconcile over the next couple of years, like Callwood pays um too many um municipal employees, but they don't have enough regular members, we can iron all that out and and that sort of thing.

But you know, in in in terms of uh the cost, you yeah, there's there's you know hiring the police officers in the building, but um you know, with this recent um finally the shoes dropped and and uh we have to pay the um increased salaries and uh from the negotiations with the the police union.

So that's that's the union side.

But I'm also wondering about the management side, because I've always found in provincial government when the union goes up, so does the management.

Well, I've uh like ripping a band-aid off here with me.

Um so the members ended up with a 24% pay raise over six years.

Um we just we don't negotiate because we um don't have a um a bargaining agency, uh, but the officers, the inspectors to uh deputy commissioners just received a 16% raise over the same period.

Um so that's if that's what you're referring to in terms of salary increases.

Um I didn't know, but okay.

So that's what that is.

E com um obviously, I think that was good news that um they are um putting that back to the province there until 2025.

Was it?

Do you remember seeing that?

Or yes, yeah.

So that's uh that's a significant savings for the municipalities.

And then I read that the federal government, although they haven't said how much, they are going to assist um it sounds like with the retro pay as well.

And uh that was the minister I read in the paper um that uh they haven't come exactly uh to terms on how much they're going to help you guys out with, but it sounds like they are going to come to the table.

So all good news.

The um one last update is actually when I was in Ottawa here last week, I went to the uh track and I saw the Tesla that we're going to be piloting for the country here.

And um the they've they've told me that the federal government or the RCP's federal side is going to bear the cost of that for this detachment for the first couple of years and see if we if it works for us as a pilot.

So again, uh a savings uh for this uh this for the West R.

Well, that'll be the equivalent of a new fire truck in the area.

Yes, yes, the old fire truck.

Yeah, but are are people jockeying to be the the uh first drivers?

I yes, they are actually.

Yes.

There's a select few that won't be driving it.

Can I just add what sorry I we should remember without wanting just to discourage people that we have a lot to get through this afternoon?

Yeah.

I'll do my question at some point.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

I just have a quick question, and that is given the complexity of this detachment and and of policing in general, uh are are there enough recruits to draw from?

Um a constant struggle.

Yeah.

A constant struggle in every police agency right now to uh um to get qualified applicants applying so okay sorry to take too much time.

No, no, no, no, you were not taking too much.

So I just we were we we do have a long ways to go for okay next budget things thanks Todd and send send that email and I'll I'll speak with Kim and we'll we'll get it on an agenda yeah thank you um oh and there's the building report yeah I guess we just need a motion to receive yeah yeah some of second all those in favor and closed I've lost it here.

And it is cast.

Okay, over to you.

Okay, thank you.

Just I'm just gonna give staff a heads up for this evening because I've now had two emails on this subject today.

So under planning, maybe we but it's to do, I'll read this email really quickly.

But it's the second one I've received today on this.

I lived, I live next to the new development on Island Highway in Helmaken.

The stagnant water in the large pit has started to release many mosquitoes.

What is happening with this?

And I think it's a fair question.

I've been wondering it every time I drive by it.

And there is a big pool of green stagnant water.

Um, so if we could get a bit of an update from staff on, I realize it's waiting for provincial approvals, but I can't help but think there must be something we can do or insist that it be done um to make the residents comfortable while we're waiting for it.

Not to mention the whole site is just unsightly.

Anyhow, moving on from that, um, we're gonna go to the action list in finance and have been.

Yeah, there's there's a number of different things.

I'm not sure who can respond.

Um, um, I guess one of one of the first off, uh, you know, page one right at the very top, and this was the uh pedestrian crossing at Helmican Warkis Way, and um the cost to review the signalization is approximately $8,000.

And then number three, Helmaken, uh um applied and somehow needs to get their situation addressed.

Well, number three Helmaken's Eagles now.

That's right.

And I just wondered uh now that we finished, hopefully, when um we could actually get this uh I think in general the idea with this action list is that if you have specific questions that you email them to stay.

Yeah, and it that was one, and and uh there seems to be others that we've probably could close.

Like, for example, there was the one on um participating in Sanitz's speed reduction pilot program.

Well, yeah, that can be struck off the list.

Well, only just as our last council meeting, so I'm sure by the next committee, if the whole meeting that this update comes forward, it'll be gone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think if you have any direct questions, you can email them to Kim and he will he will get the answers.

Okay, move or seat.

Okay, thank you.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor, opposed.

That's carried.

Strategic plan update.

Sarah, did you want to speak to that or no?

This is much like the action list.

It's before you this evening and uh has been updated.

And if you do have any comments or questions, to please go ahead and forward those to Kim.

Okay.

And he will uh respond or feed those out to staff and get responses for your questions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Move receipt.

It's nice to see the updates in red.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It gives a good idea where we're at as we move into the last six months of this term.

Yeah.

Um okay.

Some receipt is moved and seconded.

All in favor, opposed.

That's carried.

So after scaring Todd away, we're just gonna whistle through all the rest of the back.

So item C is the budget variants and projects update to March 31st.

Things this matter of receiving.

Yeah, is there anything in that staff that jumps out at you that you want to speak about or just no, not specifically your worship.

Seconded by Councillor Lemon.

Okay.

Okay, so received is moved by Councillor Rogers.

All in favor, opposed, that's carried an item D is the citizen budget online engagement results.

Yes, your worship, very briefly uh this again is uh really the third year now that we've uh used the citizen budget as a tool to try to engage the public um uh about our financial plan and budget and I I can say that while the number of participants this year was a little disappointing, I think that we were in competition for online attention from the OCP and several other, you know, climate action, you know, I don't know how much, you know, perhaps online fatigue we might have been putting on our citizens.

So whether or not that's a factor, I'm not too sure.

But I but I still um would argue that even at 31 participants, we've never had 31 participants at an open house when we're when we're saying the topic is budget.

So I I would still say that that's a success.

Uh the report is attached, um, you know, detailing out both, you know, kind of the level of support of for the financial plan as well as the comments, as was alluded to earlier.

I might um offer that if council wishes to up our game a little bit in getting participation in the citizen budget.

Of course, the company that is that provides this service to us would be more than happy to take more money from us.

And they would actually then very much proactively contact View Royal residents and say, you know, basically go through the system with them and point them to I don't know exactly how it works, and it depends on how much we're willing to pay, but they can actually target a specific number of respondents and they say they will get those numbers for us.

I'm not sure quite what's all involved.

But that of course is at an additional fee, and nothing is for free, and it typically isn't cheap.

So, you know, it's completely up to council about what your opinion is about how proactive we want to be on this engagement itself.

I find it quite useful and I certainly uh I believe it satisfies the legislated requirement to engage with the public about our financial planning process right questions John I I certainly found it uh useful thank you it um uh it it is interesting and I'll just give one example of the protective services where um we just heard from uh the inspector all the uh implications and costs and scenarios and and uh the the you know dramatic um response is to just keep it the same not realizing the nitty gritty and and um you know what uh what's going on so I I think it's one thing about providing uh the budget but also somehow providing some context and and why um you know uh we're we're feeling it's necessary to increase but um yeah it it certainly was was useful not only um and and the mishmash over if you like uh on on park services which was uh really interesting you know some people recommending you know four percent increase wow it's um it it's a reuseful thing I think um yes I would like to see some means of of drawing more people in um and um maybe it's a timing of the newsletter that we would um yeah I I know have a a small newsletter did you know and have your voice and even some kind of um promotional uh a greater promotional awareness maybe people are feeling intimidated uh you know about getting involved but um um yeah i would certainly encourage having greater input my left no i i i i found the comments interesting and thoughtful and and given that it seems almost everyone commented um you know having twice as many would be twice as good.

Counselor Kor guanovich.

I think we talk about this every year.

I mean, it would be great to see more engagement from our residents.

On the other hand, we've probably come to a safe conclusion that no news is can be seen as good news in some ways, right?

And um so I'll leave it at that.

Well, I don't yeah, I don't think there's any question that the vast majority of residents are, you know, they're they're feeling okay about what is happening.

Um, I thought the comments were interesting.

I wondered if Councillor Mattson had filled it out several times.

Um, but no, I thought it was good.

But it would be good to get more people's feedback for sure, but I don't know how you I don't think the budget is the sort of thing that the vast majority of the residents are too interested in feedback unless you have you know a shocking tax increase or something that provokes the yeah I yeah I I I think we can do a better job in in getting out there.

But one of the concerns I have is the um uh well I I was impressed that the age uh we're under 40, you know, the the greatest number of participants were under 40.

That was interesting.

And but uh the household income was uh over 75,000.

So that's really interesting.

Goodness.

I didn't realize under 40s got so much money.

Um, so it it's uh well if they're homeowners in View Royal, they have to.

I know.

Yeah.

Uh I and it's it's would you refer this process to a friend?

I mean, that's a strange question to ask.

That's very, you know, I I thought that was that was odd to to have, and and support for group results and final decisions.

And those last ones were uh they struck me as odd.

But anyway, let's let's uh try and figure out a better way of getting more representation throughout the various parts of URL.

Okay, so we just need a motion to receive.

That's the move.

Second, all in favor, that's carried.

So now we're into the meat of our afternoon meeting, which is the financial plan.

Yes, thank you, your worship.

So we'll start with where we left off when we talked about the financial plan last.

And that was at our budget workshops in February.

So what you see attached to the report attack on the in the agenda are two spreadsheets, one in colored in green and one in blue.

And what you see in black text on those attachments is what we talked about and agreed to at the end of our discussions at the end of February or in the middle of February, right?

So since that time, there are a few items that have come to our attention, and we have included them in the financial plan.

And I'll just go through those very briefly.

One is that in the middle of March we had a discussion about grants in aid, and that caused a change to our budget.

We increased it to 111,586 from the original budget of 75,000.

And of course, that's funded by casino revenue, so it had no implication for taxes.

We also discovered that we needed to carry forward an unspent amount for the clean BC heat pump rebate program.

So we wanted to make sure that that didn't get missed, and we were not aware in February that that program either hadn't been really subscribed to, and so we hadn't gotten that you know funding through.

And so we wanted to make sure that was included until it was used this year.

And the funding for that is the same as it was last year, and that is from prior year surplus.

So that again did have no impact on taxation.

Since the middle of February, we also talked about a garbage collection contract renewal, and that changed the numbers somewhat, but of course that's funded from user fees.

What you will see later this year is a garbage rates bylaw come back to you in my proposal, just uh planting a seed, is that we actually approve rates over a five-year time frame, that would be to the end of 2026, to basically match this garbage collection contract, because now that we know what the one of the biggest inputs to that cost is, we would match off the user fees at the same time and uh and and to you know give our residents the signal of what they could be expecting for garbage user fees.

And keep in mind that uh the user fees pay for not only the garbage collection contract, but for the landfill tipping fees, which have had a somewhat significant increase as well.

And we've had a look at uh close a closer look at estimating the volumes and predicting those costs as well, and those are included in the numbers in the report.

So we will be talking more about garbage user fees at a report later on, uh not today, but in uh shortly.

And then we get to the tougher part of the report, and that is about the policing services and the additional costs that we became aware of subsequent to the February budget discussions.

So you can see the numbers in the report.

I'm not going to go through them in detail.

What we have kept the same is the funding cost.

I'm sorry, the funding from the reserves for up to one and a half members.

So where the costs are increased, we increased that funding proportionately to that one and a half member.

So you can see that we have done that.

The costs themselves are estimated to be at about $89,000 more.

And some of that is going to be funded from the reserve according to that one and a half member funding from the policing reserve, which means that the balance of it would be funded from taxation, and that's $79,300.

That represents about a 0.84 increase in uh you know the equivalent of a 0.84 increase in taxes in 2022.

And staff are recommending that this is the plan going forward.

However, we have provided some other alternatives.

You can see them there.

They involve basically drawing more from reserves or not funding it at all and crossing our fingers and hoping that the expenses don't come in as predicted.

So I do caution you that while we have provided alternatives, essentially the alternatives really only delay the ultimate, uh inevitable because this is an operating cost going forward, and taxation really is the recommended source of funding for operating costs.

So at the end of the day, um, while uh in the middle of February we had finished that session uh predicting a 4.7 overall tax increase that would result in about a $153 increase on the average home.

We are now suggesting that the appropriate increase is 5.5%, and that would result in an estimated $168 or $15 more than we originally predicted for the average residential home in View Royal.

That concludes my report.

Okay.

Thank you, Don.

Counselor Lemon.

Don, can you spell out what these what the revised costs are comprised of?

My understanding and the information that I got is that it's.

It's because of the final settlement as I understand it for personnel costs.

Now I'm not sure that I could speak more specifically than that to whether or not that's you know the the the collective agreement or management salaries or both.

I'm understanding it's personnel cost to me, that means all of them.

So I I really can't speak more specifically than that.

So and and and I don't expect you to know this, but when we received the first dollar input from the RCMP, those costs weren't anticipated.

We well, we knew they were coming.

We didn't have any revised costs.

We we go from the you know the we get a letter that says here's what your per RCMP member cost is going to be, and that's what we budget on.

But but the contract was just signed, right?

So this is a direct result of the the contract that was signed at the beginning of March.

Okay.

That's my understanding.

Yeah.

Councilor Rogers.

Yeah, thanks.

Um so uh somehow in in the uh email correspondence that we had, uh I got the impression that we had anticipated and uh were budgeting, you know, s even way back when we knew the negotiations were going to happen.

That's so the So Don is prepared for this question, but there's two things, right?

There's the retro pay, which is what the email conversation was about.

This is for their new contract and their new pay moving forward.

Oh, I see, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we've we've already taken care.

So uh I guess the other question then would be as we just heard, perhaps the feds would be uh cost sharing in some of this.

I think it's possible that they're going to give us something, but I don't think staff know anything about that yet.

I it was a surprise to me, worship.

I I have not heard anything.

How much can we have to do that?

But Don can but we do we have accrued the liability on our books.

Yes.

What what and and of course, since we haven't got the final bill, I presume you're talking about the retro pay.

We don't actually have the final bill for that retro pay.

They, they have given us a range of costs.

I think I think the council got a copy of that.

So and and we have kind of made our best cast guess within that range, and that is what we have accrued out of prior years money, right?

So it's not it's not in this budget.

What's in this budget is the amount now that they are predicting that the that new contract is going to uh represent in terms of view royals cost.

So I guess we thank you and and my question was that then um let me put it in a different way um if we had anticipated that uh lump sum payment um uh whatever the amount is uh back back fill um in the retroactive pardon the retroactive so if the feds help us on that and we had accrued that amount, is that then um money that would um now that we could be able to put into surplus whatever the feds would be contributing, which would then help offset this.

Um if I understand the question correctly, and that is that we haven't got the bill yet for retro pay.

We have set some funds aside for retro pay.

If it turns out that we've accrued more than we actually need, I would suggest that we place that back into the policing reserve, and that would then help fund these future costs.

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

Um sorry, I need to do that.

Yeah, go ahead.

Another question, but this in general terms, um uh I had read your email response to uh to Mayor's Greece about um other properties uh like number seven, number nine, uh Erskine lanes, and and the um uh whether there's been uh any any adjustments since February um that would show us more revenue.

I mean, here we're looking at the cost side.

Are there uh since February um other further developments, if you like, on the revenue side that uh would help offset?

No.

No.

That's I that that's I mean, I was interested in those.

That's why I said I didn't like Dawn's answer, but it wasn't it wasn't her fault.

Okay.

But it but it seemed to me that number nine was gonna is substantially more than than you know where we would.

But it's still just land only.

As soon as the buildings actually start going up, then we'll see the the jump.

But yeah, no, it was depressing that that there's okay.

So no, I th I think the budget is what the budget is, and the question really is whether we just um you know agree to go with the five point five as opposed to the four point seven that we'd agreed on, because we've had the new information come to light on the RCMP costs.

So to me, I don't think we have much of a choice really.

I know but to do that.

Yeah you're you're saying that it's uh we have to acknowledge the 5.5 yeah, I don't I mean if if we shuffle it off and fund it some other way, it's just gonna come back next year or the year after to add to the increase then yeah um and everyone's having you know sanage ended up at six point seven percent um at all the municipalities that i've read about have been have had a struggle this year with costs and with they're all doing you know that there's the one consistent factor well no sorry uh those that have r cmp you know that's the one consistent factor on on on the west shore and other r cmp detachments and c id so you know there we're all gonna get that percentage increase.

On my left yeah you know i i i i there's nothing to be done.

There's nothing to be done, short short of losing a position.

And uh we're not we're not a um we're not overstaffed.

I I can see people are going to be concerned because we are we're we're kind of the frontline number, and then when that's tacked on to um their their um you know the the assessments on their homes over the past year, um I think it's gonna be uncomfortable.

It all depends on where we go in the next uh agenda.

That's certainly part of it.

And and the other increases are minimal.

Like the CRD increase is minimal, and so it does um, but yeah, no, it's it's a big increase for sure.

Second.

But then there is a staff recommendation there if anyone's prepared to move it.

So moved.

Okay.

So it's moved and seconded discussion.

Yeah.

Okay.

So all in favor.

Yeah.

So now we have to do try and figure out the tax rates, which isn't easy when you look at the difference from the commercial assessments to the residential assessments and trying to make sense of them and what's a fair thing to do.

But Don has prepared some options as we saw.

So over to you.

All right.

Thank you, your worship.

And yes, I do consider this the main event of the afternoon.

And I do appreciate the time.

Um, I I can go as fast or as slow as you like.

Some of this is a little bit repetitive from last year, trying to gauge um not only councils perhaps wish to be a little bit refreshed on how this kind of works and how we think about this, but also if there are any viewing public, um, you know, to to kind of make them aware of what what council has to deal with as as we go through this.

So um please do feel free to interrupt me with questions.

I'm more than happy to, you know, to stop and I would rather kind of deal with it when we're in that topic and looking at perhaps the slide of question.

So please feel free to to interrupt me if needed.

We're gonna first talk about uh spend a little bit of time talking about what kind of goes into the process involved in setting tax rates.

We're gonna talk about the uh property assessments and in this you know kind of every year has been a little bit of a dance with our assessments doing different things, and so we're gonna look at what's different this year.

We're gonna look about uh look uh about how View Royal compares with other municipalities in the region.

We're gonna talk about the specific scenarios that we have prepared, knowing that they are only a few of the infinity uh possible of scenarios that we could be looking at, and and of course, what that means for our View Royal residents and businesses, and then, of course, it is up to council to make those hard choices to ask questions and provide direction so that the end of the day we can bring back a bylaw for consideration in time for the deadline.

So you may recall my little analogy from last year where I kind of likened municipal uh tax rate setting, like trying to do one of these puzzles where you know the boundaries are set, some of the little components we can change and influence, and some of them not as much.

Um, and at the end of the day, uh, we are bounded by um you know, kind of the constraints and and and challenges in inherent in the process.

So property assessments are determined by BC assessment, as you know, and uh you know they are operating under the assessment act, they are independent of you royal, which is kind of what you want.

It uh that helps uh property owners, gives property owners the assurance that it isn't the fox watching the hen house, it's BC assessment telling us what the properties are assessed at, and and and we take we don't have influence over that.

Properties are assigned, as you know, classes, class one being residential, class six is business, and that does depend on the property's type or use.

Um, zoning certainly has some influence over uh where a property lands in its class, um, but that's not the only determinant.

Usage is is a determinant as well.

And and I have some limited ability to speak to why assessments are the way they are or why a property is assessed to how it is.

Do keep in mind that property assessments for the 2022 tax roll are kind of generally set in July of last year.

So where you think something should be assessed differently, think about where it was at in July, and that might help clarify some things.

Uh we do provide information on subsets of the residential class, being the single family and the strata breakdown, but those are not separate classes.

It is one rate for the residential class, so we're gonna have to keep that in mind.

And yes, assessments change each year, and there are some of those changes that are the result of factors such as new construction demolition of existing improvements or reclassification of properties, and we call those non market changes.

So at the end of the day, we include those non market changes, but they do have an influence over, you know, kind of what the owner of property that had no non market changes.

It kind of influences.

It's a part of the of the bigger puzzle as well.

The role of the assessment role that we are looking at and is included in the calculation to date is what we call the revised role.

Back in February, we only had what they called the completed role available.

That's just an ABC assessment process.

So we are looking at the revised role, and those are the assessments on which we will produce our tax rates by law.

We're going to talk a little bit about the average or representative property.

And it really is important to understand that it, you know, the effect that and the impact that this has, except that it really isn't a perfect measure at all.

It's really generally more useful for classes that have a large number of properties.

And it actually can be quite misleading when we talk about it for some of those classes that have fewer properties.

And you will see that in a little bit as well.

Just a reminder that when we talk about a tax burden, we're talking about the relative amount or percentage of dollars that is levied on any given property class.

So if we talk about a residential class burden of 70%, we really mean that 70% of the total municipal tax revenue is coming from properties in the residential class.

The tax burden shifts with changes in assessments, but it also shifts with tax ratios.

And council will be looking at tax ratios later on today.

For the 2022 assessments, about 3.5% of the tax burden is shifted away from other classes, primarily the business class, to residential.

That's what's that assessments have moved to cause that shift.

And that presumes that if we were not to change any of the tax ratios, that's what would happen.

So, what should we do when the assessments in one class have a significantly greater increase than the assessments in the other class should the tax burden remain the same as it was in the prior year?

And there are consequences to that.

We just talked about the financial plan and the revenue required to be raised from taxation.

And of course, council has complete discretion over how much revenue is to come from taxation.

But of course, at this point in time in time, that needs to be a set target so that we can set the tax rates to achieve exactly that tax revenue required requirement.

Legislation does require that the financial plan be approved prior to the tax rates, and for that reason, because the one it the one determines the other.

So legislation requires BC assessment to classify properties according to type or use, and 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 what we mean by tax ratios or tax rate multiples.

The residential class is always a multiple of one.

That's our base, right?

All the other classes are expressed, uh, the rates for the other classes are expressed as a multiple of the residential base rates.

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

So it quickly becomes apparent that for every dollar in the business class, it's worth three and a half dollars of the residential class.

So we would do we do want to keep that in mind.

That go into setting tax rates.

And I did go through it quite quickly because it is something that we have looked at before.

The rest of the day today's discussion is going to be on focused on the components of the process that we can change.

So BC Assessment provides assessments independently from View Royal.

The average and representative property is calculated using these assessments.

Those are two things that we don't have the ability to change or significantly influence.

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

Council also does determine how much revenue will be raised through taxation.

And so those two kind of middle orange ish squares are things that council has influenced, but at this point in time, you know, the tax revenue requirement is set.

We know how much money we need to raise through taxes.

So today's discussion really is going to focus on the relationship between the property classes as expressed by the tax ratios or multiples, and we're going to look at several scenarios.

Okay, but first we're going to talk about what is happening with the assessments.

Class as those are the ones that you know comprise the biggest component in View Royal.

The average single family residential property had a significant increase in 20 for the 2022 role from 808,000 over 808,000 in 2021 to over a million in 2022.

That's a 28% increase.

The average strata property increased about 17% to nearly 600,000.

But overall, and it's the class percentage increase that that kind of serves as our benchmark, it increased from 753,400 or so to 931,000 or a 24% increase.

That is significant.

I have not seen the residential class experience that much of an of an increase since I've been here.

And indeed, this is not unique to View Royal.

So it's not unusual.

This is from my understanding across a lot of the province.

But when we talk about an average, I delved into this because it was bothering me just a little bit.

I want you just to look at this chart for a minute.

You can see this line in the middle here where the average residential assessment at 930,800.

And yet when we count the number of properties that are both above and then below, so so the bars represent the actual count of properties, not the dollar values, but the count of the properties whose value either is below or above the average residential assessment.

You can see that, I mean, intuitively, just by the shape of the chart, you can see that more properties have a value that is less than that average dollar amount than is above.

So 60% of the taxable properties are below the average, and 40% are above.

I don't want this chart to be misleading.

We've only here displayed the properties that are valued just um uh 2.2 million because the rest of them go on and on.

That little tail on the right side goes on for quite some time, quite some distance in space.

I didn't have room for that on my slide, right?

So so this this tells you that uh you know that the really the majority of properties in View Royal, majority of I should qualify that residential properties in View Royal, um, while the average dollar value is 930, nearly 931,000, really there are more that are below that than are over that.

I've lost my mouse.

Here we go.

And now we look at the same sort of thing for the business class.

And and I did I did explain this in the in the report, and I and you know, I hope it didn't get too too confusing.

But you know, when we just look at the business class and we see that there's 122 properties, and the average assessment in 2022 is about 2.6 million, and that is a change of 6%.

I would argue that the only meaningful number in that that table at the top there is the 6% change.

That's really the only number that we we should really be thinking about because, and again, the chart below goes only from $1 to $4 million because we again that that right hand tail of this chart would go on up to $78 million.

Right?

That's our highest business property value.

So, you know, I can't proportionately put that in this chart.

But you can see that more than half of our business class properties in View Royal have a value of $800,000 or less.

I think that's significant.

And that is why we can't really talk about an average or representative property for the business class.

Very quickly, these uh charts, these um uh kind of graphics are attached to your report because I knew that they wouldn't display very well on the screens here in council chambers.

Really, what this does, what this particular one does is look at the business class ratio uh view in View Royal versus that across the CRD.

And you can see that for CRD municipalities over the last four years or so the faint blue dotted line shows that the median over time is about 3.4 whereas and and the provincial multiple is at 2.45, View Royal's business class multiple has been about 3.6 and in 2021 was uh closer to 3.7.

So it gives you a little bit of a context of where we sit among our peers for business business class properties, and you can bet that business class property owners are looking at at all of across the region where they can get the the best advantage if in terms of property taxes.

You can see then that you know, in the the bar chart in the right corner there, that View Royal being the blue bar is really just about middle of the pack.

We're neither we're neither the highest nor the lowest, we're just kind of almost smack dab in the middle, which I think is a is a fine place to be.

For the recreation class, of course, that's a completely different story because council has made a concerted effort to look at our recreation class, understand it a little bit about what it is comprised of, and we have targeted to be not the middle or the lowest, but more closely to the highest one.

And so you can see that you know, while the median over time is around 2.46, and the provincial multiple is one, View Royal has been increasing over the last four years or so, going from 4.1 to 5.1 in 2021.

So we are second highest on that score ranking amongst CRD municipalities.

Another way of looking at it for the regional context is to compare the amount of taxes per capita.

I remind you that this doesn't include any user fees, no water sewer or garbage.

This is strictly taxes, but will include parcel taxes if if a municipality has parcel taxes.

So over uh the regional uh the CRD um uh taxes per person is about six hundred and eighty-one dollars, and in 2021 that dollar value was about 568.

So we are below the median, and in uh ranking uh we are about fourth from the lowest amongst other neighboring municipalities.

John, it would seem like what we heard uh again with protective services that uh maturism may not be at the bottom of the pack anymore.

I uh again, I don't have those numbers until next year at this time, and I'll be certain to report those to you as well.

Yeah.

No, I think that's fair to say they're they're gonna see a significant increase.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And now we get to the scenarios.

I I'm sure you can appreciate that.

Um, you know, given the the rather different year we've had with a financial plan, I was I was a little bit struggling as to what scenarios should I be running, the you know, based on 4.7, based on 5.5, and I've kind of hit on uh a little bit of both, and and not completely for five point for the 5.5 percent tax increase, but I think you'll see that um really the difference between 4.7 and 5.5 will be a little bit, like it'll be less than one percent.

Um if you want to compare uh uh or you want to think about a scenario that I didn't run for the 5.5, we can look at the 4.7 and say, okay, well, it's going to be a little bit more than that because we aren't doing going to do 4.7, we're going to do 5.5.

So we'll just briefly go through what the scenarios are.

Scenario A takes the assumption, and and I try to pattern this the same every year so that we kind of get used to how we're thinking about this.

Um we it takes the assumption that we don't change the multiples.

We keep the multiples exactly the same as we did in the prior year.

And in that case, because of the increase in the assessments, we have to actually decrease the tax rate in order to balance things off.

All of the tax ratios stay the same.

It's the rates that change and they go down by about 12%.

Scenario B compl takes a completely different approach.

It says, never mind the ratios, let the ratios do whatever they will.

What we want to keep the same is the proportionate dollar value from each class.

So if, for example, the residential class uh paid 70% of the tax bill last year at an assessment, you know, at the at a certain point, even though the assessment went up 24%, we still only want them to contribute 70% of the tax bill.

Whereas the business class only went up six percent.

So you can see there's a disproportion there.

We're gonna say, never mind that, we still want everybody to pay that same proportion of the tax bill.

So it kind of starts at the end and says, we'll change we'll change the ratios to achieve basically no change to the tax burden.

In scenario C, um, I I bring this back every year because it has been of interest to council in the past, and that is, well, what would happen if we decreased classes five and six being our light industry and business classes?

Because you know, perhaps we we we recognize that those classes do have represent uh you know more than you know, three and a half percent, let's say, or three and a half times the residential uh ratios, um uh you know, tax dollar, if you will.

Um and so what would happen if we decrease the ratios for those classes to 3.1 and 3.3.

And we will see what happens uh in that case, and I would suggest that because of the, you will see that because of the disproportion in change in assessments between residential and business class, this kind of exacerbates that effect.

So you'll see that.

Then again, we're we're always going to look at um what would happen if we increase increase the class eight ratio.

So right now it is at 5.1, and scenario A assumes that we would keep it at 5.1, but scenario D says let's keep everything else the same, and we will just increase the recreation class to, in this case, I chose six because that's basically the ceiling, if you want to think of it, as that's the highest in the region.

You can think of if you want something other than six, you know, if you halved it between five and six, you would have half roughly the effect that I'm portraying in in that scenario.

So what I did with uh scenarios E and F is said, well, let's take two of the the scenarios that we've been thinking about for 4.7 and we'll replicate them only with a 5.5% tax increase just to see what the difference is.

So scenario E is exactly the same assumptions as the first scenario under 4.7 A.

So A and E are the same and in in uh F we look at basically the the corollary to that under the 4.7 um is is D, right?

So A and E are the same, D and F are the same, but they result in uh 5.5% tax increase as opposed to 4.7.

Are we good so far?

Uh-huh.

You're with so saying general nodding.

All right.

Yeah.

So here's our happy face sad face slide.

Okay.

Right?

So if you are and and just in case you want the in case you want the actual numbers, you could look at schedule five attached to the report.

Because that's where the the happy face sad face comes from.

If you were to look at the line in schedule five that's labeled total residential on the bottom half of the of the table, you would see that if you were a residential property owner, you would look across that line and you would pick the scenario that had the lowest increase per $100,000.

And if you were to do that, you would choose scenario B.

And it kind of makes sense because what we're doing in scenario B is we're saying we don't care if residential class increase 24%, we're going to keep the tax burden the same as it was last year.

So we're we have more assessment dollars to spread the burden over, but we're not going to take all of the burden that that comes with that.

So the lowest increase to residential is for scenario B.

Scenario C is basically the highest.

And that's because if you recall, scenario C was the one where we reduced business class and light industry class ratio.

We decreased it, which means somebody else has to pick up the load, and that would be the residential class.

So when you decrease the uh the ratios for the business class, it's going to negatively affect the residential class.

So you can't have happiness in both residential and business classes.

You hope for something in between.

And there is very little, I would say, difference between scenarios A and D, and that's why I've kind of got a meh kind of face on both of those.

There's really like a dollar or less difference between scenarios A and D, and again between E and F.

There's there's not much of a difference.

Now, if you are a business class property owner, you would not want to be you would not want council to select scenario B, as remember the business class is the class that got the 6% assessment increase, not the 24% assessment increase.

So by you know, kind of manipulating the ratios to shift some of the taxes back to the business class, it's not going to be the scenario of choice for the business class.

So scenario B while the residential folk would be happy with that one, the the business folk would be less so for sure.

And if the business class property owner had anything to do with it, they would choose scenario C, which is the one that kind of arbitrarily reduces the business class multiple downward.

The next slide shows the actual multiples.

So I'm I'm happy to pause for questions if you wish.

So these are the multiples that we're talking about in each of those scenarios.

The ones in red are the ones that are different from the prior year?

So you can see what happens in scenario B in order to achieve that shift, you know, kind of reducing the effect on the residential class will negatively affect the business class.

And so you can see that in scenario B, the business class tax ratio goes up to 4.3 from where it is today at about 3.7.

The first row on this table, of course, is where they are at in 2021.

So their ratio goes up, but the amount of money we're collecting from them stays proportionally the same.

That is that is the you know, kind of the premise of scenario B is that the total dollar amount proportionately the dollar the absolute dollar amount doesn't stay the same, but the proportion of the dollar amount that we're collecting stays the same.

The share between the classes stays the same.

But if you think about it, if you have fewer dollars to spread that burden over, then the individual has to increase the the amount, right?

So you know, I was trying to think of an analogy.

It's like you know, if you had a a board held up by several different pegs evenly, everybody gets the same weight, right?

But if you start moving some of those pegs over to one side, the two that are remaining on on an edge are going to have bear a a greater amount of the weight.

And that's kind of what we're what we're seeing here that when you when you shift um the tax dollars over a class that has now a proportionately smaller assessment base, the individuals in that assessment base are going to experience a little bit of an increase.

Counselor Lemon?

Yeah, I I I grasp tangibles.

Um Don.

So we were talking about a little bit of an increase.

And I know you don't know the numbers yet, but like what does a little bit mean?

That is actually why we attach Schedule Six to your report so that you can actually work through concrete numbers.

I appreciate that.

No, that's it, it it is hard to try to get our our heads around, you know, what does this actually mean?

And so I encourage you to look through the exact um, you know, examples that we give.

I I uh thankfully we we have a little bit, you know, kind of improved tools now.

I have the ability and I have studied um for each both for both the residential class and the business class, kind of the best and the worst, right?

Who is which under under all of these scenarios?

Who is the one that's going to be affected most negatively?

And who is going to be the happiest, if you will?

Who's going to be the maddest and who's going to be the happiest?

And and I have included the best and the worst in almost every scenario.

I mean, I couldn't do it for every property, but but the best and the worst on that schedule six.

And that's why you might see some properties on that list that you may not have seen last year.

And it's because I wanted to identify those as either the best or the worst.

So I've tried to try to give you those examples so that you can a little bit see what we're talking about.

I am just about finished here.

I do encourage you and any of the people in the audience that might be looking at this.

BC Assessment came up with this little bit of a graphic, and I see other municipalities using it as well.

And then look at your property tax notice and say, okay, did my property assessment value go up more or less than the 24% if it was a residential property, for example?

And if it was more, then you can expect that your property taxes are going to increase more than even we are predicting.

And the converse is true.

If your assessment only went up 20% instead of 24%, then then you're going to experience less of an increase than we are predicting.

Right?

And it's roughly true.

So this is where I'm going to skip right to the, well, I've I've done this slide for both a 4% 4.7 uh percent result and a 5.5%.

Scenario A, and we quoted this in the financial plan report as well, where the scenario A predicted the $153 increase, given, you know, given none of the multiples change.

And with a 5.5% increase, that turns out to be $168.

So what this little calculation is describing is exactly what I just said.

So if the average property assessment increased 24%, but let's say that you have a single family home, and this is where we get into the there is a difference between the increase in single family versus a strata property property, those changes assessment on average changed quite differently.

So for a single family residential, that increased 28%.

So that's a difference of 4%.

So if scenario E was predicting a 10% increase in property taxes of $168, you can expect to add that 4% that your assessment increased more than the average, and you might get a 14% increase or $238.

Conversely, if you have a strata property and the average for the class was 24%, but yours only went up 18%, I had to round it a little bit.

The strata average is about 17%, but it kind of rounds there's there's some half percents in here that I had to take into calculation.

So if that difference was 6%, then you would subtract that from the 10%, and your increase would be 4% or $66, right?

So there is a good chunk of the residential class that is strata versus single family.

There are still more single family homes and properties than there are strata, but but there will be I would suggest that the majority of the strata property owners will see uh a um uh a property tax increase that is significantly less than a single family dwelling would.

But the reverse of that happened a couple of years ago, right?

Where the stratas actually had quite a bit more, is my recollection.

Yeah.

So I don't specifically recall, but I haven't necessarily seen it be quite this different in the past.

So I I would agree this it seems to be a little bit of a of a different year.

Every year is seems to be a different year.

So I mean at the end of the day, um all all I need to know is where does council wish to go with the scenarios?

And you do not need to choose one of the scenarios that is before you.

I would suggest that you could pick a base scenario and say, except that we want to change a multiple, say for the recreation class, to something different than the 5.1 that it is right now, or that that is proposed, you know, by the by that would be determined by the assumptions in the scenario.

And uh uh, you knew I I I can do that unless council already has a good idea of where what they would like to see.

Okay.

Well, let's find out.

Thanks, Don.

You you may want to go back a page, because I I think I'm gonna need that.

Yeah.

Which one?

Uh there's there's on this here as I'm because I'm looking at these uh these tables here, the options.

So from Councillor Mattson, just so everyone knows, for he likes scenario.

Well, I wouldn't know if he likes it, but he thinks that scenario B is the most reasonable.

So B for the five point or the 4.7.

With the 5.5.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Although, yeah.

So questions, comments, thoughts.

It's it is a really difficult um year with that spread in the uh the assessments and then the difference in the assessments.

I guess um, you know, I'm in discussion of B.

Um, certainly yeah, that it looked good for the residential.

I'm just a little concerned with from a from a um from a commercial business sense, um you know what that impact is, and I'm thinking of uh like in Eagle Creek, you have all these different companies, um, businesses at eagle creek and what this would do in in terms of those as the management of eagle creek passes it down to the individual businesses well eagle creek is which address on here um do we have them isn't that 33 that that's correct the 33 helm can yeah so under serious scenario b they don't you know they just see a very modest increase 15 000 yeah 2.42 percent so i bet you all their leases that they would have would would already cover us.

So who's 38 Helm again?

38 must be is it bureaural Market?

Okay, we think 38?

It must be because it's on the other side of the road, obviously, right?

Yeah.

That's a bit of a jump.

Yeah, I'm Googling it.

Yeah, it's uh it's Helmican Market.

Interesting.

Yeah.

No longer viable business.

It's 1708 Island Highway, that would be that's the casino.

Okay.

So I mean, really, it doesn't from what we're seeing on here, the examples for business, scenario B is actually fairer to them, but it it skews the the ratio.

Because the ratio goes up considerably.

But that's sort of out of our control this year because of the 400% difference in assessment increases.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

So what happens if we did B with an increase of class eight to six?

Yeah, well, that's I met with Don and Sarah yesterday, just we just chatted for about half an hour, and that's kind of what I ended up saying too.

What if we did class eight to six and and went with scenario B?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That does happen to be a scenario that I ran just because it's fun to play.

You did run that one.

So I actually did run the scenario, unfortunately, I don't I don't have a slide that shows it.

So I would have to refer you to you know your your your big sheet with all of the numbers.

If you look at column B and ask me about a property that you know might you might be interested in, I can tell you that for the um under scenario B, I'm just gonna make sure I've got the right one.

So what we're doing is this is this is scenario B that assumes uh we keep the basically the tax burden the same between the classes, but we're going to increase the recreation class to six.

Okay.

So for the the first line, the class representative or the single for the single family property that paid you know basically $1,887 in taxes in 2021.

Your chart says that they're going to pay $153 more in your scenario B, and with a five and a half increase and the change to the class eight ratio, it goes to $169.

So from $168 to $169.

Correct.

Right.

And for the strata property that had an a uh almost a $12 reduction, they have a $3 reduction.

And what does it do to the Burnett Road, the 127 Burnett Road?

Uh uh now are you talking about residential class or business class?

Because that property has both.

Yeah.

Isn't isn't that our class eight, the 127?

Well, it's both.

It has residential, business, and class eight.

Yeah, no, I mean I was curious about the class eight.

So in scenario B, you've got a reduction of about $388 in the in what you have in front of you.

And in class eight.

That increase is $7,248.

So it's it's significant.

Changing that multiple for class eight has a significant impact to class eight.

And that is because there are two properties.

And you see both of them all listed.

Yeah.

There's two properties.

So this goes back to my tent pole scenario.

If you only have one man standing, he's got to carry the weight.

Okay.

Okay.

Damien's great question.

Jamie, there we need to move the recreation up even further.

From from six?

Yeah.

Oh, interesting.

We've sort of taken a we've been doing it for the last few years of doing a kind of measured, right?

Um.

So I I would worry about yeah.

About doing more more than six in in one.

You mean that's a full, what was it last year?

5.1?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean that's you know, I mean, that's a fairly significant increase.

And Highlands is the highest in the region at six, so that puts us in a tie with that.

So I think we're better personally to keep our incremental.

It's not gonna make any big difference on the other taxes, right?

It becomes and Don can but it you know I think even if we said 6.5 the difference on the other taxes are going to be minimal and arguably you're being punitive to the to the others.

Okay I I don't know if I would agree with that but I would be interested in a higher increase than 6.5 something more considerable.

Yeah well I know what you think but that that's where I'm at just I'd put other for discussion and and I would support that so for for your consideration, you know, I I just told you that it'd be about $7200 versus a reduction of $400.

So, you know, so say $7,500, but you you charge that against one property and it gets spread over all practically $10 million worth of tax revenue across all of the other classes.

And that's why you don't see uh, you know, the other classes don't really see a benefit to doing that.

But I would caution that targeting a class where it has only two properties, the risk would be in seeming punitive.

Yeah.

I I disagree, but that.

That's fine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I I think it's a matter of being fair, right?

If it was going to make us we've had a policy of of slowly putting their taxes up above the norm year after year after year.

Um, so to all of a sudden one year decide that we're going to really whack it to them, I I don't think that's the the correct approach.

Um especially when it doesn't make any considerable difference to the other tax increases.

I think it is just punitive, and it looks like we're saying, you know, I mean the both the properties are owned by one property owner.

Um so it it certainly could look.

Certainly it's um yeah, it has interesting implications, but but they have enough um individual um renters that they'd be able to carry that uh, you know, it would be divided out if you like um but you could say the same for Eagle Creek.

Yeah I mean why wouldn't you know Eagle Creek is only having a 2.5% tax increase.

Yeah their tenants I mean you you could easily say that they could average it out.

Yeah I would um certainly like to see what um this sheet with uh B and uh um you know with tailoring it to F if you like and increasing class A under schedule scenario B and get a print out of that and see what uh what it would all come out to so what are you asking scenario B with the 5.5 yes at a 5.5 with the class eight at that are going to six okay I'd like to see what that looks like so are you okay with that over dinner absolutely hopefully you get a chance to eat as well yeah okay you know when i and also uh just uh just comment looking at uh at my property i wasn't particularly concerned um you know really with even you know scenario a uh with the 4.7 even scenario f um which was um yeah a minimal increase uh from five you know 4.7 to 5 and $176 dollars uh i know that's not the the average, but it you know incrementally it's it's no big deal um you're looking at those two.

And then when you consider what um and i think the other thing too is you know, the world being so low in in um the region for taxes, I don't think we need to be artificially in in that low category.

We still have the benefit of a casino where others don't.

So Don, maybe on that just to satisfy Damien, I don't I don't know how much is is practical for you, but maybe you could do the class eight at 7.5 as well.

Was it seven point seven point five?

Well, I'm just picking a number just just to see it.

I think especially it'd be interesting to see the very small effect that difference would have on the other taxes.

Okay.

So if that's not too much work, that would I'll see what I okay.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So let's just receive the report.

Motion to receive.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor, opposed.

That's correct.

Thank you, Don.

Yeah.

And um, and then we're gonna go in camera.

So we'll call the meeting back to order.

And um, if the public are looking to phone in to speak to any agenda item tonight, public participation is going to come up virtually immediately as soon as I finish speaking.

So this would be the time to call in.

778-402-9227.

And when prompted, enter conference ID 987-910-590 pound.

And so if you would like to speak to any item on the agenda tonight, this is your opportunity to do so.

And um at the appropriate timing the agenda, which will be almost right away.

I will then announce the last four digits of your phone number, ask you to mute the live webcast to avoid feedback, ask you to not 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 for the record, please.

And so with that, then we'll go right to public participation period.

And we have a gentleman in the room tonight.

Were you wishing to speak under public participation?

No?

Okay.

Thank you.

We're just not used to having someone who says.

Do we have any callers on the line, Steph?

Your worship, we don't have any callers on the line at this time.

Okay, thank you.

So we'll close that off.

And I think then we'll just go right back to the last item on oh no, it isn't actually the yeah, the last item that we were doing before break, which is the 2022 tax rate options.

Thanks, Your Worship.

And yes, just to try to pick up a little bit where we left off, I do have just a couple of slides, and we will keep it brief.

Okay.

So my understanding of what uh homework I did in between uh the earlier session and this was that I was to look at scenarios that contemplate raising a enough um raising taxes, basically the five and a half percent to meet the objectives of the financial plan.

And look at a scenario for that five and a half percent increase, similar to what was on your previous scenario as B, which is basically changing the total contribution proportionately for all classes.

Um, although we wanted to look at two scenarios under that kind of scenario, which is what I've called G.

So we're gonna we're going to change the total contribution for all the classes, um, except increase class eight ratio to 6.0.

And um the other scenario being uh very similar, except that instead of 6.0, we're gonna change it to 7.5.

So we wanted to see what what the effect of those two scenarios would have.

And again, this is the scenario that basically ignores all of the changes in assessments and the shift of assessments uh to the residential class, and just basically says we want the same proportionate contribution from the classes as we did in 2021.

So the result of the two scenarios, and I've called them G and H, you can see that really, in terms of the effect to the light industry, class five and class six business are virtually nothing.

Except to the recreation class, there is a significant change.

And it's it's kind of correlates to what I was saying before.

Whenever you change a ratio for a class that is very, very small, that class feels it, where all the other classes really don't feel it very much.

Now the multiples go in here in this uh depiction to four decimals.

Rates go to, I believe it is six typically, five or six.

And so you do see a slight difference in um what you what I've distributed as another schedule six.

Um so we'll we'll look at that in a second, but I wanted to reproduce um what this is now, what you're looking at the screen now is scenario G.

So this is kind of the more um you know modified um approach, which is taking the recreation class to a multiple of six, not the 7.5, but to the six, but it is the the replication of our uh old scenario B, let's say.

So you can see that um the average property assessment increase at 24% for a single family residential, let's say that had an increase of 28%, that is a difference of 4%, this scenario predicts that the taxes are going to go up 5% or $92 for the average property assessment that went up 24%.

So if your increase went up 28%, you can add the five and the four to get a nine percent increase.

So that's a roughly about $158 dollars.

Conversely, if your assessment went down, maybe by 6%, which might be similar to what a strata property might experience, you're going to practically break even with what was paid in 2021.

So it's the big sheet there, and I've shown you scenario E and F, which are unchanged from the last time you saw them, of course.

And then you we've added scenario G and H, and you'll see there is very, very small differences, a couple of bucks really, between the two scenarios G and H for all classes, except for draw your eye all the way down to the last two rows, and specifically the second from the bottom row for a particular class eight property that is the single most significant property in that class, and the difference is about $20,000.

So what we are hoping for today really is for council to give me the direction that you wish to see on a bylaw that returns to you as a bylaw.

Now do keep in mind that I have I have uh kind of flown through these calculations.

If I discover when I have my people check all of these numbers that I have made an error, I will completely confess that it is you know something different than I've shown you but this is but this is um I I believe it is um as as close as we can get to the best estimate for your information today okay thank you Don thanks for doing that over the supper hour so what is councils or committee's pleasure scenario G Pardon scenario G scenario G yeah I tend to agree scenario G so we have three scenario G's.

Okay, so does someone congratulation yeah a resigned face.

I mean that's still, I mean, that very that ratio three years ago was 3.8 or something, so we have consistently bumped it up.

Okay, so can we get a motion for I I would just also point out though, if you look at F, um that's F provided in the big sheet of paper.

And and with um class eight of um, you know, we'd see actually that in that scenario, class eight, that class eight is says uh saved, gone from a 14% to a 9.7%.

So actually G is is beneficial all around, including the um right the class eight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I would make a motion.

Okay, so you're moving that we move prepare the final budget and tax rates based on scenario G.

Okay, everyone's good.

Yes, please.

Okay.

And there's seconder.

Seconded by Councillor Lemon.

Okay, all in favor.

Opposed, that's carried.

Thank you, staff.

Yeah, thank you.

So next we have the advisory committee meetings.

Right?

Yeah, because we just yeah.

So Sarah, did you want to speak to that?

If you would like me to, your worship, I can do that.

And that is in the fall, uh, there was a report promised that this issue would come back in the spring.

And this is that report.

And this stems back to work in the summer of 2021, where uh committee, the whole decision was made where the committees would come back to an in-person format beginning on January 1st, 2022, on an alternating month basis, um, because the membership numbers had grown on our advisory committees to a point that no groups could meet at the same time in town hall and our and in our um both in our chambers and in our meeting room.

But with step three of the restart plan stymied, and and uh we weren't able to, as a province, move um in late summer, early fall to step four, that was kind of held in abeyance, and instead a decision was made that we would continue to meet on the team's meeting platform until June 30th, 2022.

And so, as I said, we decided we would reevaluate that decision come spring, and here we are.

So since September 2020, the advisory committees have been meeting with the Microsoft Teams meeting platform.

The public is able to phone in and listen to the to the meeting.

Uh, they're not live webcast at this point, and on that platform, it's working quite well, and the advisory committee members, I think, have now gotten the hang of it, and they they can participate by telephone or they can join on a computer from their homes and with their both both their image and their sound.

Um, they have membership now numbers of 14 on the community development group and uh 10 on the Parks Rec and Environment Advisory Committee.

Despite changes to the pandemic protocols, though, there is concern of a sixth wave of the pandemic, and it's either anticipated or underway, depending on what news you're listening to or watching or reading.

And so at this point, staff are recommending that we continue to meet electronically until the end of 2022, but we reevaluate that in the fall.

There's only three meetings left till the end of 2022, but use the time to ask the advisory committee committee members what they may like to do.

And it may be, and I've suggested one solution here provided by Lindsay, and that is perhaps we do a hybrid where we alternate use of chambers and so one group and we could still continue to meet then on the same night, which would facilitate joint presentations more easily.

So for example, if if we had Capital Bike last time around, well Capital Bike could present to a joint group with some members in chambers and some participating from home.

And that way we could that could be a model but we could take the time and ask the advisory committee members if if that's a type of solution or if they have a different one that may work for them.

But uh come back in the fall, perhaps November to the advice to this committee and uh bring those results and see what we do and also more maybe don't known about the pandemic and and where we're going come the fall.

Councillor Rogers, go ahead.

Okay.

Comments, questions?

Yeah, I I I appreciate the uh concerns with the uh um sixth wave.

Um and and yeah I appreciate also that uh we're gonna reach out to the uh advisory committee members to to get their feedback.

I'm just wondering with the um redesign of uh the chambers um in the is there any possibility of being able to divide the room so that um the committee and committees could meet here at the same time or um alternate.