Tom, Dick and Harry

...one FOR amalgamation; the other AGAINST.
And the third?  Well...

A fictional dialogue among three Coldstream neighbours on the proposal of a new governance model for the North Okanagan by the Greater Vernon Governance Society.


Dick:  We'd lose our voice in the unified new government, and I don't want to spend any money doing a study.  Vernon would again be top dog with the loudest bark.

Tom:  I'd like to see the information a new study would provide.  A lot has changed--including numbers of bureaucrats--since 1991's Sussex restructuring study, and the 2008 proposed restructure of rural areas into a district municipality. Our voice?  Protecting our say would be written into the Terms of Reference.  The provincial government has an entire department devoted to amalgamation, and funds that pay for the study they perform.  We wouldn't spend money until it's time for the Referendum when the voters can decide "yes" or "no".

Harry:  Change is never good.  Why do people come to Coldstream and then try to change things?


Tom:  The bureaucracy's grown so much.   Economies of scale are the way of the future in a unified new municipality.  The regional district offices have been renovated twice in 12 years; Vernon wants a new city hall, and Coldstream's muni hall is new.  Within a five-minute drive there's Coldstream's municipal hall, the Regional district offices, and Vernon City hall.  There's always been fighting and territorial skirmishes.  Today there remains considerable overlap in duties.  We've lost opportunities as business--and people--decided on Kelowna for their bases.
  

Dick:  Each area meets the needs and demands of their residents.  If you want streetlights and curbs, move to Vernon. 

Harry:  You were speeding.

Tom:  Eight hundred and sixteen Coldstream residents are interested in the results of a study.  They don't need a mini city with a Town Centre here; they reside in a beautiful rural area.  We freely admit doing all our shopping in Vernon.  Accept that we're part of a larger community, but we continue to have three administrative levels that are no longer efficient and productive.

Dick:  Over nine thousand don't agree.  If it ain't broke, it don't need fixin'.  We'd lose our voice in a larger area.  We've only just gotten it back; it took five years to be heard.

Harry:   Glad you included children.

Tom:  The entire Chamber of Commerce membership supports an amalgamation study.  They see a one-government model as streamlining, so that money exists for the demands made on government by the population.  Any businessman knows--to survive--wage costs can't exceed 10 per cent.  Our area's uber bureaucracy likely equates to more than 40 per cent.  It's unsustainable, and a study would definitively show that, as well as options that would result in our keeping residents and businesses. 

Dick:  Vernon has no rural land, it's all city and they're broke, with a growing infrastructure deficit that we'd have to help fund. Of course Vernon residents would be in favour of amalgamation!  Most businesses are located in Vernon.  Our taxes would increase. You want to punish Coldstream for trying to rezone rural lands to RU10/RU30?  Well, how'll you like it when the new Vernon rezones any part of Coldstream they want?

Harry:  Coldstream is a distinct society.

Tom:  Tax increases would be negated, at a minimum, by a lower bureaucratic burden and less waste.  Permitting delays would decrease, projects could be shovel-in-the-ground without waiting months for different committees to get together and decide.

Harry:  Business is all about greed.

Tom:  Politicians owe residents the best bang for their buck, not wagon circling.

Dick:  Amalgamation doesn't decrease bureaucracy, before you know it, the "reduced" positions that were deemed overlapping created too much work for the people who remained, so more were hired. Before you know it costs have gone up and we then discover no-one listens anymore because we've lost that.  And severence pay isn't cheap.

Tom:  A larger single community would open up all manner of new grants to which none of our fragmented areas now can apply.

Dick:  We get some grants now, and the provincial government would continue downloading roads, policing, fire protection.  Those increases would negate any of your benefits.

Harry:  Never see police out here now, that's just fine.

Tom:  Perhaps a study would show that arts and culture are not the purview of the government, but should remain private initiatives.  Many, many people would say it has merit.  Some of the most magnificent art venues all over the world were privately established.

Dick:  But they're working on arts and culture now, and economic development is next.

Harry:  Priorities, oops, only a bureaucrat would place arts and culture ahead of the economy.  Bureaucrats are the tails that wag the political dog.  It has ever been thus.  And the powers-that-be actually prefer it; less personal responsibility as an elected official.  Just point and shoot the consultant.  So to speak. 

Tom:  Greater Vernon committees at the Regional District prove a one-government model is the way to go, or you wouldn't have a Greater Vernon Advisory Committee.  Or finally, consensus on water.  The model is developing!  The regional district has completed a Growth Management Strategy to which other communities are signatories.  That's a form of one-government model.  Any Memorandum of Agreement, so common here, is a one-government model, albeit with a log of baggage still holding onto the apron.

Dick:  But our taxes are lower because we're not one government!  You can't have it both ways.

Harry:  Hey, has anybody read Vernon's 300-page How to Not Get a Parking Ticket document?  No?  Yeah, me neither.   

Tom:  The referendum question--after the study results are released--could be formulated to include a "no", not to amalgamate based on the study results.

Dick:  That'd be a tough referendum question if it has several "layers"...do you know how hard it is to reverse-engineer a referendum question to get the desired results?  And more than one question is really a problem, almost impossible.

Tom:  Funny that you want "yes" or "no" now, but the municipal hall referendum didn't allow a "yes" or "no" question:  Shall we build it?  Nope, wasn't on there.  Rather its question focused on whether to borrow the money for it.  Even prior to that, at the Women's Institute Hall, residents were invited to fill in a working paper with their opinions on what a new municipal hall should look like.  It talked about rooflines and colours and style.  Nowhere did it say "don't build one".  The government ministry would help formulate the referendum question(s) anyway.

Dick:  With provincial government involved, do you really believe they're unbiased?  They'd love nothing more than to download entire systems in BC onto cities and towns.  So you're helping them with that, that's why they have a department to help.

Harry:  Victoria has socialists for everything.

Tom:  You state you're working on water, presumably Interior Health's demand for filtration.  But even before that, now we hear Duteau Creek shouldn't have been built where it was.  It's only with multiple governances that we got into that situation, and even that took years to screw up.  Last year councillor Kiss was even allowed to meet privately with the water consultants.  Where was he when everybody was screwing up the plans?  Even Mexico, of all places, only chlorinates water intended for consumption, not water for car washes and nurseries and golf courses, which is the American model.  But we chlorinate it all.
With all those committees and consultants, that idea was the cream of the crop?  That's frankly incredible.

Dick:  Likely quiet because it was consensus building.

Harry:  With our money.

Tom:  That water foible is your example of good governance?  It's your example for not doing a study on new governance?  I suggest that alone is reason for new governance, let alone a study.

Dick:  Give and take creates good government.  We're also protecting our history here, we're older than Vernon.

Harry:  I don't flush the toilet for a few days, saves money.

Tom:  History wouldn't be erased.  It's the future that needs work.  I'd like to see the entire area prosper but not by spending money that's unnecessary.  That produces the opposite effect.  Because there's something across the street, across the fence that we already use and duplication isn't needed.   But across the street, across the fence is Vernon so for that reason you want to build one over here?  It's territorial, totally unnecessary.  We would keep our history, no-one can edit that.  You just don't want the "current watch" to supposedly give the keys away.  Doors or walls, it's your choice.

Dick.  We now decide which are doors and walls; it's our decision.  We'd lose that.  We're not going to be the first to blink.

Harry:  Walls, with security.

Tom:  But the KPMG study--while saying it'll be no easy proposition--suggested amalgamation may be the answer.  Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's not worth the try.

Dick:  It wasn't their first suggestion, and how could regional districts even be considered for this?  And they stepped on a few toes when they included Coldstream; sure wasn't their mandate to include us.

Harry:  The guy didn't even live in the area.  But maybe that's what it takes.  Forests and trees stuff.

Tom:  It'd likely never get to the nth degree.  But consider:  give Cherryville to Lumby, they can use the tax dollars.  Even the MLA chuckled and said that might not be a bad idea.  Enderby?  Salmon Arm or Armstrong.  Spallumcheen?  Have more in common with Armstrong, so off you go north.  And the roads in between?  Victoria's rules aren't written in stone, anything--yes anything--can be changed if enough will is behind it.  Silver Star Road goes to a provincial park, they cannot stop maintaining that road even if we did amalgamate.  It's smoke 'n mirrors and scare tactics that prevent people from working and thinking outside the traditional box.  Area B director complains his residents, one by one, are incessantly asking to be annexed into a larger area, and not always because they want sewer!
At what point does Area B fold, shrivel and die?  Area C says they don't want streetlights and curbs.  Good, they don't have to have them, can remain rural until the cows fall over.  "Hands off" rural areas with big-city requirements, it's just a phrase in an agreement that can be focused on.

Dick:  Wow, take Cheeryville away from the regional district?  And Enderby...wow again.  

Harry:  Ideas hurt my head.


Looking up, the neighbours realize darkness has descended.
All three head off, each to the light that is theirs alone.


"Perhaps a store is needed in Coldstream," offers Kia, "to stock  aspirin."


Addendum notes:
Reference to Sussex Consulting's 22 year old study is found here on page 60 of 245.  On page 70, the statement from the consultants:  "Overall, residents living in the Okanagan Landing area do not appear to have been faced with extraordinary tax increases by virtue of their properties being annexed into the City of Vernon."

2008 study reference:  "moved by Director Halvorson, seconded by Director Foisy that the Electoral Area Advisory Committee recommend to the Regional Board that the results of the Electoral Area Residents Questionnaire be forwarded to the Minister of Community Development, and that, in light of the results of the questionnaire, the request for the development of terms of reference for a Restructure Study to examine the feasibility of  a District Municipality governance structure, and to apply for a provincial grant, be withdrawn at this time. CARRIED."  From page 14 (of 15) here.

The District of Coldstream last night voted on the Society's proposal.
The result was unanimous, all were against requesting the province to commence the study.

Victoria's "amalgamation department" rules gave this Council unnatural fears.

Interestingly, it was also those rules that only local government--not the public--can request an amalgamation study, from which Coldstream is today reprieved.