Who's Making Decisions?

Who is in charge of Greater Vernon if--as a blog commenter recently posted--the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee is just that:  an advisory committee, with no decision-making responsibility in their mandate.  

The commenter writes:  "Committees are forums to allow stakeholders to discuss specific issues in detail but all committees are advisory in nature, decision making remains with the Regional Board" this from the RDNO website. No mention of governance or management here. Perhaps that is the problem, the terms of reference or the lack thereof."

The Regional District of North Okanagan--one of 28 in the province of B.C.--lists six municipalities and five electoral areas under their "membership" purview.  The regional district's Board of Directors are drawn--ostensibly for representation purposes--advisory committees.  The word "under" is paramount.   The Board of Directors of the regional district is supposedly in charge of all committees, once bylaws have been approved by the provincial Inspector of Municipalities.  (During last year's recycling plan change in this area, it was reported that 18 regional districts of the province would each receive $1 million from the recycler to launch the program...which led this blog author to believe there were only 18, although the government website states there are 27 (or 28) regional districts in B.C.)

On governance, the regional district states: 

Governance
Regional districts are governed by a board consisting of two types of directors:

• Electoral Area Directors are elected directly by rural area voters, and serve three-year terms.
• Municipal Directors are first elected to a municipal council, and are then appointed by their council to the Regional District board for a one-year term.

The board selects its own chairperson, who generally sets up committees to deal with issues such as planning, environmental management, and regional growth.
The Board of the Regional District of North Okanagan consists of 13 directors – one from each of the electoral areas and one from each of the municipalities, with the exception of the City of Vernon, which appoints three directors.

Note that nowhere on that governance link is it stated who--or what--has the ultimate power to make decisions, or indeed to veto a planned service or project at any planning stage.   The Inspector of Municipalities sets the rules since regional districts were created in the mid-1960s.  Interesting though is that one of the first things stated in the Act is that:  The inspector is to be attached to the office of the minister and is to be under the control of the minister.

No such statement is made under the regional district or advisory planning committee's mandate.  

Service providers that pre-date regional districts are improvement districts, who generally provide one service such as water, or waste management, governed by an elected board of trustees.  One such improvement district is the Black Mountain Irrigation District, about whose water management success--and managing water costs--this blog has written previously here and here and here.

The upcoming Referendum on Greater Vernon Water's plan to borrow $70 million has raised considerable furor among residents, many of whom don't even know if they're eligible to vote.

Lately, many residents have expressed abject surprise (mostly pleasure) that incumbent mayoralty and councillor candidates--most of whom sat on the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee, the group of decision-makers that approved the Master Water Plan going to referendum--are stating they will vote "No".   It's been stated that this referendum is just one phase of the plan, with no indication of what future phases will include or at what cost.

Could it not also be said that current Greater Vernon Advisory Committee members--by allowing the contentious Master Water Plan to proceed to referendum--have not "safeguarded the 'public interest', while providing a balance between local government broad powers and autonomy and the transparency and accountability owed to the electorate." 
People may recall the comment from acclaimed mayor Jim Garlick of Coldstream--who was on the GVAC committee that approved the plan--that the referendum "is educational".


Autonomy?  Did Greater Vernon Advisory Committee members consider moral responsibility to their constituents as they learned of the plan from bureaucrats?  Or were they simply harangued into agreement?  In numerous and increasing ways, a local government corporation (despite it also requiring committee members) may in retrospect now appear to be superior to the governance exhibited by members of this regional district.  

Is the preliminary "no" vote of committee members an indication they've listened to their constituents concerns about water rates?  
Or are they now waffling on something that they were instrumental in allowing to proceed to this point?
Or are bureaucrats at the regional district so powerful that the Master Water Plan has been pushed through without the apparent ability of committee members to serve their constituents?  


 Is it any surprise, then, that last year's "amalgamation" push by the Society for the Governance of Greater Vernon perhaps focused on the wrong target?  
"Way too much government" the public was heard to say, yet Coldstream's elected officials saw no benefit in participating in yet another a governance review (think back to Ida Chong's call for a governance review...)

I believe it was Vernon Councillor Mary-Joe O'Keefe (now a Vernon mayoralty candidate) who last year summarily commented on the area's three administrations that included the regional district with the description:  "It's dysfunctional".  Many today would agree.

Perhaps the Society should have focused on maintaining the status quo in Coldstream and Vernon and eliminating the regional district.  "Give the outlying areas--now governed by directors of the regional district--to their nearest municipality or city as they can certainly use the tax dollars" was suggested, i.e. Cherryville to Lumby, Spallumcheen to Armstrong, etc. etc.

Perhaps the best kept secret was the reply from one anonymous senior elected official:  "That's probably a good idea".

...and we'll maintain the individual's anonymity.

Did we learn who is in charge?
Where does the buck stop?
 

"We've learned that bucks are being pulled out of residents' wallets at an alarming rate," offers Kia.