localNEWS -Resort still evaluating municipal status

Resort still evaluating municipal status

MARCH 2007 — VOLUME 5 ISSUE 3

A lot of ground needs to be covered before the snow melts in April as the Sun Peaks Municipal Incorporation Study moves toward its conclusion.

The Municipal Incorporation Study was funded by a $65,000 grant from the provincial government and is being led by Tom Reid of Sussex Consultants Ltd, along with a committee of Sun Peaks residents, business owners and officials.

The process to date has included two meetings: among the agenda items for these meetings were explanations of the current governance status, and the impacts on the resort community of municipal incorporation, should Sun Peaks become a Mountain Resort Municipality—something that could happen as soon as summer 2008 if voted for in a referendum.

The meetings have also acted as a public sounding-board, enabling people to voice questions and concerns. Al Raine, member of the Incorporation Study Committee, says the public forums haven’t seen as many attendees as he would like, but they have been very enlightening.

“The biggest challenge is informing residents and property owners of this process and attracting their interest in this process that could have a significant impact on the community,” says Raine, pointing out there’s still a lot of material to cover, and one more public meeting before the community can make a firm decision either way.

“As the public process is not yet complete and the financial information is presently not available, it’s difficult to read the public response as either favourable or negative, and rightly so, because without financial information it’s premature to judge the outcome,” Raine adds.

Local Sun Peaks resident Norma Schmidt, who attended February’s meeting, says she feels going to the public forum, along with visiting the committee’s Web site at www.sunpeaksgovernance.com, has provided her with some useful knowledge.

“I thought [the meeting] was quite informative,” Schmidt says. “I came away with lots of things to think about. The only way you have any idea about what will come about as a municipality is to go to the meetings and find out how it works. I know they can’t cover it all at the meetings, so I go onto the Web site because they’re updating it all the time. I think it’s been great.”

Questions presented by the public at the meetings have offered a basis for research, says Reid, who points out he and the committee will endeavour to answer any queries, but notes there’s still a lot of deliberating to be done. He advises there are two categories to contemplate when considering the option of becoming a Resort Municipality—factors that can be assessed by a monetary value and those that require a value judgment.

“There will be those [factors] that will have some measurement, like taxes for example,” he says. “But there will be a number of changes for which there isn’t a figure associated and people will have to use a value judgment on deciding whether or not that change is detrimental to their interest or [positive].We’ve been fielding questions so we can make sure we can provide answers to them. But right now there are more questions than answers.”

Reid says one of the major differences as a municipality would be the ability of the community to set regulatory policies such as animal control or zoning bylaws, and although many facets will undoubtedly be transformed, other aspects such as policing and utilities will remain the same.

A final meeting is scheduled to take place April 7 concluding the findings of the Incorporation Technical Study, which will provide some of the deciding factors on whether a formal referendum will take place. In the grand scheme of things the third in the series of meetings is very important and Reid urges both investors and residents to attend.

“It’s more important than the first two because this is the first meeting where we will have some results so it would be very important for people to attend,” he advises. “This is where we will mainly answer questions and will be able to advise people of the impacts—what we think they might be. At that point we can begin to get feedback, if people like this [idea] or not.”

For more information visit the website www.sunpeaksgovernance.com or contact 250-819-0035.

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