By Nowell Berg

On January 23, City of Kimberley council held its bi-monthly meeting.

Councilor Sandra Roberts was absent from the meeting. Councilors Kent Goodwin, Nigel Kitto, Albert Hoglund, Bev Middlebrook and Darryl Oakley were present along with Mayor Don McCormick.

Council dealt with a significant number of issues sparking debate that pushed the running time too two hours. One long-time attendee commented that meetings never used to take that long in the past.

After receiving written response indicating no objections from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) and Interior Health (IH), council set February 14, for the Kimberley Crossing Campus of Care Facility zoning amendment public hearing. Council also toughened up the Streets and Traffic Bylaw to close loopholes and allow Officers to enforce bylaws more effectively.

Keeping in the Healthy Kimberley spirit, Councilors voted unanimously to complete the Civic Centre walking track. Don’t expect luxury but one day you’ll be able to set a pace and circumnavigate the Civic Centre.

The five-year Road Capital Program and garbage truck replacement motions were deferred until the next council meeting.

BC Transit will add two trips per day during the workweek between Kimberley and Cranbrook. Trip expansion will occur during morning and late afternoon commutes. This will facilitate a growing ridership using the service for work.

The completion of the Sorensen Way road rebuilding garnered rave reviews from councilors and mayor. The Operations Department staff was congratulated on keeping the project under-budget and on time. The mayor noted that the entire $4.5 million cost was covered by a grant written by the Operations staff, Economic Development and the CAO. The city supplied engineering expertise but that was it, the rest was paid for by the grant.

Council also deferred a decision on the re-construction of the Civic Centre North wall. Council was set to award the contract to Tyee Log Homes of Kimberley, however, at the initiative of Mayor McCormick, council deferred a decision pending additional information from city staff on the difference between the winning bid and a bid from another company that was over $100,000 lower.

Crime ends 2016 chilling out

Sgt. Chris Newel, Kimberley RCMP Detachment Commander, filed the 2016 fourth quarter crime report.

According to the report, BC RCMP have set out three priorities for 2017: domestic violence, road safety and crime reduction.

Over the last three months of 2016, RCMP traffic contacts totaled 164, which is down from 179 in the previous quarter (July Aug Sept 2016).

The detachment’s emphasis on road checks over the “festive season” resulted in 29 checks where “11 impaired drivers were removed from the road, over double the amount from the last quarter,” said Newel.

Calls for service (all types) were down in Q4 compared to Q3, 491 to 563, respectively. Newel attributes this drop to “cold weather.” However, Q4 2016 calls for service were nine per cent (46 calls) greater than Q4 2015.

The Policing Report also shows the top five most reported or committed offenses were:

Traffic Incident/Suspension 87

Abandoned 911                        57

Motor Vehicle Incident         45

Assist General Public            22

Theft                                        22

Coun. Oakley queried Sgt. Newel about having the RCMP ask the MOTI to increase the number of passing lanes between Kimberley and Cranbrook.  The Commander replied that based on his past experience, the MOTI is more responsive to citizens who request traffic changes than the RCMP. Further, the accident rate on that highway is not high.

Healthy Kimberley Advises 5-2-1-0 Living

Dr. Ilona Hale, Jennifer White and Kerri Wall updated council on activities of Healthy Kimberley (HK).

It’s the aim of HK “to bring people together from all sectors of the community in order to make the healthy choice the easy choice for Kimberley residents.”

To achieve this goal, HK promotes 5-2-1-0 living. The number means “at least five vegetables and fruits, less than two hours of screen time, at least one hour of physical activity and zero sugary drinks, per day.

The Live 5-2-0-1 is an evidence based program that helps all people, but especially children, easily remember a way to make healthy choices, reduce weight and stress, and live healthier longer lives.

Kimberley has been selected as one of SCOPE BC’s four original pilot communities. SCOPE is an organization from BC Children’s Hospital that focuses on preventing childhood obesity. SCOPE is the leader in the Live 5-2-0-1 program.

City keeps the lid on 2016 Budget

The Finance Department submitted its financial update report, which shows that almost every city department kept within its budget allocation. This allowed the city to keep expenses $2 million lower than revenue. The surplus will be deferred to the 2017 budget or go into savings. A decision that will be made by council in up-coming Budget deliberations.

Each councilor took their turn in congratulating city staff for managing revenues and expenses, keeping vigilant throughout the year and not allowing costs to unexpectedly escalate.

Coun. Middlebrook summed it for all councilors when she stated, “very impressive, most department’s were under-budget and all staff were working to keep things on track.”

Four councilors torpedo Property Tax Motion

A lingering property tax penalty motion finally hit the wall. The motion before council from the Chief Financial Officer asked them to “deny a request to reverse” tax penalties assessed to a Kimberley homeowner who was late paying property taxes.

However, it’s not as simple as it sounds.

Coun. Goodwin laid out the history behind his stance to defeat the motion and seek to have the provincial government reverse the penalty. The property owner had in fact mailed their property taxes to the City of Kimberley 30 days before the deadline; however, the cheque went NSF (June 2016). This resulted in a significant penalty assessed by the provincial government.

Goodwin was upset the city did not make a courtesy call to the property owner informing them of the NSF cheque. The property owner told Goodwin if they had known of the NSF they would have paid in full immediately.

Goodwin said the penalty was “heavy” given the property owner had “paid in good faith.” Further adding he would “absolutely vote against the motion.”

Coun. Oakley agreed with Goodwin and felt the penalty was large “for the scope of error.” He intended to vote against the motion.

Coun. Middlebrook said she “teeter-tottered” back and forth on what to do, but said if the city was “focused on customer service” and didn’t contact the owner, then she’d have a hard time supporting the motion.

Coun. Kitto sat observing events and made no comments.

Mayor McCormick stated it was not the city’s jurisdiction to “give or take back” tax penalties. It was solely the provincial governments responsibility. The mayor pointed to the Chief Financial Officer’s assessment of the request to reverse the tax penalty where it said, “It is unlikely that the Inspector of Municipalities would grant the authority to reverse the penalty applied to the subject property given the rationale provided by the owner that the returned cheque wasn’t noticed because [the] business is very busy during the summer months and that nobody informed [the owner the] cheque had been denied.”

Given these comments, the mayor said there was a “slim to none” chance the request would be looked at let alone the penalty reversed. As such, he would vote in favour of the motion “to deny.”

Coun. Hoglund agreed with the Mayor, adding “the onus is on the taxpayer to pay and know what’s going on with their bank account.”

The formal vote was taken. Couscilors Kitto, Middlebrook, Oakley and Goodwin voted against the motion. They were in favour of the city requesting the Inspector of Municipalities consider reversing the applied penalty.

Coun. Hoglund and Mayor McCormick voted for the motion, which did not pass.

After defeating the motion, Kitto, Middlebrook, Oakley and Goodwin were not ready to provide a motion of their own until prompted by Mayor McCormick. Hurriedly, Coun. Goodwin rambled off some words to the effect “the city write a letter to the Ministry.”

While not an effective motion, the mayor recognized the intent of it asking the Corporate Officer to include an appropriately worded motion for the official record (minutes) and called the question.

Coun. Kitto, Middlebrook, Oakley and Goodwin voted in favour of this motion.

Coun. Hoglund and Mayor McCormick voted against the motion.

As the Goodwin motion passed, the city will contact the Inspector of Municipalities and request a reversal of the penalty applied to the subject property.

Kimberley City Council meets twice monthly. All meetings start at 7 p.m. and are open to the public. Check the city’s website here for the council meeting agenda. Click on the 2017 folder and follow the link.

The next council meeting is Tuesday, February 14.

It’s your city, get involved.

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