final council update - 13 October 2013
Hello everyone, and happy Thanksgiving! My apologies again for missing the September 23 council meeting and the update that would have gone with it.
ELECTION INFORMATION
My hearty congratulations and sincere thanks to everyone who decided to offer themselves as candidates for the municipal election! It’s great to see a lively campaign going on. Here’s a link to a summary of election information on the Town’s website:
http://www.banff.ca/index.aspx?NID=900
and a few key reminders:
• October 15 at 7 pm at the BPL – the all-candidates’ forum. Please say a special thank you to the Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association for organizing this important pre-election event – a great opportunity to find out more and to make up your mind about your choices.
• October 19, 10 am to 2 pm at Town Hall – advance voting. Please take advantage of this if you have to be out of town on October 21.
• October 21, 10 am to 8 pm at Town Hall – voting day. Let’s make this the biggest turnout ever!
COUNCIL MEETING ON TUESDAY
Because of the holiday weekend, Council meets on Tuesday at 2 pm. You can see the entire agenda package at this link:
http://www.banff.ca/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/10152013-322
Here are a few highlights:
Homeowner delegation
Each house has a “curb stop” – the valve between the Town’s water system and the line serving the house. You probably have seen it as a brass cap somewhere in your front lawn. In 2010, Council passed a bylaw amendment, making the curb stop cap, stem and telescoping box the financial responsibility of homeowners. A Banff homeowner is coming to Council to ask for a pro-rated bill for repairs to the curb stop serving his house, on the basis that his curb stop may have been already damaged at the time the Town handed over responsibility. You can see his presentation starting on page 10 of the package, and administration’s report starting on page 17. If you’re a homeowner, this is worth reading, as most of us don’t know what a curb stop is, where ours is, or that we are responsible for protecting it and making it readily accessible.
Municipal benchmarking initiative
For accountability and transparency, it’s hard to beat measurable benchmarks, clearly reported on each year. For example, let’s take our roads operations. The benchmark is “operating cost per lane/kilometre”. If you look at this report
http://www.banff.ca/DocumentCenter/View/1409
and scroll down to page 64, you can see a chart showing how that cost has compared in the Town of Banff over three years, and also the comparable figures for other municipalities.
Banff town manager Robert Earl has been a leading voice for this approach in Alberta, and is working with a group of Alberta municipalities to share benchmarking, best practices and clear comparisons. In the report that starts on page 22 of the package, Council is being asked to approve the continuation of a budget that was set aside last year. Bringing our share of between $10,000 and $20,000 to the table enables the benchmarking group to apply for a major provincial grant to support the project. As the project becomes more complete and more widespread, taxpayers across the province will be getting clear information on how their money is spent, how the efficiency and effectiveness of their municipality compares to others, and whether improvements are resulting in better service and/or cost savings.
Regional Transit Commission 2014-2016 business plan and budgeting
Previous versions of the transit business plan were chunky and wordy. This is a new, streamlined, more readable version, prepared with detailed input by commission members and administration staff from the partners, all of whom have been working with drafts of this document for some months. You can see the business plan starting on page 27 of the package. In addition to the input provided by them during the document preparation, Banff administration has now asked for Banff Council to request quite a few more clarifications/additions to the document, as you will see in their report, starting on page 24 of the package. It’s very important for all partners in the Commission to be entirely comfortable with the plan, so I’m sure the commission will be working diligently with this new input.
ALSO ON MY COUNCIL CALENDAR THIS WEEK
The Bow Valley Regional Transit Commission has its annual general meeting on Wednesday at 3:30 in Canmore council chambers. This will be followed by the regular monthly meeting for October.
THE FINE PRINT
This is Issue 123 of my council update, and this will be the final issue. Past issues can be seen as posts on my blog at www.lataylor.com/blog and I will leave those available online for the foreseeable future. These updates have reflected my personal observations and opinions, and have never purported to be official communications from the Town of Banff or its Council. As always, I welcome your comments and questions.
SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FEEDBACK!
I would like to thank all of you for being part of my email list over the past six years. I have appreciated your feedback on issues and your many encouraging comments on the communication effort itself. It has been an honour and a pleasure to provide you with a summarized version of Council’s issues and activities, along with my opinions. I hope these emails and blog posts have made it easier for you to be engaged citizens of our beautiful town.
With warm best wishes to you all -- Leslie