Vernon City Council -Missed Opportunity

Vernon City Council missed an opportunity to receive useful public input regarding a governance question that has plagued politicians in the Greater Vernon area for many years: the question of possible benefit of the amalgamation of the two electoral areas B and C, the municipal District of Coldstream and the City of Vernon under one municipal government. Decades have gone by since the matter was last studied formally.

While this issue is fraught with emotion and often provokes hard feelings it was recognized in the KPMG City of Vernon Core Service review completed in 2013 that amalgamation was one option available to order to reduce the costs of local government. Vernon City Council at first rejected the option stating there was no interest in one government for the area. However subsequent to receiving the Greater Vernon Governance Society Petition in early 2014 Council took the commendable decision to include a question on the topic on the fall ballot.

Our officials endeavored unsuccessfully to convince our GVAC partners to do likewise. It is this lack of interest in the regional partners that was given as the motivation for Vernon Council’s removal of the question from ballot in the fall election. This decision was not commendable but regrettable. Our council with two exceptions were more worried about offending other jurisdictions than responding to the wishes of their own taxpayers who were signatories to GVGS petition. I believe that was unfortunate and makes one wonder about our own city council's priorities. 

This ongoing reluctance to actually ask the people what they think about the current governance model is part of the problem. To me, it displays a lack of trust in public opinion on this question. Ironically they trust us with a 70,000,000 water referendum question but not with the chance to express an opinion on how we are governed locally. 

My position on the matter of Greater Vernon governance has always been to thoroughly study the pros and cons of amalgamation. If the options look tenable then put it to the people in a referendum. If the options don't look tenable, the matter ends with the study. Information is always better than speculation or emotion.

Asking an opinion question on the fall  ballot would not require the approval of the province and would not have been binding on the Vernon public or on a future Vernon council . It would however have been a  cost effective way of ascertaining what the Vernon voters think about looking into the possible benefit of one government for Greater Vernon. The results would have given the new council a sense direction in pursuing this matter. This was certainly an opportunity lost. Cheers! Remember me in the fall election. Thankyou for your support.

Shawn Lee

Candidate for Vernon City Council