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Prince Rupert Regional Information
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NATURESea, land, river PEOPLESCommunity
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High pressure
areas weakening
Strong La Nina event + cold phase PDO – Science Daily
article Here is current
state PDO |
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Banner
protest at City Hall |
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Protesting
the mix up at city hall over the banners first being ‘requested’ in November
and then being sidelined for cruise ship ‘way finding’ color coded banners
last week ---- word was one of the principals had told teachers not to show
up for the protest – which guaranteed a strong teacher contingent--- Later
Mayor Pond and Bob Thompson invited protestors up to council chambers where
matter discussed and compromises sought --- I left before any resolution –
(Pond was going into speech mode when I left) |
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Budget
‘inputs’ Monday evening |
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Pond
did most the chairing while Treasurer Dan Rodin explained budget and
responded to questions The
most serious proposal was to sell CityWest (a fairly typical method for
governments to get money by selling assets to private investors (privatizing)
– it became clear during discussion that phone company would only be
contributing 1M$ towards 2008 budget In
response to my questions – Chances will contribute 400T$ -- though not clear
if that is just the gambling money or if that includes gambling + property
taxes – presumably the former |
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Implication
of above that money put into fund in 2008 and then withdrawn in 2008 and
transferred into general operating monies Note
every house hold has to pay same utility bill – while property taxes vary
according to assessed value of house – so using utilities $$ for general
budget is benefiting the richer people at expense of poorer – ‘regressive
taxation’ |
‘Reserves’ –
statutory or ‘bylaw’ |
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After
raising the utilities last November – now the City budget calls for removing
that portion of the collected monies that would normally go into Utility
‘reserves’ and putting it into the regular budget instead of ‘saving’ it for
repairs, renewals etc Note
the sum is about 5M$ (approximately the same as last years ‘mistake’ or
‘logical error’ depending upon your perspective Mayor
Pond and Treasurer Rodin spoke of these reserve funds as ‘surplus’ --- there
was some discussion if funds would have to be repaid to ‘Reserves’ in same
way as debt to a bank would have to be --- no not ‘statutory’ so no legal
obligation – but of course sewers will still have to be replaced etc so
Funds/ Reserves still need to be there --- but that will await a new council |
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More on Budget tomorrow
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Created by LG on 22/4/2008
Last updated on Friday, January 29, 2010