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This past week saw most of
Council in Victoria attending the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM)
convention. I find this a great opportunity to find out what other
municipalities are doing to make their communities better, and what new
innovations are being introduced and find out how they are working.
Ladysmith has a great program for the way they handle their garbage
which has to be trucked to Cache Creek to a landfill. They not only have
a very good recycling program but they also give their residents a
plastic tub to collect their compost and have a big composting facility
that produces high quality soil that is then used throughout the City in
all their municipal gardens and lawns.
Another community has a
very extensive program of being environmentally sustainable in all
aspects of running the community starting with what kind of lightbulbs
they buy to how buildings are designed and run. They also look at
alternate fuel and hybrid vehicles and compare the total cost of all new
vehicle purchases including all fuel costs and maintenance over a 5 year
period. They estimate that they can now buy 5 vehicles with this new
system for the price of buying 4 the old way. The point is we all have
to look differently at how we do business, manage a household, or run a
City. If there is a better, more efficient, and environmentally friendly
way to do things we all have to start taking a look at this. This is
part of the value of the UBCM convention as well as an opportunity to
meet with Ministers and staff on various issues facing our town now and
in the coming months and years. Affordable housing, infrastructure
funding, social issues, marketing our community were all part of
meetings we attended this year. We also met about the Trans Canada
highway and our annual favourite the BC Hydro grant in lieu of taxation,
as well as forestry issues.
In the coming weeks
Council with senior staff will be spending a day and a half in a retreat
to talk about all this and more as we look back on the past year and set
our priorities for the coming year.
Mayor Mark McKee
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