Couldn’t they wait and add the question onto the next election and save the 100k? The buildings have remained standing for this long.

I’d vote yes to both. It’s expensive but necessary. Should go with the alternative vote for this one though and save us $100000. I can’t imagine why anyone would be against this. A pool is good for all the community, tourism and especially good for our youth. My children spent many, many hours at that pool when they were young. Better there with their friends than on the streets getting into trouble which only increases our policing costs so might as well be a pool instead. Just my thoughts :)

Didn’t we vote you in to make this decision, instead you want to get it ratified before the election, so they do not take a chance on anything.

SPINELESS…. don’t be such a Paul Ryan politician. Stand up and make a decision.

they will probably do the alternate approval process.
they will probably hope we are too lazy to go to city hall and say no

The four seasons pool is like my pick-up, a little rough around the edges but it does the job and I can’t afford a new one.

If you go to New York or Boston there are firehalls that are over 100 years old that are still in operation. In Livermore California there is a firehall that has a lightbulb that has been burning continuiously for 115 years. Christ we can’t get our civic buildings last half that never mind the lightbulbs.

Basic building maintenance seems to be non existent in the mind of our city council and staff. Repairs to the old police station to keep it up to acceptable standard were ignored until the building was beyond repair.

A similar thing has happened to the Four Seasons where failures to the building envelope were put off till rot and mold took over, bad enough that repair estimates were estimated at 3-4 million.

The consultant report on swimming pools showed large portions of the brick facade on the Aquatic Center have come loose allowing moisture to get behind. Same sad story at CN center where stucco is in need of repair but no money allocated.

It seems the life of a city building is about the same as the new metal roofs for your house- about 50 years. If there is a person responsible for identifying and and prioritizing necessary repairs to city buildings they should be fired and if they don’t have someone they should hire somebody.

does it really cost 100 grand to ask residents if they approve? Isn’t there a better, cheaper way? Like, maybe social media or thru email.

Totally agree with MiddlePath. Get the City to give citizens a portal to vote on these issues through the City’s website. There are probably only about 60,000 voters in this City and I bet that only about 60% bother voting. Surely the City’s website could handle getting 36,000 responses. They already do this when they ask for responses by filling out a survey. Just add more information like providing a driver’s license or BC Medical card number to keep people from voting more than once.

Surely, something like that could be done for cheaper than $100K and then keep the basic website structure for future questions such as this. Down the road it could be even cheaper.

When the city borrows money in excess of (I think) $5 Million dollars then they have to get the consent of the registered voters of the city. This is a requirement under the Municipal Act and they have no choice in the matter.

So if they are going to borrow they have two choices.

1. Go to an alternate approval process, which as noted above the borrowing could be stopped if signatures of 10% of the eligible voters in the city are opposed to the borrowing. 10% would be approx. 6000 signatures. If the borrowing is stopped by the AAP then the city has the option to still go to a referendum, however they usually don’t because they know that at least 6000 people would vote against the referendum.

2. The city can go directly to a referendum, which would cost in the area of $100,000.00 based on the cost of a civic election. The problem with the referendum route is that if you lose then the borrowing cannot take place, and the projects are basically scrapped.

So City Council has to roll the dice and decide which way they want to go on this issue.

People over the years have not been happy with the city using the AAP because it basically gives the city a free ride for borrowing without any input from taxpayers. Collecting 6000 signatures that have to be collected in a 30 day period is no easy task, so the city usually goes the AAP route. However there has been one or two instances when the required number of signatures were reached, and therefore the city is a little gun shy about the APP.

In this instance I would think that the democratic route to go would be the referendum as taxpayers need to be involved in the borrowing of the huge amounts of money. Keep in mind that the borrowing of $50 million over 20 or 30 years will cost roughly $20 Million in interest payments.

100k is not a lot of money. They could build up a bunch of questions and have a mass referendum on a variety of issues. They could do this every year or two as needed.

I agree we need a new pool and perhaps a new fire hall but I do not agree or ever will with an AAP process.

The AAP process assumes all who are not opposed are for it which is not the case. If we are lucky maybe 50% vote for anything but it is a vote of those willing to take their time and cast a ballot. That’s a fair deal, didn’t vote, don’t bitch.

AAP, don’t get enough names on the petition and the rest of the population is against you even if only 1% cared enough to vote.

Who would want to see an AAP process for local, provincial or federal govt?

I sure as hell wouldn’t.

I say put it off until next election and include it on the ballot like any sane person would do.

Isn’t it a little goofy that council constantly promotes down town yet when it comes time to build a new fire hall, the location of choice is by the YMCA. If that is the case, why do we even bother trying to keep downtown vibrant. Oh, I forgot…….parking ticket revenue.