On the Agenda: 60% increase in UT Fees more United Nations

Tuesdays regular council meeting has a couple of interesting points, here are the highlights

Item 11.3 - Updates on Changes to BC's Emergency Management Legislation

Emergency Preparedness 

This is a staff report discussing changes in the Emergency & Disaster Management Act.  

The Staff report (LINKED HERE) described this new legislation “the purpose of this new legislation is to align BC with the United Nations Sendai Framework".  

As we often point out at the KCSC, the Sustainable Development goals are actually an overarching integrated project management system to push out policy goals on essentially everything.  As we see with the Sendai Framework, its more of the same:

The new legislation is worrying for several reasons:

1. It is now largely open to interpretation. The term "Prescribed" referring to regulations that haven't been created yet appears in every section of consequence allowing the Lieutenant Governor in Council to change the meaning at any time she wants (even retroactively) It appears 96 times, the previous Emergency Program Act (2020) it appeared only 1 time.

2. More things can be an emergency:

- Infectious disease, chemicals, terrorism, rioting without any objective measure for what an emergency is. The person declaring it must "believe it".

- Anything the Lt. Governor General prescribes in the future...

3. Emergency Powers are available for non-emergencies

- "Critical Incidents" allow some of the same emergency powers

4.MJEMO - Multi-Jurisdictional-Emergency-Management-Organizations

The legislation elevated MJEMOs but also adds the Lieutenant Governor in Council can restrict local authority power in what could be used to remove jurisdictional authority from local government

5. It's another example of the United Nations rewriting Canadian Laws to solve problems we don't have in Canada and its going to cost taxpayer dollars to do so.

KCSC plans to speak on this topic asking the Council to protect their jurisdictional authority and the rights on Kamloops Citizens

Item 11.4 -  Recording of Conversations Policy

More fallout from the childish and unproductive drama in City Hall.  We suspect this has something to do with the rumors of recorded conversations between the mayor and council.  Now we are seeing an official policy to deal with it.

11.5 - 2024 Water Utility Budget and Rate

Staff is presenting a report on rate increase options for council.

The Water Utility runs as a stand alone entity, and thus must fund itself.  Until recently it had a substantial cash reserve but the events with Noble Creek irrigation System and and councils decision to increase the assist factor on DCCs giving developers a break on utility infrastructure costs have cost the utility a combined ~8million dollars

There is also a 10 million dollar upgrade that needs to be completed on the intake at the Kamloops Centre for Water Quality.

All in all staff is presenting 3 options option 1 increases rates the least upfront, the other other options involve the city taking on debt "soften" the rate increases, but will result in higher rates later.

Since the money for Noble Creek has already been spent, the only thing the council could* change at this point is the assist factor for developers, unless that has already been spent which is not clear at this point.

The rate effects to the average water user would total 55%-63% by 2029, which looks like $250 to $310 increase in utility costs for the average Kamloops water user.

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