Wednesday, November 17, 2010

City of WL Projects...

1) New OCP

I have been asked this question - What's happening with the Imagine Our Future project

So I had a chance to discuss this with City Staff and they advise that the project has hit some complications and consequently, progress has slowed on this project but they hope that once the complications have been fixed that sometime early in 2011 - the process to develop/adopt the City's new OCP will begin to pick up steam.  In the meantime, stay tuned

2) Council Committee Structure at City Hall

At last night's Committee of the Whole - Council received a report from City Staff regarding switching Council Governance from "Portfolio" to "Committee".  What I found troubling is how unprepared Mayor Cook seemed to be for the switch, given Dec 1st is coming up fast and she/City Staff had been working at this for months and seemed unable to address concerns by Councillor Rathor who asked who the Committee Chairs would be and admitted that she hadn't thought of his concerns.  Furthermore, Staff stated that Portfolios are not recognized in provincial law, but Committees are.  This coming from City Staff who knew this for 11 years (length of time that Portfolios have been in use at Williams Lake City Hall).  The Committee structure was last used at City Hall for the 1996-1999 term of the-then Council of which Mayor Cook was a then-Councillor

George Cuff - a well-known civic government governance expert - states that changing civic governance is a process should be done methodically and carefully to ensure everyone understands their role

Again - this is a case of Kerry Cook - not a leader.  Also - the old saying of "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" seems to come to mind

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