The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) board wasted no time in moving forward a staff proposal to see the user fees and parcel tax combination charged to clients of its Chapman water system escalate by 5.51 per cent next year.
After rejecting a proposed hike of around 10 per cent on Nov. 21, then receiving an updated report with the lower ask at committee of the whole on Nov. 28, elected officials sent that committee recommendation directly to board for approval the same day.
At the board table, that recommendation joined ones approved at committee earlier for cost adjustments to North and South Pender water and eight regional wastewater systems. All received board support. That paves the way for staff to draft the required bylaw amendments and to have those before the board on Dec. 11. That is slated to be 2024’s last board meeting and adjustments to utility rates are required to be adopted by Dec. 31, to be effective for the following year.
Regional funds fused for area specific project
In a staff report on the Nov. 28 committee agenda, it was explained that the lower-level increase for charges to users on the Chapman system (a user fee hike of 4.9 per cent and a 6.5 per cent uptick in taxes) was possible if two 2025 capital projects were paid for with money provided to the SCRD through the province’s Growing Community Fund. Those were $825,000 for the first phase of the Gray Creek intake and water treatment plant upgrade and $274,000 for a pressure release valve optimization for the Church Road plant. At the meeting, staff outlined that approving those two projects would use up over half of the $1.78 million left in the SCRD's Growing Communities funding.
By supporting that approach, the committee and then the board agreed to pay for that duo from money allocated to the SCRD for all residents, not just the areas and the 11,800 client properties in the Chapman water function. That didn’t sit well with Town of Gibsons representative Silas White, who said he favoured using Growing Community money for “truly regional” projects such as those in solid waste or emergency services.
He began protests regarding the unfairness of using those funds for one water service in early November committee meetings. At the Nov. 28 committee gathering, his arguments became more urgent and included a history lesson for his colleagues.
“I am third generation in the SCRD,” White said. He told the meeting that in his formative years, which coincided with the early years of the SCRD, he grew up with conversations “every night at the dinner table" about how Area A (Pender Harbour) often suffered from SCRD decisions regarding how and where regional funding was spent.
He noted that now, as a representative of taxpayers in Gibsons, what was supposed to be regional money was proposed to go to a function that his and the shíshálh Nation district area would not see a benefit from as they are not in the Chapman water function. He called moves to allow such financial inequities to be introduced “a big decision” noting the board was “at the precipice of doing that again this term, evolving to where this board often goes." In his view, this was another case of paying for a benefit to some but not all residents. He cautioned the committee to “not make this mistake."
Growing Communities Fund 'unfair' from the onset
In debate, the Gibsons Mayor and area rep said the province had made a similar mistake when it calculated how to distribute payments to local governments for Growing Communities funding. Area A representative Leonard Lee agreed. He pointed out that the per capita funding provided totalled about $369 in Sechelt, $486 in Gibsons, and to the SCRD, which provides some services that extend to the populations of both of those municipalities plus all that live in the rural areas, the SCRD’s Growing Communities payout was about $69 for each of those 32,691 lower Sunshine Coast residents.
Even with that funding inequity acknowledged by all at the committee table (except White) remained steadfast in their resolve to spend that funding on the SCRD’s board’s top priority: water supply.
“The more water we have the more we have to share. Who knows which infrastructure will fail first, those things are going to happen so the more water we got, the better off we all are” was how Lee summed up his reasoning.
Voting processed questioned
White also bristled at the voting procedures on the decision. As his area is not part of the Chapman water service, he did not get a vote at committee on how 2025 capital projects for that function were to be paid for. As funds intended to be region-wide were proposed for projects covered by that recommendation, he again raised concerns about the fairness of that.
Following the committee vote to pay for the two 2025 Chapman projects from the Growing Community funds along with a vote to send that recommendation directly to Board, White who was attending the committee meeting virtually, turned off his camera. His image disappeared from the view of those attending the meeting virtually or in the gallery. He did not participate in further committee debate or voting on other business items, which included votes on recycling and solid waste projects, which his area is a participant in.
White was also not shown on screen during the portion of the Nov. 28 board meeting when the recommendation regarding Chapman Road water rates for 2025 was voted on. He did appear to join that session shortly after that recommendation was supported.
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