“I didn’t know so many people were interested in making cuts to the budget,” Mayor Peter Milobar told a crowd of more than 80 people at the start of the city’s final public budget consultation meeting for 2014,
“That’s a joke, by the way,” he said at the Tuesday, Feb. 25, event at Interior Savings Centre.
Milobar may have raised a chuckle, but he proved fairly prophetic.
Of the millions of dollars in supplementary items on which members of the public were charged with providing feedback, few, if any, met with major public opposition and notes written by city staff were peppered with “in favour” and “need.”
Without supplemental items, the city is looking at a property-tax hike of 1.87 per cent, or about $32 per average home.
Were the city to cut none of the items on its wish list, homeowners would have to hand over an additional $44 each.
This year’s budget list includes some big-ticket items, but the largest on the list — a 1.5-metre pedestrian shoulder for Todd Road in Barnhartvale, pegged at $725,000 — didn’t attract nearly the attention of the next proposal on the roster.
At $260,000, preliminary studies for a new performing-arts centre are the next most-expensive item on this year’s list, and the issue that garnered the most-widespread support among residents at the meeting.
More than half of those attending crowded around a table run by Barbara Berger, the city’s manager of recreation, culture and social development, to weigh in on the centre.
Comments were mainly positive.
“If we’re going to build a multi-million-dollar facility, in the grand scheme of things, $260,000 is not a lot of money to spend to make sure we do it right,” said Glenn Grant.
Henry Hubert, former Thompson Rivers University dean of arts, said it’s important the preliminary work for the centre be done as soon as possible, rather than putting off the project for a few years.
“I think very often we see the arts as a frill, but I think we can look at the arts economically as well,” he said, citing Statistics Canada data that shows Canadians spend $1.4 billion on live artistic performances each year, compared to about $650 million spent on live sports.
Ziggy Morash said she’s comfortable with the city spending the money upfront to ensure a performing-arts centre meets Kamloops’ needs and is well-designed.
“You only get one chance to do it right,” she said.
By the end of the night, Berger’s notepad contained few, if any, criticisms of the project.
Berger said most of the concern around the money was from people who weren’t sure how far into the process it would take the city.
“They just wanted to understand,” she said.
A survey of other city staffers found few people advocating for cutting any of the supplemental proposals in other departments — though improvements to the city’s council videography, which would cost less than $8,000, met with some skepticism.
A new pen for the B.C. Wildlife Park’s Kermode bear, valued at $250,000, also sparked some debate, with opponents arguing the money could be better spent on social programs and boosters saying with proper marketing, the blond black bear could be a major tourism windfall for Kamloops.
Other residents suggested that, if the city wants to build an outdoor ice rink in Riverside Park, an item that would cost $20,000 in studies this year and up to $1 million at construction time, it should look at flooding the park’s tennis courts in the winter, rather than building a new facility.
Councillors now have a month to mull over the feedback they heard this week.
The next meeting on the 2014 budget comes on March 25, when council will meet at city hall to decide what supplemental items get the axe.
It won’t be the only hefty issue on the table.
Councillors also have to decide what to do about a request from heavy industry to halve the mill rate for its class, a move that could have serious implications for residential ratepayers.
