A weekly roundup of noteworthy news in municipalities across B.C.
As a way to decrease city spending and address public complaints about the City’s tax rates, Prince Rupert council has decided to begin rolling back property tax exemptions by 40 per cent over two years starting in 2013. This means that community organizations that are used to not having to pay property taxes are going start next year.
The fact that direct government workers have not had a pay raise in three-and-a-half years forced more than 27,000 unionized government workers across the province to participate in a one-day strike earlier this week.
Great news in Dawson Creek – home to one of British Columbia’s worst droughts in decades – as Mayor Mike Bernier cut the ribbon on a multimillion-dollar water treatment plant that is making sewage clean enough to sprinkle on park lawns.
Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach and his council have asked the Union of B.C. Municipalities to petition the province to establish and fund public transit along Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert – the so-called Highway of Tears – where many young women were believed to have been hitchhiking when they disappeared or were murdered over the past four decades.
B.C. Transit union votes 98 per cent in favour of strike to support their demands for a fair collective agreement.
In response to two design proposals that evoked a strong negative reaction from Penticton community members, two new dramatically different concepts have been put forth for the Okanagan Lake waterfront.
The large Morgan Place Developments Ltd. commercial and office space development slated for the South Surrey 25-acre parcel of property at 20 Avenue, just east of Highway 99 council is moving forward despite concerns about the loss of 417 trees and traffic impacts.
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