Sacha Peter

There were 6 commissioners present this meeting; Commissioner Cameron was away.

The following is some colour on the thoughts I had regarding select board business of the day:

1. The board formalized a motion to meet up with the FVRD as a result of proceedings from the Future Plan Advisory (Select) Committee. The Park Use Plan Policy has not been updated (beyond three amendments) since 1997 and we will see what can be done to kick-start the modernization of this document and the specified area bylaw.

2. I pointed out an item that was declassified regarding the Lease Advisory & Review (Select) Committee, that the committee will be exploring residential leases as it pertains to the unsold 14 lots. This came out of in-camera due to some other information surrounding the motion to refer to committee.

3. We amended our special event policy to insert language and procedures concerning FOODSAFE and Special Occasion Licenses (which is required if you are to be serving liquor at an event).

4. A donation request from a society that appears to be completely Vancouver-centric was referred back to staff despite a recommendation to donate a couple nights of camping at Sunnyside. I completely agree with this rationale.

5. After the regular meeting, the board had a committee of the whole meeting with the primary purpose of hashing out the finer details of the Sunnyside Campground bylaw amendment. I am not sure why the public vacated the meeting room at this point as it was an open meeting. One guess could be that when the board has an in-camera meeting and they have not finished with the proceedings, we typically reconvene in-camera after the regular public meeting to conclude the in-camera business. We had no further in-camera meeting business that evening.

In terms of what happened during the committee of the whole meeting, to the external viewer, the quotation frequently mis-attributed to Otto von Bismarck of “Laws and sausages are two things you do not want to see being made” seemed to summarize the evening’s proceedings. The committee of the whole did deliberate on a myriad of suggestions and options, with the most notable recommendation coming out of committee is a modification of the requirements of floating buoys at the lake.

There were 5 commissioners present this meeting; Commissioners Cameron and Enns were away.

The following is some colour on the thoughts I had regarding select board business of the day:

1. The agenda was short. I will certify that this had nothing to do with the Canucks playing game 4 of their series (which turned out to be a disaster for them).

2. The Sunnyside Campground bylaw continues to be revised by the board. The vast majority of the day’s time was spent discussing minutia concerning the update of this bylaw. In addition, comments were received and the bylaw continues to be refined and will be brought back to the June 22nd meeting.

3. The Special Event License Application for the Cultus Lake Dragon Boat Club was approved by the board with a 3-1 vote (Commissioner Hall was not present due to a conflict); I was the opposing vote. The motion that was carried was that the application was approved without the staff recommendation that the dock closure be denied. I completely support the Cultus Lake Dragon Boat Club’s event, but I disagreed with the board going against the recommendation that the dock closure not take place. Specifically in the proposal was a request to have a partial closure of the dock at Main Beach between 7:00am to 5:00pm, on Saturday, August 6. There would also be a fence set up.

Suffice to say if the weather is not inclement, there are going to be a billion people around and being able to enforce a closure of the dock is not going to be easy to enforce. This was the reason our staff gave during the meeting and given the numbers of people involved on a Saturday weekend during peak season, it is very believable. I do wish the organizers of the Cultus Lake Dragon Boating event the best of success.

4. M. Wilson from the public question period asked a question concerning food safe certification and special event applicants (i.e. vendors selling food). I stated that if such a requirement exists it would be in the special event policy and we would check on it. Upon reviewing the special event policy after the meeting, I did not see any requirements with respect to food safe certification, and I will be putting on the agenda a small memorandum to have our staff investigate the matter and this may result in an amendment to the special event policy.

There were 5 commissioners present this meeting; Commissioners Cameron and Nokelby were away.

The following is some colour on the thoughts I had regarding select board business of the day:

1. The board deliberated on the matter concerning financial statements and the previous April 27, 2011 delegation by B. McCrea on the matter. There was considerable discussion on the matter, and I asked for a motion for the provision of internal financial snapshots to be provided to the board on a quarterly basis. Commissioners Hall and Skonberg moved and seconded, and the motion carried with Commissioner Woodrow opposed, citing that this decision is not transparent.

The matter concerning the provision of financial information must be weighed with a cost-benefit balance. The board must receive sufficient financial information to make informed decisions. In particular, the critical time for information is late September when the returns from our major variable revenue business, Sunnyside Campground, are received and subsequent budget decisions are made for the next year. We also need to know when there are expense-side variances.

We increased our transparency over the term. For instance, we now have a regular disclosure of vendor purchases over $10,000 to be reported with the annual audited financial statement. Our agenda packages are fully scanned and placed online, something that did not happen in prior boards and making it easier for the public to access. Our financial planning process includes 5-year planning, and clear identification of where capital projects are to be funded from. Our procedures have clear guidance from the Community Charter when to conduct in-camera business, and clearly state to the public when such business is declassified in the public package. These are a few examples of transparency improvements.

What becomes concerning is when staff has to spend copious amounts of time fielding information requests – such requests can become costly. Transparency comes with a price. Just as an example, the ability to produce reports such as ministerial estimates in the government must be built up over many years, and involves staff and consultants to be able to build computer systems to handle the workload. With the budget that Cultus Lake Park has to deal with, the question then becomes whether the leaseholders want to pay for more transparency – because transparency costs money.

There is a balance to transparency – we are close to an optimal amount. We are not sitting still on this matter – integration of our accounting software and the software that drives our business is a huge operational issue – especially when you have to keep both of them running while upgrading.

A rough analogy would be to changing your car tires while still driving on the highway. Fortunately, this vehicle can be pulled over in the “slow season” (when camping is over), but the true test to tell whether you’ve upgraded the car tires correctly or not is when you finally hit the road again – you have to do the work correctly to make sure the car tires don’t fly off their axles.

2. The board moved first, second and third reading of an amendment bylaw to the Sunnyside Campground bylaw which implements a quick fix as mentioned in my previous report. The motions were carried with a short discussion.

3. The board moved and carried (moved by Hall, seconded Skonberg, Woodrow opposed) a motion to deny a request by a commercial leaseholder to install a sign near the highway. Commissioner Hall pointed out that the Design Review Panel Committee deliberated on the matter of signage styles in 2010 and that approving this request would be tantamount to throwing away their work. I agree. There also is the issue of a “signage arms race” which needs no further explanation and would detract from the visual appeal of the park.

4. During Question Period, the power went off. The emergency lights went on and there was still quite a bit of natural light coming in at that time even though it was a very grey day outside. During the power outage, our manager of finance comprehensively answered a question regarding the 2009 audit, the 2010 audit and the nature of the January 5, 2011 in-camera memorandum that was obtained by the public through a freedom of information request.

I was not aware that this memorandum was released to the public until a couple weeks prior to this meeting.

To put a long story short, the memorandum explains an interim finding by our staff that was subsequently determined to not be true. KPMG, our external auditors, audited our 2010 fiscal year and stated “the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Cultus Lake Park Board as at December 31, 2010″. There have been rumours swirling around our financial integrity, and our staff has clearly stated that there is no missing money. They have also done an incredible job over the past year to address internal control procedures.

Unfortunately I was backlogged and have not gone back to documenting the meetings on this website until now.

There were 6 commissioners present this meeting; Commissioner Enns was away.

The following is some colour on the thoughts I had regarding select board business of the day:

1. Cultus Lake Park has filled in two staff positions that were established during the organizational update announced in early February. We have a new executive assistant, and also a new building inspector / bylaw enforcement employee. In addition, we have a new accounting clerk, and I look forward to dealing with all of them in the future as they acclimatize to their roles in Cultus Lake.

2. The provincial government announced on May 3, 2011 that parking at BC Provincial Parks will be free. The government press release is found at this link.

What I find interesting is that no numbers for this was mentioned. Doing a little more digging, I brought up the Ministry of Environment’s most recent available annual report (2009/2010: attached here) and it had the following line items (pages 5 and 7 on the PDF document):

Revenues:
Parking Day Use Fees: $949,229
Annual Parking Pass: $69,074
Total Revenue: $1,018,303

Expenses:
Parking Fee Commission: $635,885
Annual Pass Commission: $20,443
Total Expenses: $656,328

Net direct revenue to BC Parks: $361,975

When you incorporate fixed costs (e.g. capital costs for meters, assuming the government purchased them), overhead for administration, etc., it is no wonder why the BC Government is no longer charging for parking at BC Parks: it does not make them money.

The challenge for Cultus Lake Park is that it is widely associated with the provincial government’s Cultus Lake Provincial Park. There is going to be significant amounts of confusion for people concerning this announcement and to that effect, we have put out a press release stating the following:

CULTUS LAKE, BC – A recent media release from the Office of the Premier has raised questions as to why Cultus Lake Park is continuing on with paid parking and is introducing pay stations in the park.

Effective May 3, 2011, parking will be free in all BC government provincial parks, however, Cultus Lake Park does not fall into this category. Cultus Lake Park has its own legislation – the Cultus Lake Park Act – which allows for the Park to manage itself independently from provincial parks.

Cultus Lake Park does not receive funding from the BC government and pay parking offsets the park’s maintenance costs. Funding largely comes from campground revenues and both commercial and residential lease fees.

“Parking revenue directly goes toward services beneficial for visitors, helping Cultus Lake Park pay for facility maintenance and a safe and clean environment for families,” said Sacha Peter, Cultus Lake Park Board Chair.

As to when these meters will be installed, Chief Administrative Officer, Ronald Campbell says “We’re hoping the first two meters will be in place by the May long weekend with one in each of the two parking lots.”

The rates will be $1.00 for one hour, $2.00 for three hours, and $5.00 for the day.

The Chilliwack local media, including the Progress, the Times, and 89.5 FM reported this to their readers/listeners and I am thankful they got the message out locally. Every year we receive tens/hundreds of thousands of visitors, especially in July and August, and every dollar spent on parking goes towards the maintenance of our public facilities that the public enjoys – a good number of them from being outside the Cultus Lake/Chilliwack area. We put a brief message on our signs near the parking meters to this effect.

3. The board considered the bylaw amendment to the Sunnyside Campground Bylaw, and this is continuing to be refined. As this bylaw update is not time-critical (except for one particular clause), we can take our time going through it.

4. We received a variance and encroachment application. Both applications were subsequently approved (concerning the placement of stone stair-rocks at the property boundary of 308 2nd Ave), but what is notable is that this is the first application that came with a recommendation, subject to public input.