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

1. Chair McCrea announced that our executive assistant, Natalie McKenzie will be leaving us for another opportunity. Natalie was very good at what she did and this will be a loss for Cultus Lake Park. She will be tough to replace, and I wish her the best in her new (and more challenging!) job.

2. Richard Fortin of the Sudden Impact Paddling Club (Dragon boating) gave an interesting presentation on a proposal to relocate their existing position. Commissioner Toews made a good point that there were multiple clubs that dealt with boating and implied in that discussion was that there could be synergy with respect to storage and related matters.

3. The adoption of the minutes became a 10 minute item, with the chair proposing an amendment to the wording in the new business section, and the wording of three questions in question period. This amendment to the minutes was voted down by the board 4-2 (McCrea and Shanks in favour).

4. Chair McCrea‘s two motions concerning financial reporting were referred to staff for comment; I was the mover for both referral motions, and I believe they carried 4-2 or 5-1. Commissioner Toews‘ motion to have staff report on the impact of more frequent statements was also passed.

5. The discussion whether the board should adopt electronic agendas (it was mentioned a few times that this is likely using iPads) was debated for a significant period of time. The board agreed that commissioners should have the option to use electronic agendas, and that the matter of who pays be referred to staff for further development in a policy.

While I’ve only used an iPad at the Future Shop to aquatint myself with the device, and also at friends’ places, the tried-and-true method of paper I find easier to prepare for meetings with. The primary benefit of paper is that you can scribble notes, while electronic equivalents of “note scribbling” is not as seamless. Other commissioners have different ways of absorbing information and I believe the board will set a path that will respect these differences.

The issue of costs was debated. Commissioner Skonberg in a motion suggested that the board pick up the bill for the iPads, as per our budget, but I moved a referral motion to staff, which the board carried, with the suggestion in discussion that we should harmonize our procedures with the City of Chilliwack’s regarding the “who pays” issue and also with respect to usage of the device.

There is a budgetary allocation already available for iPad devices in the 2012 budget.

If the iPad is used exclusively for board business, I have no problem with the public taxpayer picking up the bill. However, such devices are nearly as addictive as narcotics (not that I’ve tried any!) when it comes to non-business use. As such, I floated the suggestion that in lieu of this (anticipated) non-business use, commissioners could pay for half the device’s expenses, funded through our communication expense allowance. I’m guessing I didn’t please either side of the argument by making a half-way argument, but I am a fence-sitter with respect to electronic agendas in the first place.

The question of what happens to the device after three years of usage and also maintenance concerns if somebody loads errant software to impair the device will presumably be addressed in a future policy document.

Inevitably, I hope whatever policies the City of Chilliwack has are reasonable, and if so I will happily accept them.

The fiscal and environmental argument would sway me further if our agenda packages were larger.

6. I moved a motion that the topic of discussion be recorded in the minutes for question period, rather than questions and responses. This motion was defeated 3-3 (McCrea, Shanks and Skonberg opposed). My rationale with this motion was that the primary purpose of board minutes is to keep a record of board decisions (our record of motions, who made/seconded, and how people voted). I had earlier made a motion in May 2010 that question period be recorded in a manner consistent with neighboring municipalities’ practice. Unfortunately, this was an ambiguous motion depending on which municipalities you look at (my bad)! What I especially want to avoid is nitpicking at wording of what goes into the minutes like what happened today, and it seems that we are going to be due for a lot of that in the future.

There are much better vehicles for documenting public concerns to the board than the minutes.

I would also suggest that since the Cultus Lake Community Association is looking for content on their newsletter, why not send them a commentary? The minutes of the board are not a proper location for editorials.

Any member of the public can email me questions with respect to board business and in most cases they will receive a reply. Obviously I can’t talk about legal or other in-camera issues. People may not like the content of my replies, but they will get one. I post my email address and my phone number publicly. You can comment on any post I make on this weblog. As long as you use your real name, you can ruthlessly slam me for being childish and inappropriate and I will post it. None of this belongs in the board minutes.

7. The request for information for 17 leaseholder files by Commissioner Shanks was rejected by the board. The discussion devolved into a technical discussion of another leaseholder’s case that was not named in the request, there was no information regarding this leaseholder in our packages, and this leaseholder was not mentioned as the rationale for requesting such information. As far as I could tell, this was a witch hunt. I was generally disgusted with the whole proceeding, and made a motion to receive the report so we could dispense with the matter. This was rejected 3-3 (McCrea, Shanks and Toews against). There was further discussion that continued to steer well off-topic of the actual item to request information and a motion to accept the request was rejected 4-2 (McCrea and Shanks in favour). In most normal circumstances I would have left it at that (a rejected motion effectively means no action), but since I wanted to officially voice the board’s opposition of the matter, I moved rejection of the request, which was carried 4-2 (McCrea and Shanks opposed).

My disgust in this matter had nothing to do with the leaseholder that I presume Commissioner Shanks was trying to argue about (this board has not formally deliberated with this leaseholder), but rather the process that has been engaged. Ordinarily my own latitude with respect to this sort of matter (a commissioner requesting information) is fairly wide, but the complete lack of adherence to protocol was disturbing. At the very minimum I would have expected to see reference to that particular leaseholder’s case in the request.

8. Chair McCrea brought his tape recorder to the meeting again. I wonder if these tapes go into a vault somewhere.

9. Order of precedence of motions according to Roberts Rules is as follows (note that these are the ones that have been typically used in the board, there are other obscure motions which I have omitted):

- Adjournment
- Recess (Break)
- Calling the question
- Deferral
- Refer [to staff, to committee]
- Amendment
- Main motion

10. The in-camera session adjourned around 11:20pm. This, to date, was the longest meeting since I started with the board in December 2008.

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

1. The vote for chair commenced again. Commissioner Shanks nominated Commissioner McCrea. Commissioner Skonberg nominated myself. I declined the nomination, and Commissioner McCrea was elected chair.

The chairman does have certain privileges, including structuring committees, and being an interface between the board and staff, guiding the actual meetings of the board, and the spokesperson for the board. The chair does make about $3,000 a year more in compensation for this work, which I can judge after my own experience is a correctly priced premium. Other than that, he/she is a single vote in proceedings just like the rest of the commissioners.

After the debacles in the inaugural two meetings, hopefully the board will move forward.

2. The vote for vice-chair went with myself nominating Commissioner Skonberg. Chair McCrea nominated Commissioner Shanks. There was a vote and Commissioner Skonberg was elected as vice-chair.

In the past year, Owen was great to rely on, and also did a great job chairing the standing committee on bylaw and policy review’s work concerning the upcoming Good Neighbour Bylaw.

3. The board approved an outlay of $12,000 to the Cultus Lake Aquatic Stewardship Strategy (CLASS), under the condition that they received matching funds under the Habitat Stewardship Program. I made an amendment to the original motion, which was carried by the rest of the board, that the funding also be contingent on us receiving a report outlining the results of the milfoil survey and also the technical conference – both of which we were told the funding would be used for. This is a basic measure of accountability for CLASS which will ensure that we get some value for hard-earned public funds.

4. There was a bit of dirty laundry aired out with respect to relations between staff and certain commissioners, some emails of which were in the agenda package. After making a statement, the chair asked for a motion that Commissioner Shanks made which stated that staff are not to make negative remarks about commissioners in the open, but thankfully it received no seconders.

I will also point out that at any time a motion to go in-camera could have been made by any commissioners, but was not done.

What happened is described in the December 22, 2011 email contained in the agenda package. Summarizing it roughly, after getting elected, Commissioners McCrea, Shanks and Payeur went to the board office to try to get a staff decision on a building matter overturned. This in itself is a huge overstepping of authority – individually, commissioners have no power, but collectively the board expresses its wishes through making resolutions. The proper procedure is to bring it up to the board as an agenda item, and have the board make the appropriate resolution to investigate and report. Once the entire board is apprised of the situation can they then make the appropriate motion to direct staff to “make it go away” or confirm the original decision.

If the matter was urgent, the chair or two commissioners can call a special meeting with two days of notice.

So far, this item has never been brought up as an agenda item. I personally only found out about this by reading some emails that were forwarded to me while I was still in Thailand and I was shaking my head overseas when reading them at this huge breach of procedure. I realize the new commissioners are eager to “get to business”, but in this case they were too overly enthusiastic.

I believe these types of actions are the root cause of the existing acrimony between staff and commissioners, which can hopefully be corrected once there is a better understanding of the role of commissioners and the board vs. staff. This is something our new chairman should be able to instill and this will breed a better relationship between board and staff.

5. I reported on my first “junket” ever paid for by public money to Kelowna, BC for the local government leadership academy (LGLA), which was a three-day training conference on all issues relating to local government, governance and administration. You can view their one page brief by clicking here, and also an agenda by clicking here. Some material I learned from experience in the previous term, some material was new, and there were some provocative presentations.

This is the first term in the history of the park board where commissioners actually received formal training – parliamentarian Eli Mina was brought in December for the new commissioners and staff to talk about parliamentary procedure. I wasn’t around then, so I was sent to the next best option.

6. I found it odd that the chair Bob McCrea brought his own tape recorder to the meeting. Our executive assistant at every meeting has one. I am waiting for somebody to bring in high-resolution video so people can then count how many breath mints I consume in a meeting.

During the December meeting (which I was out in Asia at the time), there were six commissioners and they could not decide on who the chair and vice-chair as the votes were deadlocked 3 to 3 (Commissioner McCrea and Commissioner Skonberg were nominated for chair). They eventually agreed to draw a random name out of a hat and that commissioner would be the temporary chair for the evening’s proceedings. It was a rather unique way of proceeding, but it at least allowed the board to get on with the business that was before it.

In the January 11th proceedings, there was again a 3-3 vote for chair (Commissioner McCrea and myself were nominated). Seeing that this result would not change if there were subsequent votes, I moved a motion identical to the one that was carried in the December meeting; to draw a random name out of a hat for a temporary chair for the evening. The reason was simple: the board had business before it that needed attending – this is one of our primary functions as commissioners. This motion was defeated 3-3 (McCrea, Payeur and Shanks voted against).

We went to a second vote for chair. This again was tied 3-3. I made the same motion as I did previously to draw a temporary chair out of a hat, with the same result (3-3 against; McCrea, Payeur and Shanks against). McCrea moved a motion that the (permanent) chair be decided by coin toss, and this was defeated 3-3 (Hall, Skonberg and myself against) for the simple reason that the board and not a coin toss should decide its chair and vice-chair. McCrea also moved a motion that the CAO chair the proceedings of the board business and then we will subsequently vote on chair and vice-chair. I don’t believe this actually got to a vote for obvious reasons – accepting this motion would be like having the Mayor of Chilliwack give up the reigns in council chamber to the Chief Administrative Officer!

There was yet another vote for chair and vice-chair, with the same result (3-3) and finally the board agreed that the vote for chair and vice-chair be moved to the end of the agenda, and a temporary chair for the evening be selected at random. The whole board agreed to this (finally!) and Commissioners Hall, Payeur and Shanks oped out of the temporary chair vote. Commissioner McCrea‘s name was selected from the hat and he was chair for the day.

This charade took half an hour before we got to our first item of real board business.

After the regular part of the meeting and the in-camera session, the board once again considered the matter of the vote for chair and vice-chair. This was around 10:40 in the evening. The vote was deadlocked again, 3-3.

Commissioner Hall made a motion that the vote for chair and vice-chair be moved to the next board meeting. This was subsequently defeated 3-3 (with McCrea, Payeur and Shanks against).

I moved that the board recess for a couple minutes and this was carried by the whole board. During the recess, Commissioners Skonberg, Hall and myself left the meeting at around 10:45pm and went home. While I do not know the rest of the story, I am guessing the meeting had to be adjourned (as four commissioners are required for quorum per our bylaws).

I am guessing that Commissioners McCrea, Payeur and Shanks wanted to keep voting until we ran out of paper, but at a certain point the plug needed to be pulled.

I hope this is not a sign of the future; we were elected to make the park a better place instead of playing petty games. It is not good for the community, the stakeholders of the park, the staff, or anybody except perhaps Paul Henderson of the Chilliwack Times, who I noticed was in the gallery and will have plenty to write about from the dysfunction he witnessed.

I notice that the FVRD has a draft copy of their Area E OCP update (everywhere except Cultus Lake Park) and you can get a copy of it from their website.

Your support is much appreciated and never forgotten.

I look forward to working with fellow commissioners Charlotte Hall, Bob McCrea, Larry Payeur, Malcolm Shanks, Owen Skonberg and Carleton Toews this upcoming term – there is a fairly diverse range of talent among these people and this diversity will be an asset to the board.

I would also like to thank Scott Allinott and Austin Ross for tossing their hat into the ring.

CHILLIWACK – Sacha Peter is running for re-election to the Cultus Lake Park Board on two key campaign pledges for the upcoming term. The first is financial sustainability and the second is capacity management at the park.

On the first pledge of financial sustainability, Peter stated, “When our current board came in, we had to resolve a huge deficit and a bank account approaching zero. At the end of our term, we have surpluses and have managed to build over a million dollars into our reserve account balances. Financial sustainability is foremost my concern at Cultus Lake Park and I intend to continue our positive direction.”

On the second pledge of capacity management, Peter stated, “I have personally experienced and also heard from many Chilliwack residents that traffic to and from Cultus Lake during the summer season is horrible. Not only does this cause frustration, but there is a genuine safety issue if there needs to be an emergency evacuation of the area. The root cause of this traffic is residential density combined with the lack of a second road access to the Cultus Lake / Columbia Valley area. Until such a road access is built, I will pledge to not support any increase in residential density at Cultus Lake Park beyond the existing park use plan.”

Sacha Peter is currently the chairman of the Cultus Lake Park Board. A resident of Chilliwack, he is a certified management accountant and employs himself with policy and communications work in the public sector, financial analysis, accounting and writing.

Voters residing in Chilliwack can vote for up to five park commissioner candidates, including Sacha Peter, on November 19, 2011.

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

1. My exact memory on this one was a little fuzzy, but after a couple rejected motions relating to the stabilization of the stairway at 216A/217 Lakeshore Drive, the board moved (5-2) to remove the existing stairway, cost out the price of a wooden stairway and rock stabilization. I ended up voting for the final motion because it did include the stabilization work, although I was not impressed that this motion was the one passing simply because the costing was performed in the geotech report and this motion will end up wasting time and effort. I do hope eventually the board (whether this one or the next one) will adopt the recommendation contained within the geotech report (section 3 of the document).

2. The board passed adoption our new Fees, Fines and Charges bylaw, passed third reading of the encroachment bylaw and passed adoption of our 2012 Budget and Five Year Financial Plan bylaw. Interestingly enough on the latter adoption, it was on a 5-2 vote with Commissioners Woodrow and Skonberg opposing. Commissioner Woodrow voted against first, second and third reading of the budget bylaw so it is understandable he opposed adoption, but because there is no discussion on adoption the reasons why Commissioner Skonberg voted against adoption (but voted for third reading) remain unclear as of present. (If he is reading this post, feel free to submit a comment below).

3. The board voted 7-0 to send the new fire truck to the Chilliwack Christmas Parade. There was a lot of discussion regarding safety coverage at Cultus Lake Park during the parade (there would be an older vehicle and some crew still at the park) and potential liability issues. My own view is that while the board must be cognizant at all times with risk and liability, sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith.

4. Commissioner Woodrow had a couple reports. There was one motion that was defeated 6-1 (Woodrow in favour) regarding 334 Balsam. The motion was of similar substance to the previous motion to rescind the decision on the rejected variance application (which occurred in 2010). The rest of the motions did not receive a seconder.

5. I gave a tribute to the four commissioners that will be departing us after the November 23rd meeting. At a minimum, Commissioner Hall and Commissioner-elect Larry Payeur will be around to hold the fort and hopefully Commissioners Skonberg and myself will be around for the next term.

6. This will be my last board meeting of the year; my family and I will be headed across the Pacific Ocean to (amongst other things) attend a wedding and while we are out there, will be touring the area for slightly over a month. As such, this will be my last update on board business for the year.

It has been a pleasure being on the board and I hope the people of Chilliwack will allow me to continue.

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

1. I believe this was the longest meeting of the year. There was a significant amount of material covered on the agenda.

2. There was a public input session on the 2012 budget and five year plan. There were no written submissions to the park board office, nor did anybody correspond with me to my own email about the budget. There were four people in the audience that spoke to the plan, two of which are candidates in the upcoming election. All comments received were in the form of questions, including questions on: clarifications on various line items of the budget, explanations of variances from actuals to budgeted values, comparative amounts from 2011 to 2012, and a question/comment amounting to “does the bottom line show enough of a surplus?”.

The most philosophical of questions was asked by Malcolm Shanks (candidate in the election), regarding the “moral authority” of the board to approve a budget that will be inherited by a new board just a month later. This is primarily a function of having a calendar year-end fiscal year and having the election cycles set by the province for a November election date (changing to October in 2014). While I do remember having the same thoughts myself as a newly elected (but not yet in office) commissioner while sitting on the November 26, 2008 meeting when that board passed third reading and adoption of their budget, we lived with their decision for the 2009 budget until it became apparent that there was no way the park board could afford it. In 2009, we then subsequently cut all non-critical spending until we could figure out what was going on.

The way to solve the budgetary timing matter (if it is indeed warrants a solution – it would occur every three years) is to change the fiscal year end, perhaps to March or June. Doing so has its own challenges with the limited hours we have in our finance staff and I rank this low on the priority list compared to other looming projects that they will be engaged in 2012 with, including the implementation of some new software that will assist with better financial reporting.

Ultimately the future board can re-open the budget if they want to. If they do, the reason will not be because they discovered we passed a budget the park can’t afford.

After considering public input, the board later on in the meeting passed third reading of the 2012 budget and 5-year plan 5-1 (Woodrow opposed). It will come up for adoption next meeting.

3. The board passed a motion concerning the positioning of signage for commercial businesses that do not have visibility from Columbia Valley Highway. This solution is amicable to all stakeholders.

4. The adoption of the fines, fees and charges bylaw was deferred 5-1 (myself opposed) upon more information to be received by staff to do a comparative review of relevant fees on our existing bylaws. I was fairly satisfied that this mirroring of development cost charges that other municipalities charge is the correct approach, but the rest of the board wants to see further information. In terms of differentials, however, our previous rates are far from what is charged in modern times. There are times to look at relative impact of changes and times to not, and in this instance relative comparisons are highly misleading.

5. An encroachment bylaw addressing the issue of grandfathered encroachments that are generally for the beautification of the park received first and second reading. This bylaw reflects a good balance.

6. A proposal to restructure our reserve accounts was effectively deferred until the December meeting when the new board can consider it. I think the information within the memorandum is quite in line with our financial transformation and although I would have preferred getting the ball rolling on this right now, ultimately it will be the next board that will be approving the follow-through changes and the two month delay will not be the end of the world. How and what projects we should be structuring our reserve funds for will be one of the initial challenges the new board will face this winter.

7. A reconsideration motion on the 2010 vote for a rejection of a variance application at 334 Balsam was defeated 4-2 (Hall and Woodrow in support of reconsideration). This board has seen two reconsideration motions make it to the table and I have voted against both of them as in both cases there was no misinformation or relevant new information since the initial vote. The applicant would be in his rights to re-submit a variance application if there is any new evidence to bring to light – he would probably have better luck doing so after the new board is in.

On the Cultus Lake side, where two commissioners are elected to the board, there were two candidates – Commissioner Charlotte Hall and Lawrence (Larry) Payeur. They will be acclaimed to office and presumably their election expenses will be quite low this season. I have already called both to congratulate them.

On the Chilliwack side, on the incumbents side are both myself and Commissioner Owen Skonberg. Other candidates are Scott Allinott, Bob McCrea, Austin Ross, Malcolm Shanks and Carlton Toews. There are seven candidates running for five seats.

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

1. The board received a memorandum that stated that staff is working on a bylaw amendment to the Encroachment bylaw with respect to previous applications received. This is a case of developing a comprehensive solution to the issues concerning encroachments rather than applying quick fixes and the cost of waiting a little while is far less than the cost of not doing it correctly. Commissioner Woodrow moved a motion to agree to the prior encroachment with no further costs to the applicant, but this received no seconders.

2. The board approved four measures concerning Sunnyside campground.

The first measure was to adopt a decrease in parking rates for seasonal campers for a second vehicle from $150 to $100. This motion was carried 3-2 (Woodrow and Peter opposed). My vote against was because there is a significant measure for Sunnyside seasonal campers to allow entry in April and that unlike day use campers, who bring extra vehicles in typically for a weekend, seasonal campers will bring in their automobiles for significantly higher periods of time.

The second measure was to decrease the cost of a second vehicle / second family member to $10 from $20 presently. This was carried 5-0 and brings us much more in line with other campgrounds. There will be a revenue consequence to this, however.

The third measure was to decrease the pet rate from $5/day to $5/day up to $20/week, which was carried 5-0.

Later on in the meeting, the board agreed to a recommendation to allow the opening of Sunnyside to seasonal campers in the closest weekend to April 15 instead of the May 1st fixed date. As Sunnyside is staffed from April 1st there will be no labour consequence in costs, but there will be an increase in electricity consumption between the mid-April to end of April date.

3. The board moved first, second and third reading of our fees, charges and fines bylaw. This bylaw consolidates various rates into a single bylaw. The City of Chilliwack has similar bylaws with their Miscellaneous Rates Bylaw, Development Cost Charge bylaw, etc. Other municipalities have similar bylaws in place.

4. The board moved first and second reading of our 2012 budget bylaw. I will reserve comment until the bylaw has passed. There will be a public comment period on the budget bylaw at the October 26, 2011, 7:00pm board meeting and people can voice their comments through that medium. Also, they can write into the board office by postal mail or by e-mail. In addition, commissioners can also be emailed.

I did ask for a motion, however, which was moved by Commissioner Hall and seconded by Commissioner Woodrow requesting that the 2013 and later years’ increments for the daily use rates for the Old Age Pensions group at the Community Hall be removed. Currently the day use rate the OAPs are paying at the community hall are scheduled to be increased in the 2012 budget, but there was an increase in 2013 and subsequent years. While our community hall is not making money for the park, and indeed, it costs more to keep it up, it does provide a good meeting place for the community and I believe the social benefits of having it there far outweigh the cost going into it. That said, there does have to be some planning with respect to the building over the medium-term time range. This is something the next board should be addressing.

5. The board moved third reading of the appointment of officers bylaw, which included language over our existing officers bylaw that would indemnify commissioners from legal costs as a result of the performance of their duties. Future commissioners will doubtlessly be relieved to this has been put into place. Hopefully this provision will never have to be used. The language is similar in nature to the Municipal Officers and Employees Bylaw in the City of Chilliwack.

6. The board considered a matter concerning pay parking, specifically the rates to be offered and the contract to administer parking. I excused myself from this part of the proceedings due to a perceived conflict of interest due to a personal relationship I have with the owner/operator of the company in question. For further background information, his wife and my wife are friends. I will also disclose that the relationship is not an economic relationship (i.e. I do not stand to gain financially if this decision was accepted or rejected).

As I stated in my dissection of the April 13, 2011 meeting where I declared a similar conflict of interest, although this does not fall as a real conflict of interest, in my mind it easily can fall into a perceived conflict of interest situation. There are simply some matters where personal life and business do not mix – it is much more prudent for me to declare a conflict and be able to look straight into the faces of both the stakeholders at Cultus Lake Park, and the owner/operator of Lions Parking and say that I took the most ethical action possible by removing myself. I did not see how taking part in this decision that I could be considered an objective participant, which is why I removed myself from the proceedings.

7. Commissioner Skonberg‘s proposed motion to reduce residential leaseholder rates by 10% did not receive a seconder, with Commissioner Nokleby “moving it for discussion purposes”.

8. Finally, the board considered and adopted a motion thanking the Citizens on Patrol for the great work they have been doing in the Cultus Lake Community. Lewis Kirkness and his group have been doing a fine job.