If you live in one of the cities stretching from Princeton to Summerland, it is likely you do not know your representative on the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen or how that board member performs in protecting your municipal tax dollars.
One of the major failings of this powerful political entity is that unlike city councils they fly for the most part under the radar screen.
Their meetings taking a day at a time are not recorded on video, bookmarked and streamlined on the net so that municipal taxpayers can screen these proceedings to monitor the direct impact on their financial health or quality of life.
The RDOS has had the option of opening up their proceedings on more than one occasion and has turned it down as too expensive.
Is it too expensive or is it too inconvenient to have full public disclosure would be a question the taxpayers in the cities should be asking.
The people living in the cities contribute the majority of the financial support for this organization, yet hear little to nothing from their council representatives on the impact to their tax dollars.
Problems created by certain board members able to control outcomes on the RDOS never surface to public view. After all, what council appointee of this board wants to talk about their failures.
Abbotsford was the exception when it went public a year ago with its decision to question the value of belonging to their regional district (FVRD).
As a result, over the past year they received several concessions from the FVRD resulting in savings of over $1 million for Abbotsford taxpayers.
This caused cutbacks in services to the FVRD budget to lessen the impact on rural residents.
Despite financial concessions made by FVRD, Abbotsford after a year of internal study reached the decision they could provide all the services supplied by the FVRD and still save a further three-quarters of a million tax dollars by applying to the B.C. government to opt out of the FVRD.
As attendance by designated members of city councils to these meetings approximately doubles a councillor’s salary, the people of Princeton, Keremeos, Osoyoos, Oliver, Penticton and Summerland should be asking whether the financial incentives provided by appointment to the RDOS are affecting the ability of their elected representatives to make similar tax savings in their area.
Elvena Slump
Penticton