By Corey Fischer

Mayor Questions SILGA’s Focus

May 1, 2018 | 5:39 PM

Vernon’s mayor is questioning the focus of an association that represents the interests of communities in South Central BC.

The Southern Interior Local Government Association — which has members from 37 communities — held its annual meeting in Revelstoke last week.

Mayor Akbal Mund is disappointed Vernon’s late resolution calling for more provincial staff to deal with emergency permit processing, didn’t get discussed.

“This is important for all the communities in the Okanagan, and we added it on as a late resolution, and it never made the floor,” says Mund.

Mund says the resolution — if passed — would have put pressure on the province to hasten the permit process for work like creek dredging.

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“Sometimes when late resolutions come up, I think it’s very important for members of SILGA to really look at those, and say, ‘Could this impact my community?” And this is one resolution that is going to impact a lot of communities,” Mund tells Beach Radio News.

He says that approval process can now take six months to a year.

(This resolution would have said) “Hey look, you guys (province) are are very slow in providing relief to government bodies who can go in and dredge creeks and do work. When we want to get a permit, it takes six months to a year. It’s ridiculous, because they don’t have the staff to go do it,” adds Mund.

Mund says Vernon will take its resolution to the Union of BC Municipalities conference later this year to get support.

Four other Vernon resolutions were supported by SILGA including one calling for RCMP to give municipalities more notice when they are seeking significant increases to their budget.

by Corey Fischer