Vernon’s resolutions passed at the UBCM, but shadow cast on meetings by provincial election

However, the passing of the motions was soured a bit by the news of the snap provincial election being called.

“The main reason we really go [to the conference] is to make these connections with ministers and move things along, so we, as well as almost every other delegate there, were really disappointed the province called an election because we were making good progress with the existing ministers,” Mayor Victor Cumming told Vernon Matters.

“When we meet with them, we usually meet with their senior staff as well, and senior staff usually stay if a government changes, so we’ll see the value of our efforts, and hopefully these things can get moved along, because we had six or seven very clear items that we wanted to move the rock an inch and a half. So I hope that happens.”

Cumming also noted the call for an election would not impact the resolutions being passed, as the UBCM will bring them forward to the province as recommendations following the provincial election.

“UBCM will pursue them with whoever is in government; those things are not a problem,” Cumming said.

“It’s the smaller ministerial meetings, which are very specific to policies that those ministries currently have. So if the government changes and we get new ministers, then we have to go back down that road again and meet the new folks and re-present why we want these small adjustments.”

While the call for the election could impact the outcome of those discussions, it had less of an impact on the other purpose of the conference, which was allowing the city officials a chance to meet with other municipal representatives to talk about progresses made locally and also hear what actions other similar-sized municipalities were pursuing.

“I think many communities of our size want to adjust our public transit. We want that to be a more effective tool and allowing more people who can live in the core to either have only one car in the household or share a car and be able to use public transit or other mobility devices as their common transport. That’s something other communities across the province are thinking,” Cumming explained.

“Another thing that other communities have done really effectively is they have a public bus system to their tourism destinations, and we do not. That’s a thing that came up fairly constantly and it allowed us to have deep conversations with specific communities that have already found a way to make this happen. I know it’s an issue for us in Vernon and Greater Vernon so it would be really a pleasure if we, or whoever is on council in the next term, can find a way of making that cost effective and useable.”

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by Liam Verster

Vernon’s resolutions passed at the UBCM, but shadow cast on meetings by provincial election

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