Today we had an interesting discussion on a motion relating to the Crystal Pool project (CP) referendum.
The first item in the motion put forward by a couple of Council members was “Put a stop to one-sided advertising regarding the referendum.”
Small wonder that it got spicy.
I opposed the motion because it was so vague that it gave little to no actionable direction to staff, and it seemed more like a Trumpian political slogan than any direction at all (I wasn’t the first one to mention Trump in Council today).
I won’t go into all the details about the discussions, and if you’re interested you really should watch for yourself.* I will just explain my attempted amendments. By the way, amending motions is very common, and it doesn’t mean you support the original motion; very often motions are amended and then voted against. My two attempted amendments to the motion were to:
- Remove the political slogan and replace it with an explanation to the public about how the CP project could be paid for. Based on votes to date on this budget and previous budgets, it’s obvious that it wouldn’t be paid for by a tax increase as the motion suggested, but rather a cut to City spending. (More on that at my earlier post on CP costs, where I’ve also added some sample spending reductions that staff had earlier provided).
- Add that if the referendum fails there are other options that this Council could pursue, like refurbishment, a smaller new pool, or pursuing a regional services for pools and rec centres. Some members of the public were under the impression that there would simply be no pool or rec centre if the referendum failed. Others said they just didn’t know what any options could be. As Mayor Alto put it, if the random fails Council would “go back to the drawing board.
I will address a few objections to my motions:
- Maybe it would be a tax increase, not a service cut
- Sure, in theory, but here is how it actually works: Council members decide on what they think is a politically sellable property tax lift, and then spending cuts are made if needed to accommodate it. This year staff proposed a 12.77% tax lift just to keep services at existing levels, and Council sent them away to come up with spending reductions to get that tax lift number significantly lower. And that was without the increases from CP. Add those in and the cuts get deeper.
- Council should have changed the information months ago, not now.
- Council doesn’t write communications materials; we see them when the public sees them. I received the brochure mailer this week, for example.
- This would be confusing to the public
- Many members of the public are now confused and they are asking questions. They want more information. More information means less confusion.
- It would be huge amounts of work for staff
- It would be basically copy/pasting line items from a table staff have already prepared and adding it to the City’s CP website. Staff add information to the website all the time.
- There is no regional service for pools or rec centres / we can’t make one
- If there are willing municipal participants, CRD can establish a service. We just gave direction to staff on making a new regional transportation service for instance.
Anyway, that was what I was moving for – more information to the public to inform a very important vote. The really spicy stuff was not related to my motions – watch the video for that! :-).
* Given the extremely strong feelings on today’s motion, I encourage people to watch the video of the discussion rather than just listening to what the proponents or opponents say about it. It will be posted here as soon as staff are ready to do so. If that link doesn’t work, click on Jan 23, 2025 Committee of the Whole at this link.