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By Doug Collins

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: Bold moves by Kamloops council in budget

Mar 10, 2023 | 5:09 AM

KAMLOOPS COUNCIL WANTED TO BE BOLD. And at this week’s meeting of the Committee of the Whole, they took some very bold steps.

The committee supported a number of major issues, including a plan for more outreach workers, beautification structures, including some much-needed ones on the North Shore, more firefighters, improvements to highway off-ramps, and structural changes to allow more bike traffic in the city.

These changes will not be popular with everyone. They are part of a list of what are called supplemental budget items — kind of like a wish list. Don’t need them 100 per cent but would be nice to have.

Council has said, “We need to spend this money now instead of waiting.” And I applaud them for making those moves.

The downside, of course, is that our tax bill this year will rise by an average of 6.8 per cent, instead of the 5 per cent we would be paying if none of the supplemental items were approved.

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For those of us with fixed incomes, it will be another hardship we’ll have to bear. With rising costs, it won’t be a walk in the park. For those seniors like me who still have mortgages, we will be cutting back on a lot of things. I am fortunate in that I have a small amount of extra income coming in. Many other seniors don’t have that luxury. But kudos to council, nonetheless.

One more thing. The atmosphere at the committee meeting this week seemed a bit more tolerable, so the information was given high priority in Wednesday’s news cycle — unlike the week before, when some positive news was almost overshadowed by bickering between council members and the mayor.

While tensions like this have to be reported, we in the media must make sure we don’t let that detract from coverage of other things that, in the long run, are more important than querying the mayor about whether a speaker has been talking longer than five minutes to make a point, or whether a suggestion by the mayor is well thought-out. It is important to tell the public about the divisiveness, but let’s keep in mind there is progress being made, as evidenced this week.

You may not like the end results, but things are getting done, and that’s worth talking about.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.