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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCouncil this Week 2015-05-25.pdfLaura Benson, Manager of Sustainability & Corporate Planning, pre- sented a draft copy of the Council Work Plan based on the consulta- tions that have been held over the last month. Council reviewed the proposed timing of items and a few items were identified as priorities that need to be rescheduled. Ms. Benson will work with the Mayor and a couple of Councillors to fine-tune the Work Plan and bring it back to a future Workshop for final approval. City of Maple Ridge Council This Week Maple Ridge 11995 Haney Place Maple Ridge, BC V2X 6A9 Canada Tel: 604-463-5221 Fax: 604-467-7329 Website Enquiries Email Unsubscribe Inside This Issue:  Council Work Plan 2015  Ticket Information Utilization Amending Bylaw  Strategic Wildfire Prevention Initiative  2015 residential Class Property Taxation  Council Reports  Other Business Council Work Plan 2015 May 25, 2015 Maple Ridge Ticket Information Utilization Amending Bylaw Frank Quinn, General Manager: Public Works & Development Services, made a verbal presentation introducing the Maple Ridge Ticket Infor- mation Utilization Amending Bylaw. This bylaw establishes the fines for a number of infractions covered in various other bylaws that have been amended in recent months. Council asked a number of questions from representatives of the Licences, Permits & Bylaws, Parks & Facilities and Fire departments relating to the proposed infraction amounts and the way that these bylaws will be enforced. Council gave the Maple Ridge Ticket Information Utilization Amending Bylaw first, second and third reading. Strategic Wildfire Prevention Initiative Council This Week Page 2 Michael Van Dop, Assistant Fire Chief, provided a verbal overview of his report on a request for Council’s support to seek funding from the Union of British Columbia Municipalities to initiate an- other phase of the Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The funding will allow our community to develop a fuel management prescription that will outline the highest priorities to protect community assets from a wildfire. Once this work is complete, the next phase of funding will be used to execute an Operational Fuel Treatment program to remove undergrowth on the forest interface to harden the community against the impacts of a forest fire. Council thanked Assistant Chief Van Dop for the report and passed the recommendation. 2015 Residential Class Property Taxation Laura Benson, Manager of Sustainability & Corporate Planning, reviewed the report outlining the 2015 Residential Class Property Taxation. The report has a number of tables that look at the im- plications of the residential property tax and utility charges across the region and provided a breakdown of the tax implications for a number of properties within our community. Ms. Benson noted that the impacts of the tax rate vary depending on the value of your property. The values are set by BC Assessment based on the market value from July 2014. Each house- hold pays a fixed rate per $1,000 of the value of the home. If your property has increased in val- ue more than the average for our community, your tax bill may be higher than the 3.9% total. There are some citizens whose assessed values have dropped, so the impact of the tax increase may result in them seeing no change year over year in the amount that they pay for taxes. Ms. Benson also noted that Maple Ridge bills both the taxes and the utilities at the same time, whereas some communities send a utility bill out at the beginning of the year. A chart in the re- port allows citizens to compare the ‘all in’ number across the region. Council received the report as information. Council This Week Page 3 Council Report Please Note! Council This Week is an informal summary of the reports and discussion of Council’s work at Workshop. This document will provide links to all reports and presentations that were provided to Council as part of their deliberations. The comments are not the official minutes of the meeting. These notes are intended to capture the essence of the discussion so that citizens can keep in touch with the work of Council in this public meeting. This version of Council This Week has been modified to a more accessible version that better meets the needs of our citizens with visual impairments. Council has discussed ways that they can streamline their meetings by moving the Council re- ports that used to occur at the end of the Council Meeting agenda to a new place in their suite of meetings. After some debate and discussion, the motion was passed to move these reports to the beginning of the Workshop Agenda. Coming from that discussion, with the addition of the Council reports at the beginning of Work- shop, and the large list of items in the work plan, a motion was also passed to move the start time of the Workshop Meetings to 9:00 am from the current 10:00 am start time. Other Business Council had a brief discussion around the Provincial response to the 2014 Union of BC Munici- palities resolutions. In addition, there was a discussion and summary of the meeting held with the BC Minister of Advanced Education with Mayor Read and Councillors Masse and Shymkiw. Council members expressed their pleasure at the level of engagement of the Minister and his un- derstanding of the aspirations our community has regarding the development of increased post- secondary opportunities in Maple Ridge. Some specific ideas came out of the meeting that will be followed up on by both parties in the discussion.