By Don Lehn

Mayor Sharon Gaetz and Local Hero Shawn Nagurny

Chilliwack, B.C. - A very busy day for City council that started on a positive note—honoring a hero. Shawn Nagurny , a Chilliwack resident who works at YVR in Richmond and was one of the first on scene after a small aircraft made an emergency landing on October 27, 2011. Without any regard for his own personal safety, he raced into the burning fuselage and rescued a number of passengers. Mayor Sharon Gaetz honored him before council got down to business.

Council received the final report and presentation from the Downtown Core Task Force. The force will now be disbanded and the Downtown Core Implementation Committee has been set up. Councilor Ken Huttema was the Chair of the Task Force and will lead the new committee. Councilor Jason Lum was the President of the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce when the task force did its job. He will now be Vice-Chair for the new committee.

A number of points in the completed Task Force report include a short term policy to restrain high density rezoning in other areas of Chilliwack that would detract from improvements and construction in the Downtown. The City will be authorized to use appropriate methods to acquire and assemble land to become development ready. That could and would include buildings that would be slated for demolition to make way for new structures.

The City would pursue Federal and Provincial funds for improvements to the Downtown. Transit improvements along with help from BC Transit for the downtown would be part of this extensive plan.  The frustrating point for some will be that this implementation will be done in increments working through Committee and public consultation through open houses.

The city has put on line, a website totally dedicated to the plan at chilliwackdowntownplan.ca and you can email info@chilliwackdowntownplan.ca.

No timeline was set out for the new committee. Kathy Funk of the Downtown Business Improvement Association is hoping that heels won’t be dragging to get shovels into the ground and improvements made sooner than later.

And what about your taxes in the coming years?
The 2012 Financial Plan Bylaw was presented to the city and approved. You will see a tax increase of 3.44% on 2012, 2013 and 2014, which workout to approximately $50. Policing in Chilliwack still takes the biggest bite out of the city budget at 30.6%

Firefighting comes in second. One new firefighter trainee will be added on 2014. 14 new bodies should come on line by 2016. The Chilliwack Firefighting staff should be at 49 by 2019.

The Sardis Library startup costs in 2012 come in at $604 thousand. The library should be operational by January 2013.

You can go through all the budget details on line through the City of Chilliwack website and email questions to budget@chilliwack.com

Comments

Posted by: loveinchilliwack on February 21 2012 7:15 PM

3.44% increase in property taxes is pretty good when you look to what other municipalities that are not a well run are raising their taxes.

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