To the Editor:
Creston town council has been operating in a crisis management style for the past decade, with managers being comparatively overpaid and departments overstaffed, including overly generous financial funding paid out for council members’ travel allowances. All of this is resulting in excessively high taxation to the property and business owners in the town, resulting in direct shorting to all who are concerned about regaining financial control toward sustaining and growing essential infrastructure levels, including street maintenance.
To reverse this situation, I suggest the following items be placed on the town council’s agenda for a town hall meeting exclusively for these six items. Each of the issues to be discussed and decisions made on each item by way of secret ballot vote by council members:
•A resolution to be passed that reduces the number of councillors in the 2014 municipal election from six to four;
•Freeze salaries for a minimum of eight years to allow for positive reassessment of all areas of expenditure;
•Travel restrictions by council members will be limited to one per month, with distances limited to a radius of Nelson to the north and Cranbrook to the east. As an alternative to expending higher cost travel funds for interacting with municipalities farther away, council will adopt the use of modern interactive telecommunications systems (such as video conferencing) from now on;
•Effective immediately, council must revert its town hall meeting times back to 7 p.m. as is the norm with all other municipal town hall meetings in B.C. By not doing so, council is blatantly denying its Creston citizens the opportunity to express their concerns without having to book time off from their workplace;
•Effective Feb. 1, 2013, council hire one newly graduated police officer for the Town of Creston at a starting salary of $38,000 for the first three years, then hire one more rookie graduate each year for the next five years. Living within the town’s limits will be part of the application requirements. Once this is accomplished, council can cancel the town’s contract with the RCMP, which is neither affordable nor feasible; and
•In the spring of 2013, following the budget, begin a replacement program for all the town’s half-ton pickup trucks. Starting with two per year, switch to more fuel-efficient mid-size pickup trucks, with standard transmissions to reduce overall costs. Also consider the savings for fleet insurance and purchase pricing with fleet buying.
All of the above strategies are considered “aggressive management” and are essential to undertake if our town is to ever get its fiscal responsibilities in order and allow our council to be proud of their purpose in serving the taxpayers of Creston with tangible integrity and diligence.
Creston