City to take taxation and industrial development issues to UBCM in the fall

When the city's council members head off to Whistler for this fall's UBCM gathering they will be bringing a list of concerns that they hope other communities will take up as their own.

At tonight's Council session, council members will review the draft of the resolutions that the City of Prince Rupert hopes to add to the UBCM agenda.

Many of their recommendations for review and approval will be on familiar themes for council observers. Dealing for the most part with the desire to find ways to access more revenues through industrial taxation and payments.

With those lengthy discussions on the payment in lieu structure of port development in the city still fresh in their minds from the spring budget sessions, the Port issue will be one of their main resolution points for September's UBCM.

On that topic of the Payment in lieu process currently in place, the City will be putting forward the resolution that the BC Assessment Authority valuation be used for the purposes of PILT as it applies to Port Authority properties.

As for the tax cap, the City will be asking that UBCM support their resolution that the provincial taxation caps be repealed, highlighting how a temporary measure became a permanent one.

We outlined some of Council's concerns on those two items of concern back in March, during the heated moments of discussion on revenue issues for the city.

They also will offer up a resolution to seek Funding assistance for large scale Project Proposal Evaluations on project proposals.

Council also is targeting concerns over tax exemptions on Berth corridors, seeking to have those
exemptions eliminated from the Community Charter.

Other items that they hope to bring to UBCM for inclusion in their final discussions will be items of note on Flexible matching grants, Unconditional grants and the need for the provincial government to create and implement a poverty reduction plan.

Their draft presentation provides a fair bit of background on those items, you can review it all from the Agenda for Tonight's council session, it can be found on pages 38 and 39.

For more items of interest on developments at Prince Rupert City Council see our archive page.