CityWest provides dividend forecast for City Council

Monday's city Council session provided an overview of anticipated revenues coming to the city for 2015 and one item that no doubt caught the eye of Council members was the observation from the City's Financial Officer, that CityWest will deliver another 400,000 dollars in 2015.

The issue of CityWest dividends has been a lively topic at City Council sessions in recent years, as the City owned telecommunication company reduced its financial return to its only owner.

Last year's 400,000 dollars was an increase from the original proposal of a 250,000 dollar divined in the Spring of 2014, a notice that at the time put the communication company back in the spotlight for Council members.

Mayor Lee Brain accepting CityWest
dividend payment in December 2014

Late last year CityWest celebrated its delivery of the 400,000 dollars, heralding the financial return with a picture of Mayor Brain in possession of a huge novelty cheque for the event

In 2013 Council members reacted with a mixture of surprise and anger, at the prospect that no dividend would be provided that year by the communication company that year.

An alarm bell that seemed to signal to Council that more attention was required on its investment.

Last October, the City announced a number of significant changes to the CityWest Board of Directors, putting in place the majority of its upper level of City staff members into positions of oversight at CityWest.

Considering that Prince Rupert once counted its dividend returns in the millions and not the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  It will be interesting to see if Council members suggest that the CityWest Board members perhaps should sharpen their pencils and offer up a larger amount of return on investment by the time the final budget deliberations are concluded.

For more items related to CityWest see our archive page here, for other discussion topics at City Council see our archive here.