Time for City Council to offer up a public review of their Seven year legacy of Legacy Inc. spending

For a financial instrument that we rarely hear many details about, the words Legacy Inc. or Legacy were pretty prominent in the discussion on Monday night when it comes to how Prince Rupert City Council put together this years Financial Plan and Budget, one  now completed for 2022 with a 3.63 tax increase.

As a part of the discussion on budget themes, the word Legacy was used eleven times in the Monday session, its joined at the hip partner Watson Island mentioned eight ties during the course of the 25 minutes that the council members put towards the budget approval.

As we outlined yesterday as part of our Council Budget review story, the topic of city council's go to fund for infrastructure projects, community initiatives and even a pay raise once upon a time, came after Councillor Gurvinder Randhawa noted that he could not support a tax increase for 2022, instead calling on Council to use the Legacy Fund money to cushion the tax burden for Prince Rupert residents.

That however was a red flag for the remaining council members who as we noted yesterday one by one spoke out against what they view as the folly of using the Legacy money for a tax relief program, with the Council members highlighting in a somewhat selective fashion as to how the fund is being used at the moment.

Much of the council push back to that idea followed the lead of Mayor Lee Brain who counselled against using the Legacy money towards tax relief, noting how the city makes use of the fund for infrastructure and other programs.

"I can understand where Councillor Randhawa is coming from, the challenge is that when you borrow from  another fund to pay into operations, then essentially you're just delaying  another more larger increase in taxes at another time. 

It's just borrowing now to pay off the inevitable later. So the reality is that smaller more consistent tax increases versus you know a large increase at another time when you are borrowing from another fund. 

I think is what the challenge with that strategy is ...  it's not really a strategy that's going to work because of just how the budget structure, how the operation fund, how legacy fund works and then  all our utility funds so you know as much as I understand the desire for that,  it won't actually translate to that it just pushes it off to another council to make a harder decision" -- Mayor Lee Brain

"I agree with what Mayor Brain has said, you can't keep taking money out of Legacy cause sooner or later Legacy is going to be empty and then you're going to have a big increase". -- Councillor Barry Cunningham

The use of the Legacy money towards leveraging infrastructure funding surely would not gain much a quarrel from residents; but perhaps some of the spending that we haven't heard about in any detail may be of some interest for a comparison to the themes presented by the council members on Monday.

Added to the discussion on Legacy was how Watson Island, which had its rebirth assisted by that Legacy money is moving forward in providing revenues for the community; but as Councillor Wade Niesh recounted, also seemingly still requires some significant investment from the city to build upon the current state of affairs at that industrial site.

"When you go and look at the Legacy Fund and what its done for our community, you know if you used it just to keep taxes at the line all the time, then we wouldn't have that money there for its intended use and that's to basically to develop our community and use it to further us ... that's where we've put our money in for the dam, that's where we've put our money for all these big projects that we need to do. 

And if we just used it as a fund to keep taxes low, then these projects wouldn't happen or we wouldn't have our contribution to put to these projects.  

Even though Watson Island has come a long way in the last seven years, it went to being a major liability to yes it is making us money now, but that money is for us to gain more money we're having to invest that money into Watson Island and we're having to put more money into it to make it a better future" -- Councillor Wade Niesh

All of the comments noted by the Council members should leave residents wanting to hear much, much more about both the Legacy financial instrument and how it's used, as well as to the ongoing need to keep providing funding for Watson Island.

Earlier this year, the City did provide a short infographic on some elements of Legacy, noting some selected uses of the money and some general information on the history of the financial instrument

click to enlarge

But with a municipal election coming up this fall, those council members giving thought to another term of office, should consider asking City Staff to provide a fulsome overview of both the operations for Legacy and Watson Island, that so voters in October will have a full briefing on how the City has been using that Legacy Funding.

However, what would be most helpful would be the creation of an easy to find information page for the city website, which would be updated on a regular basis,  providing a complete list as to where funding from the Legacy instrument has been allocated.

It could include snapshots of the projects and initiatives to date that came to fruition through that funding, something which would provide a quick reference for residents as to how the Council chose to put that money to work and if their priorities match up with the expectations that the community may have for a vast pool of investment money.

As well, Council could also allocate some time at an upcoming Council session to make for a full presentation on the topics of both Legacy and Watson Island.

Having those who manage the fund and direct for its use, provide for presentations and have residents offered an opportunity to pose questions to them, whether in person or on line. 

Such a forum would also help to provide more clarity on how the city is approaching the use of Legacy and the development of Watson Island.

The city has not been particularly attentive to updates on Legacy or Watson Island over the last seven years, the homepage for the financial instrument as barren today as the day it was created to detail  the articles of incorporation.

As for Watson Island, there hasn't been a full update on the site since a video tour a number years ago and that was more of a travelogue than an information piece. 

Since then, most of the information relay has consisted of the occasional note of a new tenant coming by way of a short Facebook post on the Mayor's social media page with no follow up or details as to what the plan of development for the industrial site may be.

Neither Watson Island or Legacy Inc.,  has become a discussion point for Council members who rarely bring the topic up in the public sessions, with the exception of when its budget time and Council makes note of how the fund is helpful on accessing infrastructure grants.

As he closed the Budget discussion on Monday, Councillor Reid Skelton-Morven noted of the city's many moving parts as he put it.

"There's a lot of moving parts when it comes to a municipality in general, but wth Prince Rupert between Municipal enterprise corporations like CityWest, Watson Island and Prince Rupert Legacy Inc., there's a lot of moving parts that come with that ... I think for us to allow to continue to make these investments and to move forward so we don't have a large bill that we can't manage, I think for it's for us to be fiscally responsible not only for the now but also for the future generations. "

Offering a comprehensive accounting of how they make use of those moving parts and what Council has spent the money from Legacy on, would give residents an opportunity to decide whether a tax break as advocated by Councillor Randhawa as bad of an idea as the council members suggest, compared to some of their other spending from the fund to date.

Considering how important those elements appear to be to Council and how they are framing them as part of the overall financial process, providing for more transparency and accountability on how all of them are managed and put to use should be the new priority for the Council members through the summer and up to election time.

And if not, that could make for a good theme for voters to take to the incumbents when candidate forum time comes around prior to voting day.

What few items of note that have been shared over the last seven years on Legacy Fund and Watson Island can be reviewed from our archive pages below:

Legacy Inc. Archive

Watson Island Archive

The City has yet to provide the video archive of their April 25th Council session to its You Tube archive page, once they have done so, we will provide the video to go along with the above commentary from the Council members.

Update:  the City added the Video of the Monday Council session to their You Tube archive late Friday afternoon.

Ms. Bomben's presentation on the Budget opened up the evening's work, while the Budget Discussion and focus on Legacy Inc and Watson Island  can be reviewed below starting at the forty five  minute mark.

More notes on the rest of the Monday session can be reviewed from our Council timeline.