Mayor Pond notes of hopes of progress towards RBA discussions

Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond updated council on his recent trip
to Victoria and the work ongoing related to the RBA

Part of the narrative to Thursday's Special Council Session, Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond provided an update towards one of the financial revenue streams that the City is hoping comes forward in short order to help reduce the burden of the Prince Rupert Taxpayer.

Mr. Pond speaking to the work ongoing towards the Resource Benefit Alliance, the collection of 21 Municipal and Regional Governments across the Northwest part of the province which are seeking some steady financial assistance for each of the communities.

The first of the Mayor's mentions of the RBA  came as part of the wide ranging discussion on the financing of infrastructure as part of the Five Year plan. With securing additional revenue streams part of the conversation, a topic we outlined earlier this morning here.

To start his wider overview, the Mayor made note of his recent travels to Victoria to discuss the RBA initiative, mindful perhaps of some of the interest in City travel that has been raised recently, observed that the travel was paid for by the province and not through civic funding.

"I think I can say that it was hopeful would be the way to describe it, the Premier suggested, really committed to the notion that the RBA is something he'd like to have in next year's budget. 

And it was also stated by one of the Minister's present that, that the timeline that people are currently working on would not preclude that.

Perhaps you can hear in my voice I'm not trying to over commit anybody. I'm not really to sing praises yet but it was certainly positive, there was no roadblock in that conversation.

What we were able to convey is the sense of urgency that the co-chairs on behalf of all of the 21 local government representatives are very worried that as time is ticking by, we'll miss the window to get it into the 2024 budget. 

And so we were there to put some pressure on, to make sure that the process continues"

In a follow up and at the prompting of Councillor Teri Forster, the Mayor provided a short tutorial on the initiative that began back in 2014, observing how the Northwest aspirations are based on a similar mechanism currently in place in the Peace Country of the province.

"There's been some real progress made by people around this table, previous council. Moving this forward bringing it to the attention. 

The challenge is, I mention the date 2014, because over the time from 2014 the government changes often, the ministers change often and so you get to a point where you think that you're just about there and then there's a change and then you sort of slip backwards and keep going.

So that's one of the reasons were pushing hard is, and we've had tremendous support from our MLA and we're hopeful there will be some kind of agreement, which would, not be something that necessarily reduce the current burden on the taxpayers but would be something that wcould avoid any sizeable future burden. 

You know we would want to dedicate that to repairing infrastructure, we'll probably be required to dedicate that to repairing and upgrading infrastructure"

You can review the discussion from the City's Video Archive starting at the 21 minute mark.

As we've noted in the past, City Council and staff don't often provide updates on their out of town travel, the city website for instance doesn't feature an IN/OUT page or expenses sheet, for residents to track the travel of the elected officials and senior staff.

So what we're left with is the occasional Social Media shout out to provide guidance as to where officials may be.  Such was the case earlier this week, when the Mayor provided a Greetings from Victoria snap shot.

For a look back at the history of the RBA initiative see our archive page here.

A wider overview of Monday's Special Council Session can be explored here.