Council has approved the borrowing of $700,000 to finance the replacement of the Motor Control Center at the city’s spray irrigation facility. The deadline for the public response against the borrowing was Aug. 10. To prevent the borrowing, an elector response of 10 per cent would have had to have been achieved and it was confirmed by the city’s corporate officer that that threshold had not been reached. That meant the borrowing could go ahead if council approved. It was approved with Coun. Wesly Graham opposed.
Earlier in lasat Monday’s regular meeting, council repealed a similar bylaw adopted in January because some of the requirements were not met.
“The statutory requirement of having the deadline for submission of elector responses be at least 30 days after the second newspaper publication was not met, being one day short,” city staff wrote in the report to council.
On March 31, 2015, council gave three readings to loan authorization bylaw, and authorized staff to proceed with the Alternative Approval Process. The purpose of the bylaw is to authorize borrowing of up to $700,000 from the Municipal Finance Authority (MFA) of BC and then repay the loan over 20 years.
City staff anticipates the city will participate in the Spring 2016 MFA debenture issue.The city anticipated that debt servicing will commence in 2017 and will be funded by a sewer parcel tax increase of $0.50 to be included in the 2017 Five Year Financial Plan. City staff also estimated the impact of this rate increase on a taxpayer with a 15.25 meter lot is an annual charge of $8.