Hello everyone:

 Here are some items of current interest and some notes on what's coming to Council tomorrow.  As always, any opinions expressed are mine alone, and do not purport to be those of Council or the Town of Banff.

ACTION REQUEST REMINDER

If you have something that you want the Town to fix or pay attention to, there's a quick way to get your request to the right department.  Just go to www.banff.ca, and click on "Action Request", which you'll see in the white area across the top.  This carries you to a page where you can enter your concern.  I've tried this system out myself, and it seems to work very well.

WHAT'S HAPPENING ON BANFF AVENUE?

Everyone is wondering how the construction is going and what actions will be taken to make up the current 3-week delay.  Here is the intended schedule for closures and detours as it exists right now:

June 5^th – June 8^th

Caribou Street intersection closed on both east and west sides – Banff Avenue open.

June 9^th – June 27th^{   Â} 

Full closure of Banff Avenue to vehicular traffic – Caribou intersection closed, Wolf and Buffalo Street intersections will be open.

June 27^th – July 2nd

Banff Avenue and all intersections open for the long weekend and the Canada Day parade.

July 3^rd – July 24^th

Full closure of Banff Avenue to vehicular traffic – Caribou intersection closed, Wolf and Buffalo Street intersections will be open.

July 25th

Everything re-opens for the rest of the summer.

COMING TO COUNCIL MONDAY - 1ST READING OF CAVE AVENUE DENSITY AMENDMENT

As you know, the Banff Housing Corporation is interested in having a bylaw amendment passed that would remove one of the three density restrictions in the Cave Avenue District, thus allowing more units on the 6-lot parcel they have on Cave Avenue.  An open house was held last week to show interested people the intended approach.

This proposed bylaw amendment is coming to council for 1st reading tomorrow.  Three readings are needed to pass a bylaw amendment. 1st reading just gets the amendment on the table for discussion.  A public hearing is proposed for June 23rd.

You can read the report on this item by clicking on

http://www.banff.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=1507

and scrolling down to page 61.

COMING TO COUNCIL MONDAY - TANGIBLE CAPITAL ASSETS POLICY

There's been a change in the accounting practices for municipalities, and -- like all other municipalities across Canada - Banff will be changing the way we account for our capital assets.  This will cost time, money and effort at the front end, but will lead to better tracking of the financial and infrastructure health of the town.  You can read about this by clicking on

http://www.banff.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=1507

and scrolling down to page 76.

COMING TO COUNCIL MONDAY - FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE DISCUSSION

Council asked staff to bring in a report about what can and can't be asked for in the way of financial disclosure by councillors and staff.  I didn't bring this motion because I think anyone is doing anything wrong - I brought the motion because I think there should be enough information publicly available so that the public can judge for themselves how things are being done.  As you know, I think that having transparency around who owns what and who benefits from which actions would be a good thing.  However, it has been pointed out by other members of Council that this was not in the "job description" when they signed up to run, and that's certainly a fair comment. 

The staff report provides the legal background to such financial disclosure bylaws, and discusses the implications of financial disclosure from a personnel and privacy point of view.  It also includes information on the provisions in the existing Town personnel and purchasing policy.

 You can read the report here:

http://www.banff.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=1507

by scrolling down to page 86.

DISASTER SOCIAL SERVICES UPDATE

Having a well organized Disaster Social Services plan is an important part of any municipality's emergency preparedness.  Council will be getting an update on Banff's plan, and you can see it at:

http://www.banff.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=1507

by scrolling down to page 92.

FCSS ACTION PLAN PROGRESS REPORT

This report shows you the work that was done by FCSS on their 2006-2007 action plan, and also their intended actions for 2008.  You'll be amazed by all the work that has been done by this group!

Hello everyone:

These council updates represent my personal opinion, and may not reflect the official position of the Town of Banff or Banff Town Council. 

Just a quick note to let you know that I came home from Spain much earlier than expected, having found out that my flu virus was not quite finished with me after all!

Although I'm disappointed to have my trip cut short, I am pleased to be here for the review of the town's 2007 financials, which will take place at Council tomorrow. You can see the information on the Town's 2007 financials by clicking on this link: http://www.banff.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=1476

and scrolling down to pages 11 through 119.

I have spent most of the weekend going through all of this in detail, and will be asking a bunch of questions about overall financial procedures and individual department results in the meeting tomorrow

With best wishes - Leslie

Although I was very disappointed when I was unable to convince Council of the need for a Finance Committee, I'm now quite pleased about some of the things council and staff have been doing lately with the Town's financial procedures and policies.

Purchasing policy:  we reviewed and clarified the policy related to purchasing from councillors, staff members and their immediate families. 

Financial disclosure:  staff are working on a bylaw to require financial disclosure from councillors and staff members.  It has been pointed out to me that this wasn't part of the "job description" when people ran for council or accepted staff positions.  I understand and respect that position, and realize that we may need to bring this in on a volunteer basis for now, with new councillors and staff members bound by the bylaw in future.  But I think full financial disclosure is a long-term goal worth working for.  We'll see how it plays out when the bylaw comes to Council.

Quarterly forecasting:  the town is instituting quarterly financial forecasting, instead of once a year in September, which was the practice in the past.  I'm delighted about this.  I think it will enable us to see and respond to trends as they develop.  You manage what you measure -- measuring our financial performance on a more frequent basis will make us better financial managers.  Reviewing these figures at council will help councillors better understand what things cost and where the money is spent, making us more effective at budget time, and better at evaluating internal controls and financial practices.

Tangible assets policy:  we've had a few discussions at council about how items like furniture or sewer pumps end up in the operational spending rather than in capital.  The town is working on a policy/procedure that will clarify which items go where, and this is a very positive step.

Cheque lists:  the lists of all the cheques the town writes are now automatically distributed to reporters who want them, as well as to a broader list of council members than in the past.  This transparency helps assure accountability for the spending of public money.

Hello everyone:

 

Here’s a quick update on the heavy agenda that’s coming to council on Monday.  As always, any opinions that I express about the topics are my opinions alone, and do not purport to represent the position of the Town of Banff or the rest of council.  I welcome your thoughts!

 

PARKING OPTIONS

 

As you’ll probably remember, after the parkade was turned down, staff agreed to come back to council with more detailed information about costs and timelines for a range of ideas in tended to increase parking supply and reduce demand.  These ideas are coming back to Council on Monday.  They include:

• Change parking duration from 12 hr to 3 hr at Bear Street Parkade and relocate long term users to Cascade parkade.  I think this is a good idea, because locals – who tend to be the longterm parkers – can find the Cascade parkade, and visitors don’t seem to be able to.
• High School parking lot for July and August.  According to the report coming to council, the school board has kindly agreed to allow this for no charge.  This provides 31 more longterm parking stalls.  To alleviate neighbourhood concerns about noise, this parking lot will be closed after 10 pm each night.
• Acquisition of lot adjacent to Beaver Street parking lot.  This would be a very expensive option – approximately $31.5K per parking stall – but still a much, much lower cost per parking stall than a parkade. I certainly think this could be a good idea, but I want to ask some questions on Monday about how the value of the lot was determined – it’s hard to figure out market value for a house in that position, because it’s very difficult to point out comparable sales...
• Pay Parking Feasibility Study.  I think we should go ahead with a relatively inexpensive ($14K) updating of the pay parking study from a decade ago.  Technology has changed so much in this field that some of the concerns about “rows of parking meters”, etc may be less of a factor this time around.  As I’m sure most of you know, I’m in favour of paid parking as a demand-side parking management tool, and a way to help fund better public transit.
• Free one-way one-time transit passes for hotel and campground guests.  We’re considering this as a way to get hotel and campground guests to use their base as an “intercept parking lot” and take the transit from there on in. 
• Increased transit frequency.  Infrequent buses make people less likely to use transit.  However, to increase the frequency on routes, we would need more transit buses, and more bus bays in the new facility at the Compound.  The good news is that we have that recent grant of over $410K from the feds for this program.  The bad news is that it would cost more than this to increase frequency.  But it’s still lower cost than a parkade.

 

PURCHASING POLICY

 

As I mentioned in my last update, we will be looking at the part of the policy that relates to purchases from councilors, staff members, and their immediate families.  The recommendation in the report to council is to change the wording of the policy to make it clear that – as long as the price is competitive and the transaction is one that would normally take place in day-to-day business – purchases from councilors, staff members etc should be treated just like any other purchases.  As I’ve mentioned before, I feel that we should be a bit more scrupulous than this, and require that at least a listing of such purchases come to Council on a regular basis, so that the information is public.  I also feel that the process of checking to ensure the price is competitive should be documented – in other words, managers should need to keep on file the names of the other vendors that they talked to about the same purchase.  It will be interesting to see how this discussion goes.

 

PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE

 

As I’ve mentioned before, the Glulam arch turned out to be an inappropriate design for the span and shoreline conditions.  The new recommended design is something called a “haunched steel girder”, which is still low-profile and quite attractive.  Although the Municipal Planning Commission was told that this bridge would be more expensive than the Glulam proposal,  the report to council suggests that it can be built within the original project budget of $2 million.

 

I know that many of you think this bridge is a great idea, and many of you do not.  My own feeling is that it will not do the job many people imagine it will:  the job of reducing bike/pedestrian crowding and increasing safety on the current bridge.  The reason is that the vast majority of south side residents and tourists, because of their normal route of travel to go to downtown, will hit the existing bridge before they come to the pedestrian bridge.  The current model supposes that those people will stop at the lights, cross the crosswalk on the existing bridge, then ride or walk down past the Luxton to get to the new pedestrian bridge, then back across Central Park to rejoin Banff Avenue.  I know that many people have said they will do this – but it just doesn’t sound like human nature to me. 

 

I’m concerned that we will borrow $900K to build a bridge that essentially links Central Park and the Rec Grounds, and then find that what we really needed to increase pedestrian and bike traffic was a bridge in a different location.  Then, in order to try to make the bridge function the way everyone hoped, an additional $200K will be spent creating a trail from Middle Springs to the Rec Grounds – a trail that, because it is on a steep north-facing slope, will be snowy/icy much of the year. Then, after all of that, there will still be demand for a pedestrian bridge – downstream from the existing traffic bridge.

 

SETTING THE TAXATION RATE

 

Council will be asked to set the residential and non-residential mill rate on Monday.  As you’ll recall, Council voted in the 2008 budget last December, including an approximately 5% tax increase.  So, if your property has increased in value at the average rate for a Banff property, your taxes are likely to be around 5% more than last year.  If your property has increased in value more than the average Banff property, your increase will be more.   If your property has increased in value less than the average Banff property, your tax increase will be less. 

 

LT ABSENCE

 

If all goes well and I manage to fight off the flu virus that is making merry in my respiratory system right now, I will be leaving on April 29 to go hiking in Spain – for those of you who know about my 800-km hike last spring, this is the 700-km part that I didn’t get to finish.  I will miss two council meetings in May, but will be back for the first meeting in June.  Because I will be out of email and voicemail reach during my vacation, I’ll be donating my paycheques for May back to the Town on my return.  This is a personal choice of my own and does not mean that I think councillors shouldn’t take vacations!