Lasqueti fire department budget for consideration by PRRD

I have just had it confirmed by Linda Greenan, PRRD financial officer, that the LIVFD budget to be considered Thursday night by the RD board for adoption in the 2017 budget has been reduced to a total of $101,634. This is $4,031 more than was actually spent for/by our fire department last year.

The 2.2% increase that Merrick mentioned in his notice in the Lasqueti email is the requisition from property value tax, which increases from $48,560 in 2016 to $48,628 in 2017.

With these cuts to the fire service budget, the total tax increase for regional district services for 2017 will be 5.7%, or $13.29 per $100,000 of assessed value.

I apologize for my panic over the last day. I had misunderstood Merrick's statement in yesterday's email list, "This will reduce the FD increase to 2.2% over last year ..." as referring to the FD budget, not to the tax requisition increase.

I want to say that it is definitely not good democratic practice for a community member to corral our regional director and his alternate and the fire chief into a meeting space and coerce the regional director into making cuts to the fire department budget.

On the other hand, it is not good democratic process for a 32% increase (over last year) to be made to the FD budget without any community notice or participation and discussion, and for our regional director to persist with this budget even when there is massive community opposition to it.

I hope, and expect, that community discussion about our fire department and our plans, goals and objectives for it will begin soon. I know that nearly everyone (and maybe everyone) values our fire department and its volunteers - firefighters, first responders and dispatchers, and soon the support committee members, too.

I've learned a lot about the fire department, and its various requirements and standards (some of which need to be met, and some do not) over the last few weeks. Mostly I've learned how much more there is to learn. I look forward to the community also learning and participating in the discussions that we need, and am confident that we can reach agreement on most of the important issues that surround our fire department and our community, and our taxation and our representation to and from PRRD.

Thank you all for your support and participation, past and future.