Sunday, May 7, 2000 - North Shore News - 7 reak in budget fog $8 millioa. The district's fiscal her- overdue. That's a pretty sound district and a whole Jot of other municipalities are run- LISTEN up fellow any entrenched bureaucracy salarymen: the seeds of a modest tax revo- lution are being sown in North Vancouver District. The sowers come in the unlikely guise of district politicians — they aot tradi- tionally being big on revo- lutions of any kind, especial- ly tax-related, We'll call them the Zero Percent Patrol. They're led by new council arrival Doug MacKay-Dunn, who pro- fesses to be in the local political game for more than Just re-election purposes. Big on ideals reads the subtext. Time will tell on that issue. But for now his Zero Patrol exploits lend some credence to those idealistic aspirations. The patrol’s latest skir- mish came last Monday night when its members — MacKay-Dunn and fellow district councillors Bill Denault and Heather Dunsford, joined by new member and long-time council maverick Ernie Crist — engineered a 4-3 council ‘ vote on a Crist motion that sent North Vancouver District staff back to the - budget drawing board.- Their directive: 0%. - As in no tax-increase. As in, yes, we really mean it this time. - And that’s 0% with no * decrease in services. Are the Zero Patrollers off their collective nuts? _ - Don’t they know who really . runs our municipalities? Haven’e they ever watched _the British comedy Yes, Prime Minister? : I guess not. . The anti-Zero forces, ied by North Vancouver District Mayor Don Bell, fired assorted shots back at the “naive rookies: shirking their council decision-makir responsibilities; politica grandstanding; unreason- -able; unrealistic; can’t t be ‘done: ° ‘Those shots hit some exposed, flesh, all right. And it might be naive to ‘think that there’ sno ° politi ripping yarns val hay to be made by Zero Patrol members in their budget stand. But from this side of the page the core of the revolu- tion is sound. Te begs the question: is council running municipal hall or is municipal hall run- ning council? When it comes to bud- gets the latter is the tradi- tional hard truth. For example, release of the original draft budget and its 4.3% tax increase was met by irked council-watch- ers who claimed the real increase was closer to 6.2%. Something about a $1.4 million surplus in water and sewer/drainage being used to offset some of the real budget increase. Crist later weighed in with the claim that the tax increase was really 9%. He factored in, among other items, an additional $660,000 taken from the district’s beleaguered Heritage Fund to cover operating budget costs and mask the budget’s real impact. Who’s right is anyone's guess. Reality is somewhere in the fog. Numerical smoke and mirrors will do that. Zero Patrol members are fed up with being lost in that fog. They want it cleared so that they and everyone else in the district can see clearly where the districc stands financially. But it’s tough stuff to get rid of. Staff response to MacKay-Dunn’s original motion to hit 0% without reducing district services was to roll out close to 60 capital cost items totalling approximately $4.7 million the it could be shaved from . the budget and cut the tax increase to 3.34%. But as is the case with no sharpened pencils had been applied to operating budget items. It other words: here’s a list of things the district won't be able to have — traffic signage, tree planting projects, road improve- nents, ete. — if you insist on voting against any bud- get increases. But make economies in how departments operate? question whether services oftered are still needed or justitied? Are you kidding? The Heritage Fund issue, which Crist has banged the drum on repeatedly over the years, is but one example of how district revenues and budgets are manipulated. It was established in 1986 as a repository for dis- trict land sales and Sand lease monies. Its interest was meant to finance new capital projects as a perpetu- al building fund. In 1997 it was just over $16 million. The fund was supposed to be $150 mil- lion by 2000. But, misman- aged and plundered to cover operating budget items and hide the real impact of budget increases, it currently sits at just over itage is being sold for politi- cal gain and to prop up municipal hall operations. And that’s disturbing, because, like the devel- opable land it's supposed to be built from, once the Heritage Fund is gone, it’s gone for good. Here's something else that’s disturbing: Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) members blasting the 0% initiative and braving in a district hall protest that it’s impossible to achieve -—— union pressure applied to protect union jobs regard- less of the cost to the pub- lic. Small wonder that municipal hall staff find it difficult to examine operat- ing costs objectively. The Zero Patro} has determined that the only way to achieve a budget with a 0% increase that’ includes no service cuts is to demand that it be so. Working towards, aiming for, targeting that reality just won’t cut ic. There are far too many tricks in the old municipal hall budget shell game for that. But the reality is that the | “Sf S.LAURSEN & SON draperies & blinds Itd Serving the Lower Mainland for over 28 years et www: sldropesendblinds. com : in| Custom Rod:, Upholstery & Bedspreads (Ask about our Seniors Discount) For Free Estimate call 922-4975 or 987-2966 Dupery Labour $14.95 peg pane? lined. 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