Climate change, child care motions coming from Coun. Bass

Coun. Dale Bass put forward notice of two motions to be heard by council at its Oct. 7 regular meeting, including one to advocate for affordable child care and another relating to relief of costs during extreme heat emergencies.

Bass’ child care motion calls for the city to ask the province for more funding for early childhood educators, more $10/day child care centres and support of existing centres, new child care facilities and adequate funding for the integration of child care centres in school facilities.

The other motion to be heard on Oct. 7 will be a call for relief from costs incurred by extreme heat emergencies, which are declared when day time temperatures exceed 35 C and night time temperatures exceed 18 C for two or more consecutive days.

Bass’ motion calls for power bill credits or temporary rate freezes for residential customers during extreme heat emergencies, as well as targeted financial relief and supplemental credits for low-income, seniors and medically vulnerable residents. It also calls for the creation of a long-term “energy affordability strategy” in light of climate change, and other cost reduction opportunities for residents.

Non-profits, places of worship exempted from city tax

Council has approved tax exemptions for about 94 non-profit properties and 45 places of worship.

Four members of council declared conflicts of interest related to their participation in boards for societies seeking exemptions, including Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson, Coun. Katie Neustaeter, Coun. Mike O’Reilly and Coun. Stephen Karpuk.

AAP mail-out costs revealed

A memo from city staff on costs related to mail-outs notifying residents of alternate approval process (AAP) information was presented at the Sept. 9 council meeting.

Hamer-Jackson had suggested the use of mail-outs to notify residents and asked staff to provide further information.

Communications manager Kristen Rodrigue told council mailers for a single alternate approval would cost between $11,000 and $14,000 for unaddressed options and $25,000 to $39,000 for addressed options, at costs ranging from $0.27 to $1.34 per recipient.

Rodrigue also noted the pros and cons of each option, including higher or lower rates, ability to reach eligible electors reliably by mail and how some may remain excluded from the mail notification process.

The costs include design, content and printing of the mailers.

Currently, Kamloops uses its website, email subscription service and public notice board to notify people of AAP information, as required by the province. Mailers, if used for future AAPs, would be above and beyond those legal requirements.

Decisions on whether or not to use the mailers will be made in future AAP considerations.

Transit expansion planned

From 2027 to 2029, nearly 60,000 additional hours of transit may be added to Kamloops’ system if council adopts – and the province approves – a plan for expanded and new routes throughout the city.

The transit expansion plan was presented to council by city transportation planner Michael Lu at its Sept. 9 regular meeting.

Kamloops has not expanded transit service hours in three of the last five years due to the pandemic, Lu said.

“This was fine over COVID, when we didn’t have the ridership needed for expansion. Now we’re sitting at about 120 percent to 130 percent of transit ridership compared to pre-COVID levels and we haven’t had the expansion to catch up,” Lu said.

In the first year, expansion would include an additional 28,500 hours of service, or the equivalent of 11 new buses on the roads. Lines likely to see expansion would include Juniper Ridge (16), Dallas (17) and Pineview (5), as well as North Shore to TRU Express (10).

New routes in Valleyview (98) and the southwest of the city (99) would comprise 12,000 hours of the expansion, and service to the airport along Ord Road would require 5,000 hours.

The second year of expansion would add 9,100 hours and the third year would add 14,600 hours. Each year would also boost hours for the HandyDart service by 2,500.

The city’s share of costs for three years of expansions totals about $4.3m over three years.

Expansions and new routes would be subject to provincial approval.