{"id":10497,"date":"2019-06-20T23:23:47","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T02:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=10497"},"modified":"2019-06-20T23:23:47","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T02:23:47","slug":"hrms-area-rate-discussion-causes-confusion-frustration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=10497","title":{"rendered":"HRM\u2019s area rate discussion causes confusion, frustration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>FALL RIVER: <\/strong>The\n issue around what is going to happen to the area rate for the LWF \nRatepayers Association (LWFRA) was a topic that came up following the \ncompletion of the group\u2019s Annual General Meeting (AGM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \nmeeting was held June 18 at the LWF Hall in Fall River. Close to 30 \nresidents were in attendance at the meeting; they require just 20 \nresidents for quorum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anthony Taylor, acting as chair for Marni \nTuttle, said he along with Tuttle and Jay Cameron attended a meeting May\n 27 with HRM on the area rate discussion. Other area rate groups from \nacross the municipality were also there to hear what HRM Finance staff \nhad to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was very clear that they are looking to do the \nprocess differently in the future,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cI found it very \nfrustrating because they did the presentation and gave the overview that\n it wouldn\u2019t affect anyone that already existed as such. Buried in the \nundertone in two or three years there might be a need for all area rate \norganizations to kind of re-submit and seek approval for their basic \nexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat caused a lot of confusion in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He \nsaid that\u2019s the way HRM wants to go in the future. He said it was a good\n hour-plus long discussion between the many groups in attendance and HRM\n Finance staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was very clear that many organizations and communities would struggle,\u201d said Taylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taylor\n said he thought the information on how a change would adversely affect \ngroups, specifically those in rural HRM, was listened to but not \nnecessarily accepted by staff making the presentation. Written feedback \nwas allowed and the LWFRA sent a letter in mid-June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe agenda \nwas to upset the apple cart I think amongst all similar organizations,\u201d \nhe said. \u201cWhen we talked to some of the groups after the meeting, it was\n clear they were all very concerned about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA lot of them \nwent with the assumption that they were fine. The idea I think is to put\n everybody to a test to see if they want to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alan Joyce \nasked if HRM was thinking of making it a plebiscite alongside the HRM \nMunicipal election in 2020. Taylor said he was unsure as there was no \nclear defined process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey talked about a couple of years notice\n before it would happen so folks would have a chance to align \nthemselves,\u201d said Jay Cameron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was very muddy and unclear in \nterms of the process. I think they were surprised by the amount of \npeople who attended,\u201d added Taylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joyce doesn\u2019t understand why \nthere\u2019s so much secrecy around the area rates and why there\u2019s no answers\n forthcoming to simple questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAt some point HRM Finance has \ncommitted they will bring a staff report to HRM Regional Council \nrecommending something,\u201d said Barry Dalrymple, LWFRA Treasurer. \u201cWe \nhaven\u2019t been allowed to see that report. We don\u2019t know what\u2019s in the \nreport, and I don\u2019t think we know the timeline for that report will \ncome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first half of the LWFRA area rate has already been \ncollected for this year, so Dalrymple feels reasonably safe to say that \nnothing will be changed this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joyce asked Dalrymple when he \nwas councillor would this have been something slipped to him in secrecy \nor would he have brought it back to the community. Dalrymple said he \nwould have come back to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo we have a councillor that is not doing that from what I can tell,\u201d said Joyce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cameron\n said HRM Finance has bypassed Councillor Steve Streatch and has come \ndirectly to the LWFRA on a number of occasions to get feedback on the \nhistory on the rate and the future of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s clear they want us\n to be the vehicle to engage our ratepayers, our residents in Lakeview, \nWindsor Junction, and Fall River, and not the councillor,\u201d said Cameron.\n \u201cWhether that\u2019s good or bad for us, I\u2019m not really sure. It allows us \nto frame the message a little more clear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FALL RIVER: The issue around what is going to happen to the area rate for the LWF Ratepayers Association (LWFRA) was a topic that came up following the completion of the group\u2019s Annual General Meeting (AGM). The meeting was held June 18 at the LWF Hall in Fall River. Close to 30 residents were in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[578,2,87,537,57,178],"class_list":["post-10497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-area-rate","tag-fall-river","tag-lakeview","tag-lwf-ratepayers","tag-steve-streatch","tag-wjcc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}