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Taxes – 2024
We are getting into the 2025 budget cycle in New West Council. We have already done some preliminary fee and charges setting work, but the workshops to discuss utility and tax rates for 2024 start in earnest in late November. It has been a while since I wrote a piece on this page directly about […]
John
Like many of you, I am saddened by John Horgan only getting 65 years. He filled them with meaning and influence, but it doesn’t seem enough for anyone, never mind someone who put so much into the people around him. He was a man of principle and natural leadership. He brought meaningful change to the […]
Halfway
The half way mark in this Council term arrived yesterday, and an interesting two years it has been. People often ask me if it what I expected, and my honest answer is not really. The job is different than the Councillor job, and there is no doubt we are in a different political environment now […]
Council – Nov 4, 2024
We got through a significant agenda fairly quickly this week, though we still had the time for some political performance, which is a good reminder that along with reading the agenda and reports, you can always watch the video of any Council meeting here. We started with two Opportunities to Be Heard: Inter-Municipal Business Licence […]
Section 105
Most of you have heard by now that the City’s Ethics Commissioner ruled on a complaint about my participation at the Local Climate Action Summit and COP28 last year. Our (New! Updated!) Code of Conduct process requires Council to receive and consider the ruling, and any suggested remedies. That happened in Council today, and I […]
Must Read
Caveat lector
This is a blog. A dying media, but indulge me. I this in 2010 when blogging was something people did. I started writing about things going on in New Westminster and my volunteer work with the New West Environmental Partners under the title “GreenNewWest”. I then realized this was probably confusing to people because I […]
Community
John
Like many of you, I am saddened by John Horgan only getting 65 years. He filled them with meaning and influence, but it doesn’t seem enough for anyone, never mind someone who put so much into the people around him. He was a man of principle and natural leadership. He brought meaningful change to the […]
This Happened – September
I haven’t done one of these in a while, doing more of these types of community-happenings updates on my newsletter (subscribe here). But I am iterating how I use my communications channels with the community, and as will sound familiar to regular readers (Hi Mom!) I am working on how to keep loving, hopeful and […]
This Happened
I might have mentioned that I have a Newsletter. Over there, I talk a bit more about day-to-day events in the City, a bit of politics, a bit of opinion. You need to sign up to get it, which you can do by hitting this link. They come out (almost) every Wednesday night. Here is […]
This Happened (in Calgary)
Last week was mostly spent in Calgary, attending the annual Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting. This is the annual get-together of local governments from all across Canada to network, share, learn, and advocate. It is not my favourite conference (I find UBCM more relevant) and I have not attended in a few years, but this […]
This Happened
Every week or so I put out a newsletter to subscribers. Usually Wednesday afternoon/evening. It’s generally shorter-form than my posts here, provides updates on what I’ve been up to, with occasional opinion and politics that can get spicy. It’s free, no hassle to subscribe, just hit that “newsletter” link up at the top of the […]