LETTER-WRITER Ida Chong, Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, knows well enough that "commitments" made by several incarnations of the B.C. Liberal government have been used only on an asrequired basis.
When it came to a need not to sell railways, balance budgets, develop agricultural lands or harmonize taxes, moving political and regulatory goalposts has been no more difficult than powering up the shredder.
North Shore residents already know joint services are an option; the staffs of West and North Vancouver municipalities and the administrations of the TsleilWaututh and Squamish First Nations have long co-operated on a degree of shared services.
The problem is, until very recently, no one carried the concept far enough to examine the financial benefits that might be derived - even perhaps for the City of North Vancouver - from an amalgamated approach to all municipal services.
This makes it all the more encouraging that the impetus for this latest round of discussion arose, at least in part, out of comments by West Vancouver Mayor Michael Smith, from fire services personnel and others.
Of note is that although District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services operates the only accredited training and fire equipment maintenance facility between our two bridges - a service already accessed by all three municipalities on the North Shore.
As the North Shore News reported on Feb. 13, a recent study conducted on behalf of the District of North Vancouver concluded that "North Shore taxpayers could save $3.6 million a year if the three fire departments merged.
District spokeswoman Jeanine Bratina told News reporter James Weldon that ". . . the [annual] cost savings are marginal . . . about $205 per resident. . . ."
Marginal in accounting terms it may be; but that $3.6 million represents 10 per cent of the total $36.3 million budget for North Shore fire services.
Still under wraps - perhaps under Community Charter rules on in camera meetings - North Van taxpayers have no way of knowing what prompted the study.
Nor do they know whether Chong's ministry played a role; who conducted the review, or the quality of the findings.
Most important of all is that residents have no way of knowing whether the format used in the fire services review could usefully be expanded to encompass a cost-benefit study of amalgamation of the two North Vancouvers, or of all three municipalities.
Nevertheless, given that the combined 2011 annual operating budget for the three municipalities nudged $250 million dollars - about $1,400 for every man, woman and child on the North Shore - we can only imagine how taxpayers might use their share of a $25 million savings, if that 10 per cent could apply across the board in an amalgamated community.
What we can do is suggest that any serious study of amalgamation could take the data gleaned by West Vancouver residents Garrett Polman and David Marley - members of the Interested Taxpayers' Action Committee - and use at least some of the information as a baseline against which to measure the performance of the two North Vancouver administrations.
In a mid-February letter to council, Polman noted that since 2008, the operating budget in West Vancouver has increased "by an average of 4.8 per cent annually," and that that is "slated to go up by 6.9 per cent in 2012 - or six per cent if third-party works are eliminated."
ITAC says the main driver for the budget increases can be laid at the feet of salaries and benefits which have increased by an annual average rate of seven per cent.
"This is as unacceptable as it is unsustainable," said Polman, who also recalled that, in 2010, West Vancouver CAO Grant McRadu agreed to review all staff vacancies in the hope of achieving efficiencies.
Despite that commitment, and "a raft of retirements that caused no severance costs to the municipality," Polman noted the 2012 budget proposal still contains the same 615 full-time equivalents as were shown in the 2010 budget.
In this regard, and with an 11 per cent employee vacancy rate, the City of North Vancouver sets an example for all Lower Mainland municipalities.
Nevertheless, without the blue-ribbon study long recommended by District of North Vancouver Coun. Doug Mackay-Dunn, taxpayers have no way of knowing whether amalgamation of two or all three North Shore municipalities would warrant the inevitable upheaval.
So, once again to Minister Chong: As you know, regardless of any Community Charter commitments, municipalities exist only at the pleasure of the province.
No-one is being asked to "force" amalgamation onto the North Shore's three communities.
All residents seek is their democratic right for a blueribbon committee to gather the evidence they need in order to make that informed decision for themselves.
