The day was kicked off by an engaging speaker, John Norquist, former mayor of Milwaukee. Mr. Norquest gave an excellent presentation on the new urban and engineering planning. He focused on how to create congestion. I know that sounds counter intuitive; however, Mr. Norquest’s position is to bring together the social aspect of a community, the people and the cars. Think of downtown PoCo, which is an excellent example. In downtown we have the social aspect, shopping, banking, coffee shops. We have created a walkable area which is safe. Since the opening of the Coast Meridian Overpass we have seen a transformation of the traffic in downtown PoCo. No longer is downtown PoCo a parking lot from 2:30 - 6:30, the traffic is free flowing to allow for increased mobility. If we take a look at the Northside, we have some issues to work through, most of the shops are set back from the street by a large parking lot, which does not create an inviting walkable area and now with the development on Burke Mountain we are seeing an increase in traffic. We have to seek changes to transform this area into an inviting walkable community.
The next session presented a position paper on Industrial Taxation. In some communities in BC, usually small towns, they are taxing one industry a disproportionate tax. There was discussion about the autonomy of local government and a call for the provincial government to share additional taxing authority or provincial revenue with municipalities. Across BC, municipalities feel that downloading has placed too much pressure on property tax.
The final session of the day was an update on the RCMP police contract. The main issues are funding and accountability. Jeff Lee of the Vancouver Sun published a good story recapping the session: Ottawa refuses to take on more costs for RCMP services, despite municipal requests.
All the issues today were very relevant to Port Coquitlam, the information today will help us as we move forward.
