By Don Urquhart
During his report to council, Rod Risling, Chief Administrative Officer for the Town of Osoyoos sought to once again clarify the issue of funding that the town receives via the Resort Municipality Initiative (RMI).
“Osoyoos is fortunate to have received some money being a resort municipality community,” he said, adding that it changes on a year-to-year basis anywhere from $400,000 to $500,000 based on a formula around hotel occupancy among other things.
“One of the pieces that is really important for everybody to know is that these funds can only be allocated to specific projects. I know there’s been a lot of people wanting to allocate funds to sewer and water and that’s not currently permitted within the grant guidelines.”
“So again, I just want to make it clear, that this funding is flexible but it’s also strict and it strictly must be allocated to projects that will enhance our resort experience.” Risling also highlighted that a number of projects were approved – including the 85th St. Plaza – “and that’s coming from that funding, if we don’t use that funding we lose the funding.”
He notes that one of the things that’s occurring – particularly as a result of meetings at the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) conference earlier this fall – is a unified push by the group of 14 resort municipalities for more money to deal with the added costs that the influx of tourists create.
“There are a lot of costs associated with hosting all these tourists and unfortunately a lot of those costs are put on to our property taxpayers.” As such the group of 14 is lobbying the province to not only increase the level of funding but be more flexible in allowing the resort municipalities to put some of the funds into their operating budgets to offset some of the costs associated with hosting tourism.
“Hopefully we are successful with this group in managing those two pieces of that very important funding.”
Touching on the budget he noted there is a lot of “buzz” in the community, but urged residents to go back and “take a look at the things council has been wrestling with over the past year looking at the status of our infrastructure specifically the water and sewer.”
This is a critical piece and the number one complaint amongst residents revolves around improving the quality of water and also the need for increased quantity. “A lot of the [taxation] increase is going to items that our residents have been very loud and clear to address,” he added.
