By Lyonel Doherty

A debate to provide financial relief to water users in Oliver ended Tuesday with one councillor relenting his position.

While water councillor Rick Machial was all for deferring the four per cent water utility increase, he wasn’t crazy about using reserve funds to allow for a 50 per cent reduction in first quarter utility bills.

Town council previously announced these budget changes as measures to help residents negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The measures will also see council reducing the nine per cent property tax increase to zero.

The fact that these decisions were made in camera (closed meeting) was a concern to Machial, who said he could never recall a budget meeting in Oliver held behind closed doors.

But Chief Administrative Officer Cathy Cowan said there were some labour-related issues in that meeting, which is why it was closed to the public.

Machial asked if the two items (deferring the four per cent increase and implementing the 50 per cent reduction) could be separated and voted on individually. But Cowan said they couldn’t do it that way procedurally.

So Machial said he would oppose the whole motion, which he did. But Cowan later informed council that the vote had to be unanimous to proceed or else the province would need to get involved.

Machial stressed that giving taxpayers the 50 per cent reduction now will mean undue hardship for them later on.

He subsequently told the Chronicle that recovering that 50 per cent in the future will be too much for taxpayers to handle. He noted this decrease in revenue will amount to more than $300,000.

Machial stated, to his knowledge, that no other municipality is doing this. And quite frankly, he doesn’t believe it is necessary for Oliver to do this right now (despite the pandemic).

But Cowan pointed out that getting the province involved in this decision will mean a delay in sending out water bills (up to two months).

Councillor Aimee Grice said she saw a great detriment in the vote not being unanimous, resulting in billing delays.

But Machial said he felt very strongly about burdening the taxpayer and suggested contacting the province to see how long it would take for its decision. If it is two months, Machial said he would change his vote.

But council was told that the billing delay would hurt the Town’s cash flow by $260,000.

Councillor Larry Schwartzenberger said he wasn’t in favour of waiting because he wanted to help taxpayers right away.

“This is stupid if you ask me,” he said.

Machial took offense to that and accused Schwartzenberger of insinuating that he was stupid.

But Schwartzenberger clarified that he was calling the process stupid, not his fellow councillor. He added that he wasn’t saying Machial’s views weren’t valid, only that the process shouldn’t be this difficult for citizens.

In the end, Machial relented and changed the outcome in a subsequent vote.

He later told the Chronicle that he didn’t want to put Town staff in a precarious position.