RDOS should be a two-way street

Pentictonites do not care how much the rural areas spend governing themselves. Pentictonites concerns are with our tax dollar commitment of 40 to 43 percent on regional governance within the RDOS and the burden this puts on the Penticton taxpayers.

Penticton’s $120-million local governance budget fulfills our obligation to the citizens living in Penticton “in the common good” outside of the local governance RDOS budget. To include RDOS local governance figures while omitting Penticton’s does a disservice not only to Pentictonites but also to the satellites as they erroneously have an inflated value of their contribution in the ‘common good’.

Unfortunately the “in-the-common-good” philosophy stops at the borders of Penticton because the satellite communities do not honour their social obligations of our community assets they use.

A good example of “common good” lies in the recent conservation fund wherein Penticton contributes 40 per cent

Jan. 4). This costs the citizens of Penticton $10 per year per household. Initially environmentalists wanted $25 per household. I was quite surprised to see grants for Penticton totaling $180,000 this year. This is unlikely to last as most area conservation efforts will be outside of Penticton boundaries.

During the next 20 years, I expect the Penticton contribution will rise to $50 per household. At that rate Penticton will be contributing about $850,000 annually to the conservation fund. However expect 95 percent of that spent in the rural areas not inside the borders of Penticton. With a 40 per cent weighted vote in the RDOS, Penticton will have no control over these charges.

This is called cooperation “in the common good.” What is not right is when the common good is not reciprocated by the satellite communities when it benefits Penticton taxpayers.

I blame the abysmal reaction of RDOS rural directors for this. They have a duty to govern in the common good and they have consistently failed to recognize their obligation and/or educate their constituents on a satellite basis to the mega millions of dollars Penticton taxpayers spend on recreational infrastructure from which they benefit.

As I said this is a two-way street. Membership in the RDOS has to be mutually beneficial to all parties. Otherwise we should apply to withdraw from the RDOS and make them ask for any monies they require from us to run their operation.