Community Update 2014 – Mayor Wayne Stetski
Good afternoon. It
is a real pleasure to be here today to provide an update on some of the things
that have helped to make Cranbrook an even better place to live over the last
year. When I look at what is going on
around the world, I am so happy that the most common day to day issues I have
to deal with are potholes and urban deer and, with the upcoming change in
seasons, how quickly the snow gets plowed off our streets. We are truly blessed to live where we do!
My challenge today is to compress a year’s worth of progress
into under 20 minutes. I want to be
very clear right from the start that what gets accomplished here in Cranbrook
in any year comes about because of what we accomplish together. By together, I mean City Council, City
staff, service clubs, volunteers, businesses, the Chamber, the Downtown
Business Association, the arts community, newcomers from a variety of cultures
– all are citizens of Cranbrook who love our city and contribute to it in many
different ways. To all of you I say
Thank You!
Arts and Culture
To quote from one of my all-time favourite cartoon shows,
Bugs Bunny and Friends, “On with the show this is it”. So let’s begin with Arts and Culture, which
you, through taxpayer-funded grants and your own personal generosity, have had
an amazing year! Let me give you just a
few examples:
·
The successful revival of the Symphony of the
Kootenays. We are one of the smallest
cities in Canada to have a symphony orchestra.
·
Performances at Western Financial Place, which in the
last year has included Dwight Yoakam, Alice Cooper, Larry the Cable Guy, Dean
Brody, Charley Pride and the Gambler himself, Kenny Rogers. What I do for every performer is to offer
them a meet and greet from your Mayor and, regardless of whether they say yes
or no to that, I send each of them a hand-written card thanking them for coming
to Cranbrook. Alice Cooper, who, as you
know has performed all over the world, told FJ Hurtak that a thank you card
from the Mayor had never happened to him before – another first for
Cranbrook! A quick story, though, about
the risk of meeting performers before their show – Larry the Cable Guy said at
the start of the show “I met your Mayor before the show. What a great guy and a
real good kisser too!”
·
Another highlight was Cranbrook’s first ever
multi-cultural festival, representing 12 cultures, celebrated in Rotary
Park. It will continue to grow as both
a celebration of our diversity and as a tourism draw for our city thanks to our
new Multi-Cultural Society.
·
Cranbrook’s second Art in the Park festival, organized
by the Cranbrook and District Arts Council.
This year’s theme was a Teddy Bears Picnic, and I know a number of you
took part by purchasing and dressing up a teddy bear.
The list goes on, great performances at Key City Theatre and
the Studio Stage Door, the best ever
Sam Steele Days, the New Year’s Eve Family First Celebration at Western
Financial Place, the International Choir Festival, Saturday afternoon Summer
Sounds Music and evening Dancing in the Dark at Rotary Park, …. We are a community rich in arts and culture
and your tax dollars and your personal support are important to making it
happen.
A Healthy Community
Many of you will have heard me say before that for every
$1.00 each of us pays in taxes every day, $0.50 goes to the Federal Government;
$0.42 to the Provincial Government; and $0.08 to City Government. Out of that 8 cents, we are responsible for
roads, garbage, snow removal, sewer, water, policing, fire services, parks and
recreation, proper city planning – BASICS, I call them. We know and respect that as your
Council. But what about all those other
things that are important to a healthy Cranbrook? Poverty. Hunger. Homelessness. Physician Shortages. Day
Care Challenges.
What we try to do, as much as possible, is to focus your
taxpayer dollars on the BASICS, but use our time and influence to improve our
overall community health.
·
Early on in my tenure as Mayor I volunteered Cranbrook
to be one of seven cities in British Columbia trying out different approaches
to reducing poverty. The Province
allocated 50% of one staff person’s time to work directly with local families
who are living in poverty. Non-profit
agencies from the social sector now meet regularly to talk about strategies
specific to Cranbrook. Feeding hungry
children is one of the priorities, and it was great to see Christie Wheeldon’s
passion to get the business community involved in alleviating child hunger. I continue to participate on that committee.
·
Cranbrook now has its first ever Habitat for Humanity
home about to be completed and occupied.
It came about because the City donated the lot and helped spread the
word about what a good thing this was.
Many businesses contributed materials and donated time, as did many
volunteers, working under Gord Johnston’s gentle but focussed hand. This is just the start for Habitat for
Humanity in Cranbrook.
·
The announcement that we were about to be short five
family physicians, leaving thousands of patients without a family doctor, came
as a shock to all of us. I attended the
first meeting organized by IHA and local physicians, where a Physician
Recruitment Red Carpet Committee was recommended. I committed the City to having a role in resolving this issue,
which is important to our citizens and to our economy. Two of our Councillors and our Economic
Development Officer participate regularly on the Committee, as does your
Chamber. My role is to help convince
candidates that this truly is the best place on earth to live, as one of the
last steps in the process. In the last
few months, the hard work by the committee has resulted in two new family
physicians, Dr. Karen Fordham – Green Clinic and Dr. Jordan Wolff – Associate
Clinic, choosing Cranbrook as their home.
There is much more work to be done as our baby boomer doctors get closer
to retirement age, which is a world-wide phenomenon.
These are only a few examples of the challenges. There are
many others, like day care shortages, relieving homelessness by supporting the
Ktunaxa’s Street Angels and promoting the Salvation Army’s revised model for a
transition centre.
As your Mayor, I struggle with how far we should go in being
involved with these issues which are so important to the health of our
community, and I have also begun to ask that question of your Chamber. What role do you think your Chamber should
have in social issues in Cranbrook in the future?
The City gets directly involved in improving the health of
the community in many ways:
·
Ensuring that the city’s sidewalks and buildings are
accessible for seniors and citizens in wheelchairs.
·
The development of McKinnon Park into a public produce
garden and now featuring a new playground.
This is important for both food security and children’s health.
·
Connecting Idlewild Park to the Kimberley Ski Hill with
an off-road cycling/walking trail.
Construction of the last piece, connecting Cranbrook’s Rotary Way past
the Chamber Office to the NorthStar Rails to Trails will begin construction
very shortly.
·
Providing land and financial support for the bike
skills park adjacent to the skateboard park, which was officially opened this
year.
·
Celebrating our youth.
This spring I introduced the concept of having a Youth Mayor for a Day
and was very pleased to have Burke Bidder take up the challenge – she was
great!
·
Providing funding to support the amazing Gran Fondo
cycling event, a brain child of the Sunrise Rotary Club, which had over 375
participants earlier this month from as far away as Oxford, England. As a
participant I can tell you that the event was exceptional!
·
There is an old African saying, “If you want to go
faster, go alone. If you want to go
further, go together.” With that principle in mind I have been working with
Cranbrook’s Service clubs to look for opportunities for them to work together
on helping our community deal with social and recreational challenges. Imagine the power of many Clubs working
together towards a common goal!
As your Council, we believe in a healthy community, and we work
towards achieving that, both by investing your tax dollars and our time.
Cranbrook’s Economy
While arts and culture and community health are all
important, I know that many of you are here to hear about our economy. How are we doing? We are going in the right direction!
I had staff prepare a hand-out that provides you with
details, so I will just hit the highlights:
1. Barriers
to Business Report – A City/Chamber Joint Initiative
Shortly after becoming Mayor in
2011 I issued a challenge to the Chamber Board. People were telling me when I was running for Mayor that
Cranbrook was not a friendly place to do business. Could the Chamber please help define that; to identify what are
the barriers to business so we can work on removing them? After consulting businesses, the Chamber
produced a report which led to a Baker’s Dozen of Actions that we are
undertaking. You can read it at your
leisure, but some highlights are:
·
updated versions of the Relocation Guidebook and the
Investing in Cranbrook Guidebook,
·
a new 3-year Economic Development Strategy, being
finalized this fall.
·
allocating seats on Cranbrook’s Economic Development
Committee specifically for the Chamber and the DBA,
·
Implementing Enhanced Customer Service Training for
City staff (104 staff have taken the training so far), and
·
creating a checklist to help developers better
understand the steps required to build in Cranbrook.
My goal is that one day soon we
will all say that Cranbrook is a great place to do business!
2. Building
Permits / Construction
Year to date figures are very
positive in every category over 2013:
Residential $6,418,256 43.7%↑
Commercial $5,890,727 60%↑
Industrial $350,000 46%↑
Institutional $15,049,500 15,592%↑
Total
New Construction $27,941,888 226%↑
It’s been a pretty good year for
construction!
3. New
Business Licences Issued
We have almost 1400 businesses
licensed in Cranbrook. From January 1
to August 31, 2014, 98 new businesses were established, a 14.2% increase over
2013.
Since January 1, 2014 every new
business gets a letter from me thanking them for their faith in Cranbrook,
encouraging them to join the Chamber and/or the DBA, and providing them with a
list of resources that could help them with their businesses, which resulted
from a meeting I organized with Cranbrook’s Economic Practitioners. I’d be pleased to send a copy of that list
of resources to you, and I like to think that my letter has helped the Chamber
to grow its membership.
4. One
of the metrics used to determine how well the economy is doing is airport
passenger usage. Year-to-date traffic
is up 10% over 2013 and by the end of the year, use is expected to surpass
123,475 passengers. Our growth is
outpacing comparable airports in BC, including Kamloops and Kelowna.
Real Estate Update
Year to date to September 10, Cranbrook has seen sales of
177 single family dwellings for an average sale price of $286,685, with an
average of 88 days of marketing time.
In 2013, 132 single family homes were sold, so we’re up about 34% over
last year.
Supply is trending downwards, and there are fewer homes
available on the market.
The most significant improvement in sales has been houses
priced between $200,000 and $300,000, as well as from $400,000 to
$500,000. Luxury housing market is
still flat.
In conclusion Philip Jones states, “The local Cranbrook
market continues on the path of stability with some positive trends moving
forward, including the recent spike in demand in August of 2014 and the
continued downward trend of the supply.
The average sale price of a house has increased 1.45% over 2013.”
As I said at the beginning, our economy is heading in the
right direction!
I’m going to take a few minutes to highlight a couple of
other aspects from the Community Update Hand Out. Let’s start with roads.
Road Program
·
We invest $3,000,000 a year into improving our roads,
and each year the first 1% of any property tax increase goes towards improving
roads.
·
Our Engineering Department, working with our
Environment and Utilities Committee, has produced a 15 year Capital Plan for
road repair/replacement. If you want to
know when the street you live on or work on is scheduled for replacement we can
now tell you that, but be prepared that the answer could be the year 2029!
·
If you’re a BC Automobile Association Member you will
know about their Annual Top 10 Worst Roads in the Province survey. Two pieces of good news:
1. Cranbrook’s
streets were not on this year’s list, and
2. The
streets that were listed as concerns for Cranbrook largely mirrors the list of
streets that the City fixed as a priority in 2014.
Public Library Washrooms
·
If you’re a library user you’ll know about the great
new accessible public washrooms at the library. My only concern is that we may have to install pay parking meters
in the bathroom stalls. I don’t know
about you but for me a comfortable seat and great reading material isn’t
conducive to moving along in any kind of a hurry! We are also putting in a
wheelchair accessible washroom into City Hall.
Fire Hall #1
·
Before we could make the Firehall available for long
term use by the Arts Council or any other occupant we needed to ensure it was
safe. By removing the asbestos this
building is now poised to be an important part of downtown Cranbrook’s revitalized
future.
While not covered in the handout I want to update you on the
Old City Garage Between City Hall and Firehall #1 – The
Brick Building
·
This building, which is part of the City’s heritage, is
now safe from the wrecking ball due to the efforts of the citizens of
Cranbrook. I love this story. Why?
Because City Council and Staff were heading towards demolition, a group of
concerned citizens said No – we want it saved and we’re willing to help and a
majority of Council agreed. The building will be a part of our future. This, to me, is a real example of Grass
Roots Democracy in Action!
I want to share with you a few more highlights from the last
year before we move to questions.
·
I represent mid-sized communities in British Columbia
on the BC Mayor’s Caucus Steering Committee.
In April of this year 70 Mayors from across the province gathered here
in Cranbrook and Kimberley for a 3 day spring conference. Many of the Mayors had never spent any time
here before; a lot of them said that they would be back.
·
Whenever I hear a rumour that a particular company is
moving to Cranbrook, or see a perceived gap in service for our community, I
follow up. In the last year I have
emailed or spoken with senior representatives of Moores - the Suit People,
London Drugs, Costco and the BC Automobile Association. While none of them are
planning to come here tomorrow, we are certainly on their radar and I will
continue to push for them to come to Cranbrook.
·
Last spring Darrell Jones, President of Overwaitea Food
Group, stopped by City Hall to say hello. (You may have seen Darrell in some of
Save On Foods TV commercials recently, some of which feature Cranbrook). I
asked Darrell two questions:
1. If
local business could provide local garden produce in commercial quantities would
they buy it? He said Yes, that is their preferred way of doing business.
2. Could
we have further discussions with them about getting a commercial greenhouse
operation going in Cranbrook, the sunniest city in BC? He said Yes. We have now started discussions with a list of greenhouse
operators largely from the west coast to see if we can interest them in coming
here.
·
In the last year we have had 3 businesses, Dr. Nish
Dental, The Heid-Out and Taylor Adams take advantage of our Downtown
Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaw, which provides five years exemption for
City Property Taxes for up to 100% of the costs of building or renovating. We look forward to more businesses taking
advantage of this in the future as we revitalize downtown Cranbrook.
·
One of my priorities has been to try and give local
businesses a leg up on bidding on city contracts. I am pleased to say that 18 companies attended our first How to
Bid on City Contracts session, also called the Community Vendor Information
Session, last week. We will take what
we learned and offer the workshop again in 2015.
Conclusion
So where does all this leave us? As I said at the beginning
we are heading in the right direction as a city and as a community. Are there
challenges ahead – absolutely. We need to:
·
Continue to encourage new business and reduce barriers
as they are identified, while maintaining standards.
·
Continue to try and reach the right balance between tax
increases, people’s ability to pay, and ensuring the City can continue to
provide the kinds of services and community infrastructure that make us all
proud to call Cranbrook Home.
·
Ensure that we have a supply of serviced lots available
to retain and enhance industrial development.
·
Build an economy that includes solar energy and
greenhouses.
·
Develop, package and market our incredible tourism
opportunities
To meet those challenges will require the Chamber, the
Business Community and the City to continue to work together and build on the
very solid foundation that we have in place through the hard work of Past
Presidents Lana Kirk and Mike Adams, current President Dave Butler, and Chamber
Manager Karin Penner and her staff.
My commitment to you (you’ll see that we included
information on the upcoming Municipal election in the Community Update handout)
is to continue to work closely with in-coming Chamber President Dave Struthers
and your new Chamber Manager in 2015, pending, of course, the outcome of the
November 15 Municipal Election!
Thank you very much for your time today, and for the
important part that you play in making Cranbrook a great place to call Home!
Wayne L. Stetski
Mayor of Cranbrook
September 17, 2014
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