Appendix
Q10 –Do you have any suggestions for the City related to service reduction or sources for increased revenue?
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Survey Responses - 62% did not provide a suggestion
• 1% hotel tax set green energy projects on vacant city land, sell to BC hydro
• 10% increase on road maintenance and my road is awful. Our taxes our ruthless. Property tax increases in our region are becoming insane. Higher than the Vancouver and Okanagan region. Love this place. But y'all need to check yourselves.
• a reallocation of public funds, example not all service groups should receive money
• additional homes built in 2024 how much of an increase in tax revenue? Cranbrook taxes are very high compared to lower mainland or Kelowna based on housing assessments, promote more industry & businesses
• aggressively access all granting programs
• allow more subdivisions to increase tax paid directly to city
• anywhere can you cut back on wages\ employees for the city
• as land values increase so do taxes, you get your increase already
• Avoid purchasing new vehicles. What about used? Is it really necessary to purchase a brand- new fire truck that is rarely used? Do first responders really need to show up in a fire truck? Have local gardening groups to look after flower baskets, etc.
• Beautification of “the strip”. It is a bit unsightly in spots and is a poor reflection of our city for those driving through. The industrial type properties and the settling ponds being visible from the main through way are my main concerns. Perhaps there could be some s trategic tree planting to create a barrier and improve the look?
• better general maintenance, fix things before they need replaced. Wave pool has been broken for a year, steam room always down, better marketing for rec centre (pool is busy from 6-8 that question is misleading)
• better utilize the building we already have
• charge fee for senior parking pass yearly, charge yearly to use wfp for winter concourse walking indoors
• Charge user groups full fees for use of recreation facilities, all taxpayers are subsidized this system too much. As per the Rec and Culture report, bring the system to user pay.
• City council not giving themselves raises.
• city must make some hard decisions, plans should do productivity analysis of departments more transparent accounting so citizens see areas of challenge, you can't fix what we can't see
• city owned solar power car wash
• city requires more industrial property tax income
• city should take the homeless people issue seriously as they create problems to city property and businesses too
• city staff and manager are very well paid compared to provincial counterparts and private sector. Might be time to examine what is core and what may be excess
• Consider allowing out of town users to purchase an annual Pass for recreational facility use at the same price as Cranbrook residents, otherwise they pay a premium for the convenience of just dropping in from time to time.
• contract out more services, janitorial maintenance street sweeping etc.
• contracting city of Cranbrook work out to Cranbrook tax paying businesses that are able to do the work more efficiently
• convert city buildings to solar
• could reduce recreational events or include more donors to sponsor the events to reduce costs to the city
• Cranbrook doesn't need a new 10 million fire hall
• Cranbrook is the ugliest city in the Kootenays
• Cranbrook services a large number of non-taxable visitors this strains the town & the cost of upkeep
• Create\Increase\Implement the speculation and vacancy tax to: - 5.0% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents (PR) - 10.0% of the property's assessed value for foreign owners, satellite families, and other non- citizens or PR Implement a large tax on vacant and derelict homes and commercial buildings in the city Develop vacant and underutilized City owned property by work with builders and developers willing to accept small returns on their investment for the betterment of the community.
• Current airport management does not want a fire truck at airport. This is a disservice to customers and most people don’t know this .
• cut funding to the arts, user pays system, increasing number of families are homeschooling, this is already a financial detriment we should not be paying extra money to the public school
• cut unnecessary city council high paying jobs, downsize buses & cut hours
• develop city land for low-income housing, not RV parks
• do not segment gyro park into a daycare centre
• do not send out surveys they cost
• do not take the ice out of the kinsmen
• do your job when you retire and there is no option for increased income and the city, the province and the feds keep demanding more you too will get pissed off and tired of someone always in your wallet
• eliminate downtown hanging baskets & downtown christmas decorations & lights
• encourage economic diversification attract tourism & investment implement online systems for fee collections to streamline pr ocesses & increase revenue
• engaging the community to do volunteer work eg: beutify Cranbrook through community involvement parks, playgrounds other gathering places could be cleaned & maintained by volunteer works. Encourage businesses to maintain their outdoor premises and include the city owned sidewalks, curbs and spaces. start a beautify Cranbrook campaign and take advantage of the pride of the Cranbrookians
• events are always a great idea
• Every budget item can be evaluated. History says if there is a budget amount, then it will be spent. Ask every manager to trim, if at all possible. That is how the private sector must function.
• expenditures like the rock pile\ Cranbrook sign, need citizen vote, cut 50% to council staff, no fancy meet & greet events, do something with the industrial park
• find a way to cut down costs associated with the homeless less warehousing them, more getting them off the streets. Go after drug dealers hard
• find land appropriate for housing rent to residents and gain income for city
• fine efficiencies to reduce administration costs, freeze salaries, expense accounts other benefits for council and admin staff, meet online with other municipalities for sharing cost cutting ideas, find savings in newer technology that would reduce labour costs sur vey staff anonymously for their ideas to improve efficiency of operations
• focus more on rehabbing the drug addicted homeless rather than enabling their addictions, and only fans account for city council (men only)
• focus on innovative road repair practices to support non- profit agencies, a budget process that looks for collaboration and reduction of inefficiencies rather than a sole focus on cuts of services
• focus on sewer, water & roads that improves quality of life trim the fat from management
• Garbage collection every 2nd week.
• get rid of our homeless status and start clearing them out of our city so we can return to the community we used to enjoy freeing up resources to use and returning our safer city to the way it was
• get rid of the homeless now, waste of resources no longer want to raise a family here, this is disgusting
• get rid of transit & partner with school district to provide bussing for students
• get the homeless people out of our town, do not provide aid to them
• give smaller maintenance jobs to community volunteers
• go back to the basics, needs before wants
• gold creek & surrounding areas need to pay their fair share stop developing our city, we don't have enough water for the people we have, our water pressure is terrible
• have a community assoc. adopt a park and provide maintenance as required
• have operations staff be accountable for a level of productivity that the private sector must maintain to survive financially
• have the gold club pay taxes when selling city property get the rent prices and not be low balled, get what the property is worth, have police enforce fines & speeding especially in school zones, smaller buses, less pay for council
• Hire quality educated and experienced city staff at all levels. Encourage regular and ongoing intra city dialogue and troubleshooting communications with UBCM members facing similar challenges. Seek and maintain increased economic development opportunities and tourism development at a higher quality level than is currently being achieved.
• hold city workers to timelines, too much standing around
• homes that are valued at a higher amount, pay a higher percentage of taxes
• I am not in favour of increasing taxes but there seems no other way
• I think the manual watering of the flower baskets and others around the downtown could be stopped. If the City were to instal l automatic watering for these beautifications, a onetime cost, this expense could be totally eliminated.
• I think Wayne & council have done a good job considering all their up against, thank you for asking us our opinion, we all appreciate you all
• I'm sorry any unanswered questions is due to not really understanding, but we realize that increases are necessary we are wil ling to do our part
• improve mental health resources new midsize music venue (armond)
• in 2024 we can see the result of no dedicated maintenance, deplorable roads
• increase and secure water supply city has grown, and water capacity hasn't
• increase bike paths that connect to schools
• increase business development to increase tax base
• Increase efficiency of current use of funds.
• increase harm reduction\ safe consumption sites for homeless, road maintenance, reduce fire departments expansion
• increase user fees
• increase user fees
• increase user pay
• increase water bills but no meters, put funds into water supply
• increased hospital resources, property destruction and police presence needed due to the increase homeless, Cranbrook is becoming unsafe, you need to figure out what can be done to make Cranbrook a safer community
• indoor courts for pickleball sounds like a good idea
• is there a mid-ground for reducing aquatic centre hours only a few days or to help navigate the implementation of a 2-tier rec cost system
• It's hard for everyone but apparently our council could benefit from a budgeting course. There are some free ones online, no need to pay $160k for someone to teach them
• Just deal with the homeless and crime
• keep a better eye on the over using watering days this means those that any day and the underground pop up that half the water hits the street
• Keep up the effort to search for ways to hold costs to a minimum. Mayor and council, keep up the good work and communicating with your community.
• lease the city campground to a non-profit they can do upgrades on a tight budget or with volunteers
• less civil servants more police surveillance less crime
• less freeze & thaw - no control but big problem
• less managers
• Lottery?
• Lower the staff incomes
• More activities to bring in people in town for tourism
• more bike paths & maintain rotary trail in the winter for winter bike commuters, police and fire are understaffed, fix it, make it sustainable
• more intake from eg: Rock the Kootenays\ tourism\ encourage prov govt to increase homeowners grant\ give seniors on fixed income more of a break
• more rfp's for proposed work, see some high-priced companies receiving contacts rfp's issued
• move recycling & garbage pickup to back alley, better in tight parking cul de sacs, use more solar power (we have lots of sunshine) more efficient snow removal by getting a snow blower, more walkways between houses in new residential areas
• need to support\ improve leisure\ recreation services and venues - very minimal options currently and perceived support (lack of)
• new development should pay all costs for roads etc. and warranty the work for 5 years like they do in Calgary. License cats, charge more for ice time, talked to 2 hockey players whose rates didn't go up, approach tech resources for recreation support as many of their employees live here
• Not with seeing what everything cost I would think contracting out garbage services would be cheaper in the long run no maintenance on garbage vehicles would know exact cost for the length of contract
• Partner with non-profits like the YMCA to meet service needs in the community.
• partner with private & public to build low income housing to reduce crime & generate income thru rent collected. Sell off land to developers who commit to build low income housing. I think the homeless and the deer population need to be addressed as a pr iority to raise the safety of the community, I do not feel safe walking my dog or alone. This is not acceptable I will likely leave Cranbrook when my children graduate because of the safety concerns
• pay cut for senior staff and middle management
• People would be more open to paying more for taxes if it felt like we were seeing a benefit for the money we already contribute. And it was being used in appropriate ways. The Memorial Arena issue was a huge black mark for most residents as the city knew about the problem for a decade and chose to do nothing, but taxes keep going up for what already seems like reduced or worsening servic es. More transparency is needed about where money is going and how it is being allocated.
• pick up trash every two weeks
• possibly reduce snow clearing to 2cm per event and start street sweeping until needed for dust control
• promote more housing builds and local businesses, bring in more tax revenue
• provincial government should be contributing more to policing, health services and infrastructure upgrading
• put to tender for road crack fill and potholes, city staff seems to be too busy
• quit looking after drug addicts and bums, look after taxpayers
• rcmp renovations helo at 2.6 million upgrade, bc assessments not accurate need to be done physically every 5 years to keep up with improvements
• reduce money on freeze wages, mine have gone up 8% in wages to compensate, get rid of public transit, tourism tax at restaurants and hotels
• reduce salaries for mayor & council, speed up permitting allowing for creation of new tax paying businesses and residential development
• reduce staff & administrative positions, increase downtown parking fees, reduce street lighting from 1 to 6am, reduce transit on low use routes, stop fluoride use in water, reduce garbage to every 2 weeks & recycling to every 4 weeks, review all city staff and identify eliminate any redundant positions.
• Reduce the red tape, attract businesses and make it business friendly. No one wants to do business with the city; make it too difficult to inspire people to take chance on creating a business. Eliminate DCC costs.
• Reduction to the homeless,
• Remove fluorination from drinking water, no spongy moth style spraying, garbage pick-up to match recycling pick-up.
• remove the sidewalk maintenance portion from taxes citizens end up getting there to shovel it anyway
• rent or lease property, not sell
• Research what has worked in other countries or elsewhere in Canada.
• re-sign contract with bucks, find ways to increase revenue with rec plex
• Restrict rental owners\managers from purchasing property if living address is too far from property.
• review management structure and labour requirements in all departments with view to reduction of excess staffing
• review of wage structures for all city persons
• satisfied with everything overall but something must be done about the homeless and all the theft that is never -ending
• See previous comments
• Should not be giving away gift cards for survey purposes stop wasting money on temporary patching roads develop a plan for appropriate road maintenance ensure employees are working effectively instead of driving around visiting
• Smaller transit buses the city could sell their current fleet and get smaller possibly electric buses that suit our community. The parking meters downtown are ridiculous they only allow an hour so people are shopping less and eating out less because they have to worry about them meter. It should be a credit card system allowing several hours and instead of collecting change the meter person can hand out tickets and create more revenue through fines. Bylaw fines are practically inexistent I live next to the broad Street apartments and there's ALWAYS cars parking in the bike lane where it says 'No Parking' if they all got ticketed that would be a huge source of revenue. Sidewalks only need to be on one side of the street, putting a sidewalk on both sides of the street just adds to maintenance cost one side should be sidewalk one side should be bike lane to promote active transportation. The planters and hanging baskets downtown in the summer are unnecessary, these flower beds could be full on natural wildflowers which would look beautiful be less maintenance such as watering and planting and it would be a win for the pollinators that are on the decline. Business owners downtown need places to park a city lot could be turned into a private parking lot that owners of businesses downtown can rent out on a monthly basis guaranteeing that they have a place to park when they go to work.
• something needs to be done, the city is an eyesore compared to others in the Kootenays
• spend moneys where needed stop plowing pavement in the winter
• stick to the existing infrastructures, don't take on new projects
• stop concerts inside western financial place, they lose money key city theatre provides all we need actively markey the ice and pool facilities outside the region
• stop council raises, foolish parades, dog parks get more than people wrong to do.
• stop spending money and resources (police, paramedics etc.) on homeless
• Stop spending money for street Angel employees to make $30+ an hour and focus more on what the people who aren’t addicted to drugs need.
• stop temporary road fixes (filling in potholes) waste of time & money roads need to be repaved on a priority need basis
• study economic development, promotion of city and streamline entire building process for a greater tax base, commercial indus trial incentive is the object of growth
• subcontract same services to the private sector like the province does
• tax the church, use building for daycare
• thank you for the survey, valuable information
• the services provided for the taxes we pay is horrendous, snow plowing twice a winter is unbelievable. there are cats running amuk and nothing happens, the roads are barley better than logging roads
• the whole town is very dirty a lot of blind spots grass growing all over but stops, no shoulders
• there have been decades of mismanagement, plan 5-10 years ahead, fix the roads
• These were all related to service reductions - what sources for increased revenue have been considered? I would think that should be the priority.
• This city is getting worse and worse each year! Taxes go up and nothing changes for the positive
• too much outsourcing of development service
• too much water is used by senior gated communities, even some of the people who live in them think so
• too top heavy with management, get rid of some big cost saving
• wage cuts for non-union city employees, what would 10% save taxpayers
• we elected you to make difficult decisions, popular or not make them
• we need to make it easier for investor and builders to work in our town, less red tape. These groups should be helping our town grow.
• when any project is proposed the cost of maintenance to be included
• winter ploughing terrible 3ft windows on one side of street with nothing on side of street sweeping in middle of night, why
• work less work smarter, why make an outdoor ice surface on sloped land
• Yes 1) Cut some of the red tape in engineering development approvals. Development needs to speed up. Current City engineering requirements and approval times are ridiculous, causing developers to stop projects when the City finally gets back to them a nd they learn what the City is requiring (unnecessary upgrades). With more development (for example high density residential downtown), there would be more tax revenue. 2) Eliminate Homelessness and stop providing for them. They’re making nobody want to visit\move to Cranbrook and are costing us more long term to provide for and cleanup after. Plus, but rather bluntly, they’re an eyesore for our City
• yes quit allowing expansion to city services without charging enough to support the tax on city providers, pay attention to y our water supply
• you likely could use more employees
• you need a bigger line for this
Q10 –Do you have any suggestions for the City related to service reduction or sources for increased revenue?
Online Survey Responses - 36% did not provide a suggestion
• 1. enforce bylaws to generate revenue (licensed dogs & cats, expired parking meters, parking on the correct side of the road) 2. during winter, no parking on the street from 6 pm to 6 am so the City can remove the snow from the roads (ticket, tow & impound vehicle) 3. support reduced services with community service from the homeless, offenders (youth & adult) and parolees (will give them a sense of pride & contribute to their community).
• 1. Remove the curling club for the 100+ users or make them pay what the anticipated total costs are (including maintenance) to run the curling rink once the ice is in. 2. City to develop their own land i.e. Tudor house multi unit low/mid income facility. 3. Drop/reduce parking requirements for new developments as parking woes should not trump housing needs or provide less housing because of. 4. Allow an alternate private transit company. 5. Host some larger events IN THE ARENA (WFP) and lower alcohol sales. 6. Open a city owned drive-in theater on vacant owned land along with a concession (as long as its not overpriced like everything at a bucks game or a concert)
• 1. Start applying Building Bylaw fees to non-bylaw related site visits. Currently this service is provided free of charge to all commercial applicants as a 'higher' level of customer service. 2. Stop allowing businesses to circumnavigate the building permit process by providing site guidance and review of permit required work under the business license application process. This current practice is not outlined in the building bylaw and creates a two-tiered system towards complaints. one of which gets around all permit fees related to building permits. This creates confusion and frustration amongst the public and staff. 3. Start enforcing illegal construction through a proper investigation/stop work order process. This will lead to a greater volume of building permits and increase the availability of safe and quality housing. All three of these suggestions are already supported in the building bylaw and can be enforced without delay , will not require any changes to the current Building Bylaw, and create a noticeable increase in revenue generated by the Development Department almost immediately.
• A comprehensive City-wide fee review is way overdue. All other corporations have increased their fees to cover costs, especially for basic services to businesses (permitting, application fees, etc.) These fees to support businesses and developers are being s ubsidized by the general tax base. DCC's need to be increased to cover infrastructure upgrades, otherwise, the rest of the tax base will be paying for growth projects rather than replacing existing infrastructure. The City has many vacant properties that aren't benefiting the community and aren't parks. This is a lost source of revenue that most other communities have been utilizing.
• A thorough effectiveness audit of the money the city already spends. Every citizen has already had to do the same with soaring mortgage rates, shrinkflation on food and rising utilities. Why should the city not be held accountable?
• Absolutely a disgrace to even think about taking ice out of the Kinsmen!!!! This significantly impacts all age groups in a very negative way, and will cause children and youth that are already at risk to drop out of sports as they will now be forced to travel to canal flats and Kimberley for ice time. When the memorial was closed it was an extremely challenging time, it DID NOT work to just use the WFP, and it is appalling to think this is an option.
• Actually give fines for bylaw infractions, such as lawn watering when not supposed to, unsightly premises, etc. Water meters/costs for everyones water consumption.
• Add a city tax to all liquor, cigarette’s, vape and cannabis sold. Increase city tax for fast food restaurants as well.
• Add a municipal tax to hotels
• Advise residents of hidden taxes we are unaware that we are paying (ie interest on prepaid taxes). With better transparency c omes better community engagement and involvement. And start having the rdek pay for services they are using in town. Set recreational prices rates to be similar to other communities (we’re less than Kimberley). Start utilizing vacant land better. Start charging property owners that are not developing prime industrial and commercial land more. There are so many vacant lots along the highway and dilapidated buildings that could be redeveloped and provide improved economic development here. Require these land owners to do something with them or increase their taxes. It would improve visibility, economics and safety in the city.
• Aggressively go after small industry. Offer tax incentives for the first 3 years. Charge $5 for sanidump. Bring back the campground in the city and market it as a tourist attraction ... camping and shopping.
• airport tax, some way to save on garbage collections (e.g., neighbours jointly use a bin when possible and the driver/labour time is reduced)
• all city employees working for the city should live in the city
• All projects should be tendered out that tax payer dollars are paying for. Such as paving, renovations on city owned property. Have employees that work for the city listen to citizens concerns that would save the city money. Examples: I have called public works to address them taking out a post when they do the moir park maintenance. They remove the post and leave the hole open until they are done instead of putting the post back in. I called with concerns that one day a child's leg could go into it, break and the city could be sued. The attitude I got was well we put it back in when we are done that is good enough. When I go for a walk around the par k it is usually left open so I started putting the post back in myself. Another example is when we built a home on Eagle Ridge Point. The pavement was to low infront of our house and the water and mud was backing up into our driveway and not going to the drain because the drain was to high. We had engineering come out to take a look at the problem and we told them the drain was to high, they did not fix it, built up the drain and put 2nd layer of pavement on the street. After numerous calls to the engineering department and sending
pictures of the problem BA paving came up ripped out the pavement, lowered the drain and then repaved it again. We assume that probably it cost the city $10,000. or better due to the blunder and arrogance of the engineering department.
• All properties with tax forgiveness should be levied 50% of full tax rate unless they can establish they are providing definable charitable services available to all residents. Eliminate GFL contract and pick up garbage and recycle on alternate weeks. Reduce one building official staff Executive staff and Council members take a small symbolic cut in compensation to demonstrate leadership. Seek grants to convert heating, cooling and hot water to low cost low operating cost heat pumps. Create an employee rewards system to incentivize staff to come forward with ideas to reduce costs. Reach out to other munis who offer a low tax regime to find out how they are keeping costs down. Increase downtown parking fees. Perform a 'zero based budgeting' techique to the budget. ie, review the rationale for every expenditure to determine whether there are items that offer little benefit residents. Examine maintenance schedules for potential equipment that could be delayed.
• All provincial and federal grants explored in detail and applied for.
• allow more private land development with fewer restrictions on how it is developed be it single family all the way to a campground
• Allow more subdivisions in the area with less ridiculous red tape that Cranbrook now has a reputation for. Only “select” developers seem to have the ability to develop any land around the city with out jumping through unrealistic hoops and or paying millions upon millions of dollars.
• Alternate garbage pickup with recycle pickup weeks. eg. week 1 garbage / week 2 recycle. etc. etc.
• An additional source of revenue would be from more homes built. I have recently built a home, and I know of another home being built that has run into unnecessary engineering (that was denied after we paid an engineer thousands of dollars and the engineer approved the plans) and permitting (for a suites in this specific case). We should be encouraging new builds to help our economy, generate revenue, and help with the housing crisis. The red tape that I have witnessed first hand does not help with people or contrac tors wanting to take on these projects. It discourages citizens to build, plant roots, and financially help our local economy.
• Any downtown land should be turned into anytime pay parking
• Any managers that had their salary increased by more than 7% over the past 5 years should be dropped down to 7% to more accur ately reflect the inflation rate.
• Any money generated on city land like the campground and the soccer tent should be put into city funds. The campground needs to be run be a city employee so that money stays at home. Not sure how the soccer tent thing is ran but as a resident for 40 years I have never been inside and it currently sits on city land, and I'm sure it's not paying enough rent. The businesses on the highway are getting worse, this town looks awful and it's getting worse, my family doesn't want to visit. The tutor house is still in a pile, the old Culligan building is in shambles, why are we allowing it to stay like this, those are both perfect spots for housing! The vacant lot from Maymay's still vacant. Land owners should be held accountable.
• anything that negatively impacts kids staying active and out of trouble should never be suggested (aka, Kinsmen arena)
• Approve development permits in a timely manner to encourage economic development, reduce the number of city funded planning exercises, city councillors and mayor donate back their salary in good faith, reduce staff travel and look for efficiencies i n how staff conduct their business. Do not keep staff that are actively draining city funding i.e. lawsuits. Reduce Cranbrook tourism funding as they receive significant provincial funding and the hotel tax.
• As a city we have a small population compared to the amount of people using our facilities and infrastructure. Figuring out how to generate revenue from everyone using city facilities but that don't already pay taxes is important. The city also runs very staff heavy, the fees payed to the former Cao that never lived here and got a huge signing bonus while on leave was a horrible waste of money. Also looking at staffing levels. Do you need 4 guys to watch one fill a pot hole?
• As a retired senior who relocated because of the many services offered here it is difficult to agree with many of the proposed cuts. There are certainly some areas where these cuts could be made but it won’t get the tax increase down to 5%, hopefully the populous will agree to something in between the 5-8% proposed increase.
• As a single senior on a fixed income I would appreciate the installation of water meters to properly charge for water use. I am tired of paying for a family of 4 with 2 teenagers water use.
• As cranbrook has become the regional city for homelessness , other cities should be funding some of this as we accept their individuals. Individuals who work for the city have no reality of an 8 hour day. Lots of wasted wages. Quite honestly the city of cranbrook is a poorly run business. If it were an actual business it would have gone bankrupt. Instead we tax payers just keep funding a poorly run endeavour.
• As in my prior comments, review those services that the city is carrying out that should be funded by higher levels of government. Long term funding for various charitable organizations also needs to be reviewed in line with the organizations mentioned for a 50% reduction.
• As previously mentioned, reviewing staffing and their effectiveness can help reduce costs.
• As previously remarked.
• Assess user fees per the recently released Recreation & Culture Service Review. User fees should be reflective of costs incur red to provide the service, not subsidized by all taxpayers or recreation facility users. Routine fee increases for user fees should be included in associated bylaws, so that increases are progressive and not drastic when reviews are done periodically.
• At no point should the city of cranbrook take ice out of any arena
• At some point Mayor/Council & all residents have to realize there needs to be an increase in taxes in order to improve existi ng conditions of some infrastructure & to keep up on maintenance of facilities.
• Attract more big businesses
• Audit all levels of city employees and see what jobs can be combined into one job or can be replaced with automation. Increas e swim lessons( non school aged children)available during low use times. Stop/ slow spending on art around the city. Stop giving money to street angles/ anchors. They are giving out needles that are being left on playgrounds for kids to step on. They are part of the homeless issue, they are enabling them.
• Baker park could potentially be used to rent spaces to generate revenue, as an example. Rather than focusing on reducing city services, a revision of management roles/responsibilities at the city and being fiscally responsible should be the main focus. I antici pate if services for recreation such as reduction of Kinsmen rink and pool/programming are reduced this will not resolve the issues around spending and anticipate these cutbacks creating staffing issues. Increases in manger positions at the city results in an increase in purchasing assets, such as trucks and a clear understanding and review of roles and the benefit to the city is necessary to justify such a huge growth in management in such a short period of time.
• Be proactive r rather then reactive
• Better management of projects to find efficiencies.
• Better planning
• Bigger cuts.. 5 percent decrease in taxes. Get the AXE out and cut!
• Bring back a functional campground.
• Bring in more business6to help improve the city’s revenue and support smaller locally owned businesses better
• Build houses for families (townhouses with smaller fenced yards) that are higher density and will generate far higher tax rev enue per square meter. Develop backcountry access to increase tourism revenue and improve your ability to manage wildfire risks and pollution. If a handful of privileged people keep the place 'wild' long enough, it really will become wild. Nature will suffer because of it. People who drive sedans and hike tend not to shoot wildlife and light fires everywhere.
• Build housing that the town can rent out. To support town and homeless
• Building permits take three times longer to be processed with three times the staff of prior years. Make downtown parking meters price meaningful or eliminate all together
• By enforcing certain bylaws and fining people who don't obey them it could increase revenue. Also could increase the cost for downtown parking and fines for that.
• By far the best idea is the two tier system for recreational services in the City. Cutting services will hurt people and the community. Reducing access to recreation facilities is a bigger impact than some may think, roads need to be maintained, etc. Bringing i n more revenue is a better solution and having outside users pay more is a great idea.
• Bylaw enforcement needs teeth.
• Call for an election so we can get real politicians on council
• Can the City of Cranbrook staff at WFP look at other revenue opportunities for that facility? I realize they have to work around the Bucks schedule but hockey tournaments for all age groups can bring not only extra funds to the facility but also to other businesses in Cranbrook - hotels, restaurants and shopping.
• Can we look into green technology to reduce future energy expenses? More solar panels to offst electricity costs in public buildings? Green roofing to reduce heating costs? We are the sunniest place in BC, capitalize on it. This could bring more attention to the city as a greener community bringing different types of business to our area as well. Also, leading residents to make the changes as well and helping preserve our environment for future generations.
• Can you add a bus route to the airport so people will actually use public transit
• Can’t cut services. Just increase tax
• Can’t they reduce a little in all departments or get more grants from the government to help.
• Change garbage collection to once every two weeks to conicide with recyclables collection schedules.
• Changing areas that are water wasters hanging baskets garden areas to drought resistant plus mean less care.
• CHARGE CHURCHES AND PLACES OF WORSHIP PROPERTY TAXES! Their purpose is to serve their worshipers and those who subscribe to the same faith, they DO NOT SERVE THE ENTIRE CRANBROOK AND SURROUNDING COMMUNTIES. They should be held to the same standards as residents who have to pay property taxes.
• Charge dump fees; if someone misses putting their garbage out, don't go back for it!
• Charge for all Garbage taken to the Landfill center. Anyone who takes garbage to the building and all the areas. No charge for the grass and plants areas. But charge for everything else. Make mulch out of the grass and plants and sell it.
• Charge for city bylaw infractions on property tax bills with regularity.
• Charge for water. Cranbrook seems like the only city in Canada giving away unlimited water.
• Charge more for recreational fees so that taxes do not subsidize users
• Charge out of province tourists more to buy recreation property in and around Cranbrook. Keep Cranbrook affordable for people. Keep the recreational facilities such as Kinsmen arena open for children
• Charge people to use the dump
• City bus system should be changed. Cost for usage is not properly benefiting all citizens. Library should be shut down and building sold. The cost to run library services is not wise use of city funds.
• City golf course should not have city funding if it does. Start taxing the churches.
• Clear out the homeless camps. Enforce laws/bylaws regarding theft, damage and other crime
• Collect garbage every two weeks with recycling collected in the off week. The black bins hold a LOT and with recycling, one bin every other week should do for most homes. We are lucky to have an in-town transfer station for additional dumping.
• collect rent on the KNC building. the rest of city taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing another government's rent. - reduce admin staffing levels to an appropriate number -leasing or renting underused City properties is a great idea ~~ selling them is not. Green spaces where kids can play are NOT underused, and are in fact some of the most valuable spaces we have. Bulldozing green spaces to put up buildings, no matter how needed those building/ facilities are, is just dumb when there are acres of trashy parking lots that can be used.
• Come up with a long term strategy for roads. Keep city vehicles for longer period. Buy used equipment.
• Consider increasing the property tax increases to a level that is required to maintain good services while considering new ways to generate revenue like leasing public land
• Consider reducing the 1% dedicated road tax increases to 0.5% or 0.6% and find ways to improve EFFICIENCY of road maintenance, without extra cost burden. This is another area where road maintenance staff could be and SHOULD BE consulted for their input. They are the front-line people and know how things could be done better. As I mentioned earlier, ALL staff should be surveyed comprehensively and anonymously (from my past experience in provincial government services) to get their input on where to improve productivity. You may find there are a number of costly managerial issues and stumbling blocks that you were unaware of. City management should not be immune from cost-cutting where necessary.
• Consultation with City staff. They know where things can be cut. Have each department look within and where reduntant items can be eliminated.
• Continue to reduce red tape and permitting expenses to increase housing development, increasing tax revenue and housing avail ablity.
• Cost Reduction Strategies Energy Efficiency Upgrades: Invest in energy-efficient infrastructure for municipal buildings and street lighting to lower utility costs. Shared Services: Collaborate with neighboring municipalities to share services like waste management, emergency services, and public works, reducing redundancy. Digitalization: Implement e- government services to streamline processes and reduce paperwork, which can save time and resources. Community Volunteers: Encourage volunteer programs for park maintenance and community events, lowering labor costs. Sustainable Practices: Adopt green initiatives such as community gardens and local composting to reduce waste disposal costs. Revenue Generation Strategies Tourism Development: Promote local attractions, festivals, and outdoor activities to attract visitors. Consider partnerships with local businesses for joint promotions. Business Incentives: Create tax incentives or grants for startups and local businesses to stimulate economic growth and increase tax revenues. Real Estate Development: Identify underutilized land for residential or commercial development to increase the tax base. Local Market Events: Host farmers’ markets or craft fairs that can generate vendor fees and attract visitors to the area. Cultural and Recreational Programs: Offer paid workshops, classes, or events in arts, crafts, or sports, leveraging community talent to create revenue. Public-Private Partnerships: Explore partnerships with private entities to fund infrastructure projects or community services, sharing costs and profits.
• Cost Saving - Overall, reduce publicly funded buildings office hours to save on operating costs and staff salaries (library hours, pool hours, even consider closing city hall of the RCMP detachment slightly earlier, or opening later) Revenue Generating - With the police officers we have, designating 1 officer position to a 'municipal traffic officer' Having such a position could allow for the city to claim most if not all of the traffic violation tickets monetary fines back from the province, thus increasing the revenue brought in by local law enforcement. A concept that could be explored more and could easily bring in $100,000+ a year if an officer could be in that dedicated role.
• Cranbrook has such a high tax rate already and some of the worst road maintenance ever. Winter driving is deadly in our area… plus we have limited spaces for sports and a shortage of daycares and one less school now… it’s tough. Good luck.
• Cranbrook is a very nice place to live. I think that we need to support people who are working hard and contributing through their efforts, and stop catering to those who expect handouts.
• Cranbrook needs three arenas because of all the hockey teams and public skating. Stop with the red tape on developments. Ther e are other companies besides New Dawn who should be allowed to develop land!! Let acreages around the town be subdivided!
• Create incentives to bring more business to town and get more tax revenue
• Create more events to utilize current places that have potential revenue to be made ,more advertisement , lower they mayor salary , no bonuses for city workers . Proper upkeep and maintenance on pools , ice , buildings , parks instead of leaving so it creates a massive problem which leads to more money spent when it could have been fixed at a lower cost. Cranbrook needs passionate people that are for the people to advocate what is right for the residents of Cranbrook and our future which is our youth .
• Create more space for recreation. A proper multiuse building would create revenue for years to come. There are so many sports that want space to rent but there isn't enough. Look at the Calvary FC Regional Field House. Also there needs to be additional acc ountability for city workers. It is no surprise that there are many jokes made regarding 'how many city workers does it take?' I have had many city projects in my neighborhood recently and the strip being repaved and there was not a single time that I have gone by that I have not seen 2-3 people leaning and chatting. Create a program with the schools to have the kids provide some of the park maintenance. Elementary kids could be planting, Middle school teach them how to repair a mower and then take it out and mow some grass. Highschool could be an arborist class. Get the kids outside learning real life skills and allow our parks to reap the benefit. Have a school competition. Assign parks to different schools and have them come up with a plan, beautify. Winning school gets a big sign in the park for the summer. Create an overnight parking lot and charge people to park.
• Curb the budget for roads. It only seems to benefit a few homes and people. Hold the companies accountable for the roads. The paving companies are making a ton of money at the expense of the tax payers. Taxpayers need more services such as recreational opportunities for all…. Not just pickleball members. Seniors are on a fixed income too, so don’t keep reducing the services for them or raise the costs. Get more grants like Kimberley, Starwood, etc.
• Cut city councilor pay Remove homeless camps and ship people out
• Cut more internal spending.
• Cut salary and benefits of existing employees and cut number of employees
• Cut wasteful spending and get the crime under control.
• Cutting costs can work, however, it is well know that Cranbrook makes it very difficult to expand and/or build new businesses. Creating a larger and stronger tax base is much better long term.
• Deal with why costs are so inflated here, a 55 year old smaller house recently sold in this neighbourhood at the same price as a new house in Edmonton. Why is inflation so much higher here?
• Decrease frequency of garbage pickup
• Decrease or eliminate high-cost, low-use services. Reduce services on underutilized days/times. Generate income on unused Cityowned preferably by leasing and renting while retaining title for future use. Reconsider grants and exemptions for groups that are selfserving (opposed to community serving), to groups that offer services and support that are not utilized/well attended by the community (not highly desired by community), and to groups that are sufficiently funded by other means.
• Decrease the amount of spending on RCMP and increase spending on affordable housing projects.
• Decrease transit
• Dedicate an experienced/proficient member to routinely seek out and apply for recreational/environmental Grants wherever poss ible. Seek large scale promotional/recreational/trade education funding from inbound corporations such as Swiss based Glencore (I.e. tech coal) Increase RCMP auxiliary program
• Delay the building of a second Firehall.
• Density. Can our infrastructure handle carrige homes or building up to increase city density?
• Designate hanging flower pots to certain areas only in cranbrook perhaps. Increase parking for businesses downtown
• Developers need to pay more. Postponing a development for additional years should require a large fee, not be 'waived'. Why are so many approved projects not proceeding? no construction? Why does it seem that developers are from out-of province? The city needs the future revenue from these projects, and the new housing most of these projects plan to build, and the possibility of local on- site employment. Construction needs to start in a reasonable amount time, or permits should be cancelled. All infrastructure, roads, utilities, etc. should be provided and paid for by the developer and in place prior to construction of buildings. The City should control the developers, not the opposite. Are developers holding these planned property developments to re- sell at a higher amount? Vacant land within the city should be taxed at the 'highest and best use level' to encourage development of long- standing vacant sites.
• Did we really need to purchase special garbage trucks and all new bins? I'm sure we were managing just fine with the old system. Getting more input (like this) is detrimental to know what the citizens want, need and will USE. Spirit of the Rockies was one example. I understand the name change and the reasoning but not asking for ENOUGH input from the tax payers just pissed people off and l ed to less participants in the festival overall. Little things like that cause bad feelings and people are less inclined to put out money for that. Same thing way back when they built the rec centre. Basically only good for some smaller events and hockey/skating. Take a look at the Creston rec centre. That's how it should be-everything in one place, tons of people using it and therefore more profit.
• Do an audit and overhaul of Recreation Services & Western Financial Place which are operating at significance expense to taxpayers (1,299,149 and -$2,603.974 respectively when Revenue subtracted from Expenses as recorded in 2024 Financial Plan) Unacceptable! Reduce overlap of facilities (ex. Eliminate indoor soccer field & provide play on seasonal basis/outdoor pitches) Reduce # of Spray parks from two to one. Eliminate the e-Scooter program. Close Moir Park & sell the Prime real Estate or build apartments there to obtain revenue. (It is not in a user-friendly area for a park) End speculators holding large undeveloped empty lots for years by passing bylaws that limit how long they can sit empty and unused - during a time when we are in a housing shortage. Send smaller delegations of City Counsellors to events such as Union of BC Municipalities. This year you sent 6 people. Next time, downsize & send 3. Significant savings! Thanks for offering this survey. Many of us (particularly Seniors) have to tighten our belts to survive in this time of inflation triggered by over-taxation by Provincial & Federal Governments. Tightening our budgets means letting go of luxury items which all -tomany young folk now think of as necessities. I am prepared to live with less services if it means keeping our taxes equal to or less than last year.
• Do not change the bylaw on the 14 acres of property from R1 low density toC6 Develop this land and build approximately 50 homes and increase revenue by $190,000.00
• Do not close any of the arenas. All cities need recreation. If Kimberly can support 2 arenas Cranbrook population should be a ble to support at least 3
• Do not close down ice time.
• Do not close the arenas as a source of funding for previous faults.
• Do not close the kinsman arena the kids need the ice and it’s very important
• Do not close the kinsmen.
• Do not cut hours at the rec ex or interfere with kids sports and recreation! This is very important fo people o maintain healthy schedules and mental health for all!
• Do not cut ice. Manage your facilities better and charge more. Ice, pool, etc
• Do not cut recreational opportunities in this city. How much are the homeless issues costing? It is not been outlined what this is costing tax payers? Events such as Spirit of the Rockies, etc should Not be funded by tax payers. Taking care of our infrastructure and amenities should be.
• Do not cut services to recreational amenities
• Do not cut the grant and aid program. Reducing the granting program by 50% will cause extreme deficit for many of the non- profits in this community. There are alrady significant funding cuts from other funding streams. If the city of Cranbrook is valuing tourism development, attracting new residents and businesses and increasing morale in the city, it will avoid damaging a growing coll abotative arts and culure sector that is contributing to making Cranbrook a desireable place to live.
• Do not decrease funding for arts, culture and recreation. They are vital for our community health.
• Do not get rid of kinsman ice
• do not impact kids
• Do NOT increase salaries of Mayor and council members and CAO in the coming year.
• Do not remove all the free programming like Summer Sounds. They bring the revenue in creative ways. They bring partnerships among public/private and private businesses and groups. They provide mental health breaks and relief from the increasing poverty. T hat makes happier citizens. Perhaps the categories you have put out on this survey don’t quite allow for enough knowledge to be a real survey for
action. Perhaps they are a flag for what is already planned due to their benefits and narrowed focus. Further cut some of the “it doesn’t pay us back” programming for ones like Summer Sounds that have spinoff effects and commerce.
• Do not remove the ice from Kinsmen. There is many children & adults that use this ice for hockey, figuring skating & public skating. Last year was a nightmare having to travel to canal flats & Kimberley in the dead of winter for early practice & game times. It wasn’t ideal for anyone but we had to take what ice time we could get & we’re very happy to have all arenas operational this season. I’ll go without my street light that has been reported broken for years with no fix & my poorly slanted sidewalk that causes a sheet of ice when the snow melts down the street over losing my kids arena!
• Do NOT ruin Gyro park by building a daycare in our much needed green spaces. In fact, are there not empty city owned buildings around that could be a daycare centre? Or how about building at Moir Park - lots of room up there that is really just a waste of watering and care.
• Do not sell land. Use under utilized land to build Daycare and housing. leave the parks alone!!! Maybe explore fundraising. I do not mind paying taxes if it is well spent and there is consultation. However if others can not afford the increases, when looking at r eductions stay away from the worst case senerios. Use Thoughtful moderation.
• Do not sweep streets and waste water when there is a drought. Reduce number of employees it takes to weed eat (6 people in a small area is unnecessary). When doing maintenance along 10th Ave the other day there were 7 employees shoveling bark mulch. Ridiculous misuse of man power.
• Do not take away another area from our children. We need to address other issues in town. Arenas are not the problem
• Do not take away from our youth and families. Work on your permit department so the community can grow .
• Do not take away from our youth! But stop maintaining parks like Pop Price or Balmont or that little patch across from the rec plex on the creek. Those little grassy fields are not used by any groups to my knowledge and it’s expensive to keep up!
• Do NOT take ice from the kinsman arena. You say it was successful last year and I disagree, I traveled to Kimberley and canal flats twice a week last winter because there was not enough local ice time. My 10 year old practiced at 530am - that is not successful!
• Do not take out the ice at Kinsmen; it would extremely limit the hockey times available for our youth. Driving to canal flats was not successful; it added hundreds of dollars onto my average fuel bill for increased commuting costs; not to mention the added ti me. Early morning practices of 5am, for recreational teams was crazy!!!
• Do not waste money on electric vehicles!
• Do not waste the City Staff's time working on NON City business, like trying to get funding for new daycare and planning to use ruin our very little amount of greenspace in neighborhood. Early Childhood Education is NOT the City's mandate but the responsibility of the School District! We cannot cut services that effect the health and safety of the citizens, so some of the 'Frills, or Nice to Have Services' will have to be sacrificed. Reality sucks but the buck has to stop somewhere.
• Do something about accommodations and homelessness
• Don’t build a day care with city money in Gyro Park
• Don’t buy new pick ups for public works buy lease back returns or lightly used pick ups. Cranbrook needs at least 3 ice surfaces just because it worked with less last year doesn’t mean it was good. Several parents had to drive to Canal Flats for ice times dur ing the week and weekends in dangerous road conditions not acceptable because city wants to save 80,000 a year. To play pickle ball in there extra heaters would need to be installed and operated at a cost that would cut into the savings drastically. I’ve been in the Kinsmen during the winter with current heaters and it’s very cold.
• Don’t decrease funding to the arts. It is a very important part of our community
• Don’t have an answer… an increase in taxes is understandable as every thing costs more however when you look around our city and the sad shape our parks and creeks sides are it is hard to see where our tax dollars have gone… so further increase to maintain what is said to be current levels, when from where I stand seems less than previous is difficult…
• Don’t take the kids sports away
• Don't build a daycare at gyro park, build it not in a park
• Don't close the arena!
• Don't consider striping recreational facilities and services t osave money. If anything you should increase people facilities and activities and for sure in hours such as evenings to make a better community. It would be stupid to sugest shuting down facilities in the evenings when people are off work. Why have a swimming pool closed in the evenings? Most people work during the day and could swim in the evening. You should schedule employees for the convienience of the public
• DONT REMOVE KINSMEN FOR HOCKEY!
• Dont screw over the Arts or make it harder for those with diverse abilities
• Don't sell city land, but rent the land. Get rid of unsightly properties in the main corridors. Provide green spaces for neighbourhoods. They could look more natural so not to be mowed. Attract some big businesses to come to town (ex Costco). That will help grow our community. Cranbrook's taxes are very high. This is a deterrent to people moving here.
• Don't take away recreational ice or sports fields to save money. These are you future tax payers. If you want them to stay in the future they will want to make sure the children can use proper recreational facilities/fields. Stop spending so much on the homeless
• Downtown parking on lots like Safeway etc should have to pay like big cities. We do at hospital and airport. Some sort of tax for people who work in Cranbrook and then take there money to other towns like and especially Kimberly
• Economic development focusing on light industry development to increase that tax sector
• Efficiency cost reduction should be the responsibility of Directors and a Council that works for its citizens.
• Eliminate the 100+k a year homeless liason position, this is absolutely ridiculous spending!
• Eliminate the old boys club and look at the whole package
• eliminate un-necessary city management, analyse public works costs and implement cost reductions
• Employees taking care of summer parks and flowers that literally stand there for half an hour watering one pot - better supervision of city workers to ensure more things are done efficiently so that tax dollars aren’t wasted on wages.
• Encourage new businesses to move to Cranbrook to increase tax base.
• Encourage people to rent the unused buildings in town and create jobs. Lower the lease rates so you can entice growth!
• End abuse of private corporations
• Enforce bi-laws, like long term parking on city property. Rent some of the land for parking for those people who don’t pay taxes or have bi-laws enforced and park on city land for weeks.
• Events can make $. The rock festival is a prime example of something that works! Increase recreation fees for hockey and lacr osse.
• Every citizen in Cranbrook is feeling the effects of inflation, few if any are getting an increase to their income. Staffing levels with the City of Cranbrook need to be seriously reviewed. Ice rinks need to close and all costs need to be viewed for necessity.
• Every time you wish to raise property tax the city counsellors, staff and employees take a pay decrease of twice what is being asked, so if you ask for 9% tax increase, city of Cranbrook takes an 18% pay decrease across the board, remember you work for us. Remove the bus, replace with taxi/uber/lift, to drive said routes. City would save millions. Nelson used this idea, called it the shuttl e bus, they charged bus rate, for in town services. Get rid of the homeless shelter, the drug addicts will go where the services are, crime rate will fall. Start charging out of province people at parking meters, start enforcing bylaws, trailers on road give them a ticket, watering when not supposed to, hand those tickets out for the people that wish to break bylaws, as they are the ones hurting the rest of us. Do uble the fees at pickleball, an entry fee would be nice. A user pay system is the best option as the ones that use it, pay for it, and those who do not use service Don't. What is this communist Russia, why should i pay for all the crack heads/theives/jerks when they do not even pay property tax. One final note, This budget survey should only be for people who pay property tax.
• Everything in this survey is focused on reducing costs instead of increasing revenue. As the recent recreation study indicated, Cranbrook residents are heavily subsidizing the arenas and pool. While the pool is used by many, if not most Cranbrook residents, the three arenas are very expensive niche uses. Increase user fees on these facilities to recapture a much higher percentage of o perating costs. Drop garbage collection to the same schedule as recycling. When the budget's in a better place, reverse the schedule s o recycling is every week, and garbage is every second week. On our street, we regularly have empty garbage cans, and overflowi ng recycling cans.
• Expand boundaries
• Explore using the rec plex for after school childcare options. Bussing from schools to Mt Baker with a pick up and walk to Mt Baker as an option. Could be swim time, ice time, learn to use the raquet court, use of the field and playground ... there are a lot of things at the Rec Plex and a massive shortage of after school care options. Would have to work with SD5 for bussing, but there are busses going to MBSS after school anyway.
• Facilities for encampment, really needed?
• Fees non residents to use city properties
• Fight for legal ability to punish crime and provincial need for mental health accommodations.
• Financial security is important for any community and responsible use of said monies is paramount. Maintaining service levels contributes to the residents desire to live here and support services through taxation
• Find out how Dauphin MB cleans their streets of snow. They use a mini-grader with a bloody side blade that comes down and cleans your freaking driveway so we don't have to shovel freaking berms all winter. That sucks ass, man. There has to be a better way. I know there are 200 miles of roads, but if a shitty little down like Dauphin can get it right, so can we!
• Find ways to attract more business. We need bigger businesses in our areas. The Family owned business are not enough to keep people going.
• Fire services is a huge drain on the city. Is the size and cost of the fire service justified? How many times are they actually called out to a fire? Fire trucks currently used by the city are adequate. Why do we need “bigger and better”?
• Fix the streets/ walk ways that need to be fixed. Stop bringing in Homeless people from other towns. Do something about thr crime. And add more things for kids to do. I think its big mistake takeing away the arena and closing pool down
• Fix your shit city, cut staff wages be smart
• Focus on economic development and supporting local businesses
• Focus on economy over tourism
• Focus on infrastructure and necessities. Charge more for building permits and recreational activities and public transit.
• Focus on items that make Cranbrook viable for the long term. I didn’t see anything about upgrading or water system or planning for infrastructure updates (so we are not left with emergency repairs like the arena last year). Where is the long term planning for climate change… or the big ones of making Cranbrook culture one where people are drawn to the area.
• Focus on measures that don't tax the poor ie. people who can afford to pay taxes up front do not need a tax break or interest, and we shouldn't charge out-of-towners (families, disabled) more who may have NO recreation option, this should definitely be added to RDEK taxes to allow everyone equal access. Hockey families are a strong voice, but a very small portion of the community, more indoor winter activity would benefit far more people from diverse groups, great idea.
• Focus on youth programs and tax out of town patrons Scale back administration and manager positions
• For increasing revenue. Have a dedicated bus going to and from the airport coinciding with arrivals and departures. Charge a nominal fee for the service. Consider a city owned taxi service.
• Free parking in the core should be reduced. Attracting road traffic in the core is wrong at this time of climate change issues
• Freeze or reduce all Burecrat and Elected Officials Salaries to Current levels for 2 2 years so they feel the 'Pain' like we do.
• Freeze staff wages. Eliminate useless positions. Reduce staff benefits. Focus on getting developments and businesses built that will increase the tax base. Your short term thinking with INSANE DCCs prevents long term revenue. Get on the same page with your building inspectors that development is a good thing and they should be encouraged to work WITH people.
• Freeze upper administrative wages
• Freeze wage increases for non union employees
• Full financial audit, make better use of existing funds, revisit short term investments due to higher rate environment, delay portion of rcmp building renovation, refinance existing debts into lower interest facilities as rates decrease
• Full review of staffing levels should be done within all City Departments for effective allocation of staff and correct productivity/overlap/administrative issues
• Garbage truck routes probably don’t take as long with the new truck systems, perhaps the workers can utilize the rest of thei r shift snowplowing or maintaining roads such as filling pot holes
• Gas, Fast Food, and Accommodation tax .... if the business is branded chain business more taxes for them. Corporations and our visitors can help support our city.
• Generate a bit of revenue by being stricter about watering restriction violations.
• Get all the druggies off the streets so people want to move here and open businesses here without fear of being robbed.
• Get people to conserve water and garden more thoughtfully.
• Get rid of burned out buildings.
• Get rid of some staff at city hall. Most don't know how to do their jobs. And how much do we spend on homeless people. My taxes shouldn't be paying for them. I have enough to pay for without paying for the everyone else to.
• Get rid of the homeless and their associated crime
• Get rid of the unsightly homeless population, stop housing the ones that don't deserve it, punish for crimes accordingly, and bring back more tourism.
• Get rid of useless managers!!!
• Get up our city park campground fixed and running properly
• Get your water ambassador out of the office and on the street. So much wasted water running down 2nd St N. Either the hospital or Shannon Heights is watering the street. This is just my neighborhood.
• Give all administrative and management a 16% pay decrease... then see if that motivates them to find money in the budget that is being currently wasted.
• give away less money
• Giving out $100 for the survey to be filled out is a total waste of my money. If people want to fill in the form they will and the money will not influence anyone to do it for that reason.
• Going paperless
• Hault the ridiculous raises managment is getting.
• Have an incentive for business to open here. Reduction is already in the recreation facility as it’s always closed for maintenance. This is the only activity for families here and youth. Increase taxes 3% but you can’t increase and keep the same services you need to change them for the better.
• Have existing staff apply for more grants. Relocate staff to different functions during slower seasons. Bring in more business. Quit propping up and supporting homeless drug users. More facilities for homeless attracts more homeless from other cities. Enforc e accountability to contractors for the work they have done. Quit paying for it to be redone.
• have fire dept stop responding to issues with homeless people and drug overdoses.
• Having an agreement with the RDEK for citizens in area c to pay to use our services (which most do) is the best idea listed. A yearly agreement/contract in a lump sum would be ideal. Similar to fire protection contracts the city already has.
• Having worked on city crews I know that work crews often have too many people standing around and work is done very slowly. Mabey people could work more efficiently and the jobs would be done sooner and fewer employees needed.
• Heavily look at wages and effective roles. Review often lags in public service and is a huge expenditure and often where reduced expenses can happen. - Remove development/permitting red tape/long waits and or find a way to expedite business development, building permits etc. Cranbrook has been know to be 'business unfriendly'. - Focus on current recreation/sports/events demands and capitalize on a few, constantly review annually to make sure it makes sense. Tournaments are huge money makers if planned wel l, coordinated with citys (Also somewhat unregulated and the amount of fundraising is at times out of control. Would be benefici al to work with sports groups to create fair, well run tournaments that include the city, businesses and visitor needs). Do market research and what is the right fit for Cranbrook. Many other small cities find their niche event, product(s), attraction, sport(s). Work with and communicate with local businesses/community members to ensure efforts are well tailored. - Look into business partnerships, not just community nonprofits (small and large) for assisting financially/expertise/skills with public projects with good public visibility. Ie par ks, recreation facilities, public buildings and more. - I have no knowledge regarding grants/funding at municipal level, I assume that is looked at but if not, it should be. - Do not remove ice from Kinsmen. It is heavily used. If you need to increase fees do it, but it is an extremely well utilized arena and the community NEEDS it WITH ICE. - Do not reduce western financial place hours. You would displace not only user groups but a huge amount of kids that have no where else to go. That was a ridiculous idea. Businesses would definitely fund the pool if it was put out there. Increase prices. Assess staffing as we have personally seen mis use of staff time (not lifeguards). We call it time theft. That needs to come from management.
• Higher fines, permit fees,
• Higher tax rate for tourists. Maybe tax them via golf courses in the area or special events. Start tracking water usage for r esidences and businesses. Would be an initial cost but I think people / condos who are watering their lawns should be charged more. Charge a fee for using the dump. Start using the scale and charge for weight.
• Higher tax rate on $1,750,000.00 homes within city limits Get Area C residents to pay their fair share of city expenses as they use roads, some fire services, Hospitals, recreational facilities, work within city boundaries….and other issues not named….then drive home and live with cheap taxes!
• Higher taxes to owners of property within city limits not being utilized
• Hold city employees accountable to find efficiences and cost savings like a private business would
• Homeless people should be put to work for the benefit of the city. Brush clearing and street cleaning are suggestions for their “rent”
• Homeless should contribure to parks, etc for their free drugs, and freedom to steal
• Hospital workers took a 15 per pay cut years ago maybe you need to cut some of the payroll of top jobs and bonus’s within house.
• Hotel tax needs increasing. Likely look at what your charging the Bucks and increase that, certainly don’t let them continue to do a shockingly terrible job of running that restaurant!
• Housing. The city needs to build housing, rent it out. Profit on the new taxpayers, while also profiting on rent. There’s not enough homes for taxpayers to move to cranbrook. #1 problem.
• How about attracting more business to the city. ie Costco (which would attract more people to the area) London Drugs, more cl othing stores etc. this will increase your tax base.
• How many people do we actually need to employ to maintain our city and our services versus how many we do employ.
• Hub of east Kootenay’s but no shopping
• I am happy to pay all the taxes needed if it means an increase in the quality of life in this city.
• I am hugely concerned at the prospect of reducing the aquatic centre hours. We know the seriousness of mental health and well ness concerns, not only for the homeless people, but for those who contribute to this community and need to be well and healthy. Did we not learn something from the pandemic?? As for the reduction of an ice surface in Cranbrook, we had multiple hockey teams having to travel to Kimberley and Canal Flats. This is not acceptable given the dangers of travelling on winter highways. Additionally, leaving at such early times in the mornings is not acceptable as this is too early for children to be getting up and impacts them emotionally and behaviourally for the rest of the day especially at school.
• I am not familiar with the cost of building permits but that could be reviewed if they haven't changed in the past 5 years. I have only lived here 2 years now and love the city but know there are probably more cuts that could be made now to help tighten the budget. I strongly believe in more outreach with economic development could be a huge plus. I would imagine the city staff also look into any and all grant opportunities when we have large projects on the books.
• I am not sure if this has already been done, but often companies need to do a restructure of how employees are set up. Do. We need as many as we have to make things run smoothly in our city? Do we have supervisory roles that can be eliminated because we don’t need middle management if we have the right fit employees in place. If this hasn’t been looked at then I believe the city also need to look at this.
• I am strongly opposed to the elimination of ice at Kinsmen Arena. Our children suffered last year from lack of ice time, havi ng to travel for practice and early/late ice times because the two smaller ice rinks were closed. This year, the children are looking forward to regular ice times at all three arenas so that their sports can make up for lost time. Our children are our future and keeping them healthy and active helps prevent all kinds of problems in the years to come.
• I appreciate all that city of cranbrook does for it’s residents, but the cost of living is getting out of and if people could save a bit on taxes, that would help tremendously.
• I appreciate the goal setting of 5%, however won't this result in larger increases in the future to make up for the shortfall ? I would rather do the 8.59% to avoid a 10% increase next year or in the coming years. I love how Cranbrook is growing! but i have found some people struggling with building permits and business licenses, we need to cut bureaucracy to spur faster growth. I appreciate you reaching out to the residents for input on this matter! it demonstrates a level of proactivity we haven't seen from counsel before. I appr eciate all you do for Cranbrook! good luck in the budget!
• I believe if u tighten the belts etc police staff. City staff. To costs of buying pens n pencils. New phone system if not needed cut back there big time. So much waste Could start to save tons
• I believe that maintaining our city roads is an essential need for our community than entertainment festivities.
• I certainly hope elected officials are not getting a salary increase to help increase revenue
• I didn’t see any suggestions about cutting any persons wages by 1% that work for the City Council?!?
• I don’t understand talk about reducing park etc care as , other than the quad ballparks , there is no significant care being given.
• I don't feel I have enough information. You mention you could sell/lease land but where? for how long? to whom? I also believ e there is a potential to save within. Do things right the first time rather than always trying to fix items for as cheap as possible and then having to redo. This not only costs more in supplies but also in the workers not being able to move ahead with work. As mentioned I'm not sure where you could reduce service as I feel we are bare bones already.
• I don't think services should be reduced and I think property taxes should go up, even as much as 10%, to keep up with inflation and improve services.
• I feel Cranbrook is ugly. The strip is embarrassing. You need to make people want to live here
• I feel public works has really improved the last few years. Response to reported issues has mostly been fast and positive. A well run team. I hope we do not cut finding in this area Bylaw has also been great the last few years. Increase in the number of officers has been great. Very helpful when they can be. I understand this department is very busy and I hope services are not cut to this area. Should we
be adding 1% or similar tax for hotels. Added stress to our water, sewer and roads. A good way to increase revenues. We do need our area C individuals to start adding to the city tax base. Pool, arena and park services are used up by people who do not pay i n.
• I feel that the city is getting better and more welcoming each year. If we have to pay an average of $100 per household to keep this forward and upward momentum, I am all for it.
• I feel the RDEK needs to pay more of their share for city provided services to help keep services funded. Giving tax incentives to new business start ups or vacant properties may help a bit to increase the tax base for small buisnesses and help clean up the ci ty a bit with less vacant stores/ land.
• I have a few questions You asked about taking ice from one of our arenas. That impact on winter sports is horrible. And to do what? Picked ball etc we'll how are you keeping that space warm heating that building in wi terms will reduce nothing just cost mor e and our youth are out ice space that we do not have enough of already such a very bad idea.. Thr ice in kinsmen is driven from memori al so I don't understand this at all, the mi or hockey kids pay for that space so generating to pay for that. Who will pay for the heat in kinsmen For picketball this is the worst idea. You will create a very bad impact on youth hockey that we as parents are already paying for. Perhaps looking at maybe some reduction in the people running all this for the city (big bosses) there annual income is most definitely probably above average. Taking form the youth sports but continuing to pay annual salaries at the levels they are for the big bosses doesn't seem fair to the city, and kids. Utilize spaces and generate more in the spaces we have rather thwn take away.
• I have no idea how your agreement is with the union representing the public works employees but why do I constantly see doubl e the amount of city workers doing a job. If the city was a private company their would be half the employees doing the same amount of work that the city of cranbrook employees do.
• i just moved here and disappointed my kid can’t get extra ice time for hockey
• I know it's touched upon in one section but our hanging baskets in the summer (Baker) are yes, beautiful, but insanely elaborate/excessive. Half the size would be just as beautiful and I imagine, much less costly to both purchase and maintain. Small savings overall I'm sure but adds up if we do the same for other related costs.
• I see things like workers doing construction doing poorer results than in the past(for example road construction done improperly leading to the road having to be refixed or looked after not that long after it was fixed). It feels like tax payers money is going into a sink hole when the construction isn't done properly and just leads to the construction workers doing it again(typically improperly still leading to further issues). The issues are way more internal than just adding or decreasing taxes. Workers need to be trained better and results from when they do their work need to be successful and satisfactory. If that alone can't be rectified or fixed we will only be seeing money sink further into pointlessness.
• I suggest discontinuing programs and services that cater to ongoing drug users. While I fully support assisting homeless indi viduals in genuine need, the continued support for criminals is placing an unnecessary financial burden on the city and its citizens. Additionally, the city should reduce office and administrative overhead. There are far too many employees, some with make work jobs, yet ineffi ciencies persist, particularly in processes like obtaining permits and completing projects. The engineering and planning departments, for example, tend to default to “no” rather than having an open mind to creative solutions. If businesses just kept creating jobs every time a problem came up, they’d be broke in no time. Thanks,
• I suggest not to close Kinsmen as an ice surface. It is misleading to say it was trialed last year as Cmha moved all of its game/practices to other communities and families had to travel a lot more.
• I support leasing or renting City owned land but not selling it.
• I think assessing each of these departments and running them more efficiently is a better option to just cutting back. Bylaw enforcement as an example, is atrocious! We need these services we pay for to match the cost we are paying for them. Another example is WFP. It is run so poorly and inefficiency, the city needs to assess each department and see where thwy can become more efficient and eff ective at carrying out the tasks of each of these departments.
• I think it would be beneficial to cut managers (there is $100,000 right there). Let the grass grow a little bit longer so you aren’t doing it every other day, let cranbrook citizens shovel their own driveway and fine the companies who don’t shovel their sidewalks in a timely manner. Do we really need our streets sweeped- the wind just blows it away anyways. It’s sucks when the city increases property taxes and citizens wages aren’t increases with inflation- hopefully the city will take extreme measures to ensure property taxes are not continually rising. Budget a little harder.
• I think that the everyday honest law abiding home owner/tax payer is being asked to cough up more every year for services that they don't or will never use. Life here is pretty good, a lot better than most places yet every year we get told that there is a r ise in PROPERTY TAX but the 'Services' remain the same or slightly worse. I just don't see why Property Taxes are the first consideration when revenue is needed. Think outside the box and listen to the people for a change.
• I think that we should do a comparison of similar cities and find out what differences and similarities are, and what they ar e doing. We need to educate our tax base on what is the cause and how the grass is not greener on the other side as this is something that most municipalities are facing. Unfortunately everyone feels the squeeze of inflation. The public may not like the answers presented but if they are accurate and true then one can't argue facts.
• I think the city brass needs to have a hard look on why Cranbrook is so inefficient at running and maintaining facility and works? With one of the highest tax rates per capita, as a small business owner in town the only answer has to be management. If Cranbrook was held accountable as business it would be bankrupt. In my opinion there has to be way too many employees not doing their job.
• I think the city needs to do things differently rather than the way it has always been done, and that collaboration, reframing and open communication will be key. Small example, why do we fill pot holes daily on the spring, why can’t we fill them with gravel until the weather stabilizes and then repave them. If the same pot holes come in the same place every year, rather than accepting that can we ask why and implement a solution, what would be the longer term savings? What are other cities in similar regions in North America doing? Having beautiful fliers about dog licences at city hall is too late, these should be at the vets, pet stores, dog parks and/or mostly
online. The city does a great job sharing the council notes on line, how can other departments build on this. If the pool has a slow time how can we share this, and encourage a more balanced usage, etc…
• I think using some of the empty spaces and buildings in town on city property would be great but can also go wrong. There are some good ideas in this but it is all rather scary as well if not carried out properly. Or if the money saved doesn’t get allocated properly.
• I think with the monumental increase we have all seen in day to day living the city really needs to do better at making every dollar go as far as it can. Cutting services in a growing city that is working hard to attract young families is not going to work. Let’s all do better with the income/ tax revenue that we bring in.
• I totally disagree with the statement that taxes are only going up just over 8%. Our taxes have gone up 25% so when I read the thing about 8% it’s an absolute fallacy.. no doubt my mind son has not gone up at the same 25% rate but if the average is 8.25 ther e must be a lot of people who have not had a tax increase whatsoever. Great numbers one can make numbers say whatever they want them to make us an account and friend of mine said..
• I understand there is huge problems in the city of Cranbrook maintenance Dpt . I have heard about this since I moved here, 22yrs ago. The ongoing overturn in staff is hugely expensive. The lack of respect and bullying from some foreman’s and employees that have been there for years is unacceptable. This sort of thing cannot produce teamwork which ultimately costs the city a lot of money. T he work place can not be well run or efficient. Chaos costs $ . I have accurate knowledge that this is the case. I cannot prove this without naming people but I know my source is very honest and reliable.
• I wish there was suggestion boxes for each question. I feel that I couldn't answer realistically as some of these services I don't see happen in my area, or if I do it's very little.
• I would like to know the revenue the city made from events such as rock the kootenays, if significant perhaps more events suc h as this would be beneficial after the 2025 event I believe the contract ends. Exploring other events could ensure extra revenue
• I would like to see a breakdown of wages being paid to all city employees
• I would like to see a survey conducted on how effective our managing system is, we keep talking about cutting services to the City, but it seems like we already have done that by contracting more, cutting operational staff lower and hiring more managers. QUITE SIMPLY GETTING LESS FOR OUR BUCK.
• I would like to see all current green spaces maintained for recreation ie.. rotary, gyro, idlewild, ect I know there is talk of a city operated day care facility, which I understand we need but also fear this will be another reason to increase our taxes once again. I f eel any of these decisions need to have full citizen engagement prior to a decision being made.
• I would sooner have a higher tax increase than reduce services
• I would strongly suggest the city look at the wages and benefits As well as the number of support staff. These services you broke down cannot be the majority of city expenditures. Increased revenue: renting out buildings, selling property that is unused.
• I’d suggest not selling land but leasing. I don’t think we should be cutting funding for recreation, the arts, sports. This i s the soul of Cranbrook and why we live here.
• I’m assuming the RCMP have a municipal contract with the City and would share a portion of revenue generated by traffic offences for tickets issued within the City. Perhaps they could be encouraged to be more aggressive with municipal traffic policing on residential arteries such as Victoria, 10th Street, 14th Avenue and especially 17 St S among others. Police presence seems to be zero…. T his could lead to an income source for the City.
• I’m disappointed to see shutting down ice time is even an option. Last year was a nightmare for families with the rink down. Any city council is the ones that neglected and caused the issue. It was not trialed and was not sustainable.
• Ice time was not manageable with the 'trialed Memorial Closure' This caused rec league hockey to have to practice in Canal Fl ats, Kimberley etc on the regular. This meant many kids were not able to play rec hockey due to finance and transport challenges this created. Pulling kids out of sport is shown to negatively impact the community. The town also has a swim team. Something the city of Cranbrook has always lacked support of. These kids practice in the early mornings before school to remain competitive in the province and region. Already they have to fight tooth and nail to be able to hold meets (That benefit the community) and now you want to take away more time from their sport? (Already you have cancelled all of their Saturday practices on long weekends)
• I'd rather pay higher taxes and ensure equitable community living for all rather than cutting services that have cultural importance. The Arts and recreation are part of the culture of Cranbrook and this proposal is distinctly Anti-Citizen. If you have misused municipal funds then it's the politicians who should be suffering, not the citizens that you have already failed.
• If services are going to be reduced then it follows that staffing levels within the city’s administration and manpower levels should be evaluated for reducing unnecessary employment costs as well.
• If the city is increases taxes by 5% each year you shouldn’t actually have to reduce any services unless inflation is over 5% that year. Inflation the past few years was not normal everyone knows that, if a 5% increase isn’t enough to maintain services when infl ation is 5% or less (like it normally is and is going back to) then I think you have major budget issues somewhere.
• If the City of Cranbrook wasn't' funding the homeless people and using our tax paying dollars to create homeless retreats for drug addicts, then we would have more money for important things like our roads, children, recreation. Why are the citizens of Cranbrook responsible for paying for these people? Remove them from the City, and we have a huge savings in taxes. Put our city back to the way it was 5 years ago. DO BETTER CITY OF CRANBROOK!!!
• if the pool is not open at 6:30 am then all the folks who swim for health before work can not go as 8 am is too late. It will increase the doctors and hospital bill as these folks will not have time for exercise and that what keeps the doctors out of business. If you must shut down the pool maybe in the afternoon with the attendance is much lower. Check your numbers before pulling times out of a hat
• If you take the ice out of the kinsmen it would be a real shame if some of the city officials homes suddenly caught fire
• If you’d like increased revenue the maybe consider not opting for so much low income housing in our city. As these types of properties do not generate enough property taxes to sustain our city. Where if they were zoned for single family housing over multi -residential
housing; it would facilitate and generate more property tax income to lend to the betterment of the city without so much talk of cut backs . Examples of this include the proposal of the expansion of the already permanent RV living facility on 30th Ave North. Also the approval of the Multi residential complex just below Panorama Heights . These residents ante not taxes equally to single family residents as they don not own the property they live on however they reap the reward of city services , cause wear and tear on city roads, parks, schools, recreational facilities etc. maybe consider reevaluating where you could tax the all the low income multi resident buildings rv parks etc more to generate the income you are desperately looking for.
• Important to retain funding to buildup vulnerable citizens. Making cuts to services which aid the (homeless, low income, heal th impaired and youth at high risk of being victims of violence and addiction) will not serve the healthy future of our town. We need to build up our most vulnerable to be our strongest as a community.
• Improve city staff efficiency and review staffing wage budget
• Improve the building inspection process to be transparent and consistent, the present system is a major barrier to business growth. Economic Development role needs improvement, at this time it does not seem to deliver any benefit other than networking events outside of City.
• In Calgary one of the oil and gas companies all the managers too a pay decrease to keep the company operating at par. The highest paid manager took a 40% pay decrease and the next level 30 the next level 20 and the lower level managers took a 10% pay cut. I think the increase in managers to the city has increased a lot over the last decade and a lot of these jobs like could be done by l ower paid employees or even union staff.
• In regards to use of city recreational facilities, RDEK should definitely be paying their fair share for use of these facilities.
• In the end low taxes mean less services. But everyone wants low taxes. They will get used to lower services but will be happy due to low taxes. Don’t replace aging equipment so fast. Not every employee needs a vehicle. Lots of waste in cities. Cut cut cut.
• Increase any possible charges for out of town residents
• Increase bylaw enforcement and impose more fines for bylaw infractions.
• increase bylaw services to properly maintain parking meter system and rules, write tickets and collect $. go public and encourage citizens to speak out against those that aren't following the rules ie watering days etc. because non compliance just costs us all in the long run. encourage more events that come to the city, utilize our amenities, and grow revenue that way as well. I was recently at an event held in the little town of Clearwater and it likely brought in close to if not more than 1million dollars in to the community businesses, and the event held there were at amentiies far less quality than what we have.
• Increase development to increase revenue. By cutting services only moves the community backwards! Simply increasing taxes without pursuing 'other options' for revenue increases is a 'lazy way' of budgeting. Pursuing other/more provincial/federal grant options should be aggressively pursued. Reestablishing the mentioned '2- tier' system is a fair application and, in my opinion, should never have been abandoned. I am NOT in favour of 'moving the city backwards' by cutting existing services to balance a 5% tax increase. The city is already suffering from 'unsightliness', and cutting visual maintenance (Parks, Grass cutting etc) only serves to negatively i mpact our reputation.
• increase dog license fees
• Increase enforcement of City bylaws and implement automatic minimum fines for infractions. Find avenues to implement fees for services used by non-Cranbrook residents. If it is not already in place, RDEK should be contributing to road maintenance fees through taxation of non-Cranbrook residents. Implement greater oversight and application of fees to users of the transfer station for dumping of non-bagged waste.
• Increase farm and rural taxes. Often people claim farm status and do not actually run a farm, and others do not need the cheaper property taxes. Tax out of town property owners more for their vacation homes. Spend less on the hotel services for the homel ess and provide actual up lifting services of rehab and jobs.
• Increase fee for service and RDEK fire protection contract … the Fire department is undercharging all the various contract in light of current economic realities… it’s time they all pay their share or setup there own departments
• Increase fees for organizations that use City facilities for sports to help recover costs. Should be at least break even. Red uce or eliminate economic development.
• Increase fees for water; ideally meter water use. Parcel taxes that have a targeted recipient fund, like housing or recreation Just like there is a hotel tax that funds tourism, what about a real estate transaction tax: revenue to go to support targeted recipient fund In the same vein, is it possible to institute a fee on large development projects (ie: not single family dwellings) that funds arts, culture and heritage? This happens in other cities. The idea is that developers want to make money in the community so let them contribute to the cultural vibrancy of the community they want to profit from. Keep the senior discounts on parking but increase parking fees for everyone else Enforce fines for bylaw violations
• increase fines, service charges and administration charges for everything.
• Increase ice rental fees
• increase in fines for parking violations, increase cost of downtown parking, reduce available downtown parking,
• Increase major industry tax rates. They profit because of and off the residents, who also seem to be making up for the tax shortfalls caused by the tax incentives they are given by the city. If residents are forced to leave the city because they can no longer afford to live here, then where will the city be? Very disheartened that this was not a listed option - only the residents will pay one way or the other with the available cuts cited.
• Increase parking fees downtown, ¢50 an hour is quite low, maybe $2 an hour. Increase prices for tickets to public events such as Spirit of the Rockies festival etc. Increase fees at the dump/transfer station
• Increase parking violation fines. Increase parking fees. Increase monitoring of parking.
• Increase property development (more doors for property tax pool) Increase density in the city More revenue businesses run by the city like crows nest pass' ski hill
• Increase property tax rates for high value properties (ex above $800k). Increase taxes on 2nd homes / vacation property / property owned by non residents. Vacancy tax on unused commercial property (ex old Canadian Tire property) Use vacant city land to open RV/boat/vehicle storage to generate revenue. Lease city land, don't sell it. City operated beer gardens at events. City keeps the profits. Actually enforce bylaw - you could solve the budget problem on unpicked up dog poop fines alone. Generate more revenue from parking fines. Sell parking permits for metered downtown spaces for the year to get parking money up front. Sell tags to hunt the towny deer at incredibly high cost (bow/crossbow only for safety)
• Increase revenue through: expanding affordable housing initiatives, leverage renewable energy (sell back to the grid), outsource to private sector (i.e. grass mowing, maintenance, etc), promote Cranbrook as a tourist and sporting destination (get the town of Kimberley to take down that embarrassing sign about good times straight ahead on the highway)
• Increase tax on non utilized, empty or otherwise undeveloped private commercial property within city limits to encourage the owners to develop the land. This will increase revenue by either the owners paying the increased tax or having new developed properties paying yearly taxes, employ local businesses/residents and add to what Cranbrook has to offer.
• Increase taxes on businesses that set up in town and put small local businesses out of service. This tax can help provide better services to the citizens that have become unemployed due to these corporations and can also act a a deterrent for major corporations wanting to build in town. Allowing for the opportunity of more local entrepreneurs to create a business where the tax and money stays in the town, contributing to services and financial support for everyone locally.
• Increase taxes on vacant properties. The old Canadian Tire, Vacant lot between Save- On and Wildhorse Surgical, old Kootenay Cattle Co....
• Increase the cost of a burial plot in the cemetery. Raise cost of parking.
• Increase the cost of parking at the city meters.
• Increase the cost to use the pool facilities. Churches shouldn’t be getting anything for free/not paying for what others pay for. Wage cap for those making the most in city jobs.
• Increase the mountain bike trails and promote mountain bike tourism. Take a look at what other towns have done to increase tourism revenue with biking. A good standard would be looking at Bentonville Arkansas and see the data and revenue they have gathered due to bike tourism.
• Increase the temperature of the kids pool for one year, then advertise that you have done so for one year. After one year check revenues to compare.
• Increase through the RDEK, tax levels for surrounding area residents.
• Increase user fees
• Increase user fees for *commercial use of rec facilities, reduce salaries of top paid employees, reduce wasteful spending on parks maintenance (if you water less you’ll have to mow less), we don’t need giant flower baskets everywhere, plant flowering trees instead, reduce redundancies in staffing, rent city lands at higher *commercial costs, stop reducing taxes for big businesses.
• Increase user fees for recreation.
• Increase your permitting fees, actually charge for parking downtown (and enforce it), sell downtown parking passes, increase service call out fees ($25 for water shut off/maintenance work was unexpectedly low)
• Increased fees for users of facilities and ice. Users should pay more than non-users. Increase parking fees downtown, 25 cents is not enough. Sell underutilized city land and building, if there’s any. Expand city boundaries for larger tax base.
• Increased tax base through growth in population and number of businesses.
• Initiate special road tax on all trucks over passinger weight operating in the city to reduce pavement damage from truck weights especially heavy loads on hot days as with logging trucks, gravel trucks and other heavy equipment
• Instead of creating roadblocks for small business, work with them to build a prospering small biz economy. This is good for both consumers and the city alike.
• Interesting it’s all service and no talk of labour costs! No talk of the request for the rcmp 10 million retrofit ! No talk of managing better! No talk about all the labour pay outs the city has undergone in the past few years! Why is there a part time pool of 23 employees ? Over 20 hours we are paying benefits!
• Investigate opportunities do develop low income multi family units on leased city land. Potentially consider managing said pr operties to create further opportunities for at risk families in need of housing while extracting the value to recurring monthly payments . Obviously this would need to be further investigated for feasibility with proper due diligence completed.
• Invoice the provincial and federal governments for costs associated with homelessness, safe drug consumption, and NARCAN products and services.
• Is it possible to turn off the sprinklers when it’s raining? Seems kinda redundant to use sprinklers when nature is watering the grass
• Is the city becoming too top heavy with management? Do we need 20+ paid firefighters? Many cities the size of Cranbrook rely more heavily on volunteer fire fighters.
• Is there a way to involve the schools in clean up initiatives? Taking the load/cost off of the city? example. When school is in session (September-June) at Laurie School (and other schools) the grounds and the surrounding areas such as walking paths, side walks, surrounding apartments/houses, etc become littered with trash. No one comes to clean it up and the schools do not take initiative to do so either. It's very disheartening to see our beautiful town becoming a trash can. It's dangerous for wild life, pets, and people walking as there is glass everywhere, food wrappers, and food left of the ground.
• It high paid management and middle management positions that are unnecessary, get rid of the homeless as it ends up costing tax payer dollars to respond to them and clean up after them
• It is appalling to see the inclusion of closing the Kinsmen Arena on this list. The closure of the Memorial Arena was NOT a trial to see if ice time could be accommodated. MANY Cranbrook teams had to travel OUT OF TOWN to Marysville, Kimberley, and Canal Flats to accommodate regular practices putting everyone’s lives in extra danger traveling winter roads often in the dark. There is not much “prime time” ice times available in the first place with teams with young children being required to practice at early hours in the morning and then having to attend school right after. The idea of closing the Kinsmen Arena as an ice surface is extremely disheartening to see. That facility having an ice surface is important to a large number of children in our city, not just hockey teams but the figure skating club as well.
• It is hard to know. Do you have appropriate user fees for commercial use of Recreation Facilities or are they subsidized? Are there other commercial uses of City lands or facilities (landfill etc) that are subsidized? The Community Charter does not allow a municipality to “provide assistance” to commercial operators.
• It is very important that we have access to recreation facilities for long term benefits (health etc). Please do not close Kinsman & please do not close the pool prior to 8am. We need that rec time.
• It seems like the city is not open for business in respect to the bucks and handcuffing organizations. Seems like council is picking favorites not what’s best making the city more fun and profitable for all
• It’s difficult to comment on this without knowing exactly where the city spends its budget
• It’s unfortunate that contractors, such as paving businesses, have used global inflation to justify their greed. Paving costs increasing by 50-80% when inflation, at its worst, was 8%. There are roads in Cranbrook that I specifically avoid because they are so bad, specifically in front of the high school, it’s terrible.
• Just a general review of all items to find cost savings
• Just a thought...instead of cutting the hours of the pool (which affects kids and teens who are willing to get up early to swim before school starts, and is what Cranbrook promotes of a healthy lifestyle), the lifeguarding wages are looked at. Lifeguards in Cr anbrook get paid a very high wage for their level of training and what they do. I am not demeaning their job (I was a lifeguard myself in my teenage years), however, their wage seems very high for what they are actually doing.
• Just as stated earlier, proper utilization of existing police, first responders, firemen so they are not over used for what many citizens define inappropriate calls, for example when the same homeless person is given Narcan twice in one day....
• Just opinion on interest on taxes paid and reductions on city utilities. These are all items that we take on as homeowners wi thin any community. They just simply need to be paid period, there doesn't need to be bonus if you do pay or pay early.
• Just rotating the services like maybe some services get funded one year while others are cut for the year then the following year fund the one that were cut the year before and eliminate the funds that got covered the year before. One year on covering them and not the next. So then you save half of funding each year.
• Just spend money on basic services and infrastructure that people actually use
• Keep all the kids in every sport as possible, open an actual outdoor rink ODR in the area if you decide to limit ice, this is needed for the kids in hockey 100%
• Keep ice on kinsmen. It was not a successful year when memorial was closed. Families had to travel over an hour away in poor weather conditions. That is not success! Kinsmen is perfect for young athletes. Hold community events with a charge to raise funds. Be proactive. Fundraiser like every other organization has too. Raffle tickets for passes to aquatic centre or bucks games or ..
• Keep in mind that there are an increasing number of residents who do not drive and need cleared and maintained sidewalks.
• Keep public informed of where tax monies are spent so that citizens have understanding of tax rates and where funds are alloc ated.
• Keep the city clean
• Keeping services like the kinsman is so important for kids in our community. It gives a chance to all school for kids to lear n to skate. As well the recreation programs such as hockey, figure skating ext would be drastically affected. Ages 0- 99 use that building. As we saw with the loss of the memorial arena last year, kinsman is necessary for those programs. Secondly, as for the grass etc. Having a child playi outdoor soccer, if the grass is a little longer during the practice season, this is not a big deal. Cranbrook hosts a yearly tournament wich would be the only important date to keep the grass shorter. Flowers are nice but no necessary at all. Or we look at planting perennial flowers instead. Sidewalk clearing in winter is important. But do the stresses really need as much cleaning all of spring summer and fall? I don’t think so. Snow is more for safety. Where as needles and leaves can be left a little.
• Keeping your home and yard in good shape should get you paying less tax not more. People who do not maintain their yards and buildings should be charged a lot higher tax as that may give them incentive to clean up their place
• Kinsmen ice is important. The idea that we “trialed” reduced ice is ridiculous. There was significant impact to teams who had to travel and we were unable to accommodate local tournaments for hockey - which brings in a considerable amount of money to our community and local business.
• kinsmen needs to stay a rink, too cold in there for pickleball in the winter. two rinks is NOT enough ice. cut all homeless spending, non profits and arts can do their own fundraising just like the sports clubs do and find their own funding. two tier pricing is r idiculous - ask the rdek to help subsidize that. Start by cutting some staff, there's always too many in govt
• Layanan harus tetap di tingkat kan cuma dgn petunjuk dan pemahaman yg lebih baik lagi
• Layoffs of bureaucracy
• Learn how to spell Street Angels* in your survey LOL No
• Lease is better than selling assets. Don’t sell!!!
• Leave the kinsman as ice, stop building pickleball courts on every corner. Reevaluate the top end staff and their wages in ci ty planning. Stop bringing in out of town contractors who do the cheapest jobs with the cheapest work that needs to be repaired annually by the next lowest bidder and keep the money in our local economy. Stop wasting money on making our already congested streets more conges ted
and bottle necked only to have to further the problem down the block to fix the bottle neck created. Allocate resources into areas that benefit the people who pay for them and stop trying to model Cranbrook after Stanley park.
• Less hours for employees at the top or less employees?
• Less money or no money for tent encampment supporet, including, showers, gardening etc. Also few funds support of 'safe injec tion sites, or other drug use supports. Invest in our high risk youth instead!!! Prevention!!
• Less office staff at the city of cranbrook
• Less statues way less homeless way less nonprofit donations take care of the people that you
• Less watering.
• Let non profit raise only money, put signs at each end town we are full go away
• Let's stop spending the taxpayer's dollars on housing the unhoused. The Travel Lodge is constant chaos and drains our first r esponder resources on a daily basis. The unhoused are LITERALLY taking over this town. They create mess, cause disorder, steal from businesses and people and are a TOTAL safety risk to the public and yet we keep enabling them to do so and keep sinking more and more money into them yet there is consideration of closing Kinsmen Arena for the kids?!! Let's reassess our priorities here!!! Enough is enough.
• Listen to the taxpayers
• Lobby the Federal Government to have Mandatory cost of living increases for ALL workers not just a select few... this way it will be up to our employers to control costs.
• Look at city employees if they are needed and really working
• Look at consumables being used at City Hall ie pens, paper, etc. measures can be put in place to monitor and measure to ensur e appropriate usage. Overall the city do a good job in my opinion, However, there are too many councillors for a city this size . Look at making this more efficient, eg lethbridge a city of over 100,000 with 9 members on council. It can be done !
• Look at other cities for how they maintain and upgrade facilities. Trail is a great example of prioritizing city facilities and upgades. Trail also operates as a Greater Trail umbrella - as all surrounding cities are grouped together for hockey and user groups of facilities. Greater Trail operates with Fuitvale, Rossland and Trail are all together to form the Minor Hockey. Trail provides a 365 day a year kids rink.
• Look at patron usage in the aquatic center and schedule appropriately.
• Look at reductions to City staff like all corporations have to do when operating costs are excessive and additional revenue i s needed. Recent additions of staff to educate us on how to accept homelessness and open drug use in our community is not effective. Review policies on equipment replacement such as vehicles. Take a look at the firehall staffing and cuts that could be made there.
• Look at tax exemption properties and tax them
• Look at what Sparwood is doing. They have good ideas.
• Look at your spending and eliminate waste!
• Look for efficiency opportunities for our current employees
• look for where you can be proactive instead of reactive.
• Look into the management of Ice and venue access at WFP!!!
• Look into volunteers to help make it so people want to spend time in cranbrook to shop or enjoy hockey etc
• look within each department for cost savings without reducing services.
• Look within. Today so many corporations have been over loaded with administration positions. Not sure if that is the case in Cranbrook, but taking a look would be worth it.
• Lower the income for the City’s Top Officials. Decrease the amount of time spent by fire ambulance and police to the homeless encampments for drug overdoses. That money needs to be spent much more wisely. Regular citizens are getting less care and we pay pay for these services
• Luck!
• Maintain a high quality of service to benefit residents and encourage spending within the community as well making the City an attractive destination for visitors.
• Make Cranbrook great again! Shutting down Kinsman Arena is a terrible idea and this can’t happen for our town. Cranbrook you can do better…..
• Make informed purchase decisions for instance a pot hole truck that has never been used, a grader that sits 95% of the year, a wheeled excavator.
• Make private groups like pickleball at Kinsmen park pay for the upkeep of their space as it is private and not able to be uti lized by citizens of Cranbrook unless a member so why should tax payers pay for the upkeep. Make people who camp at the dog park pay r ental fees to the city. They should not be allowed to camp in motor homes for free. There has been one motor home camped there for months.
• Make sure that the city is ready to step in if provincial restrictions to things like AirBnB lag or falter. These things are a plague on our economy and working class people.
• Make the convicts do city cleanup and pay them minimum wage to stay on with the city as a get back to work initiative
• Manage employee costs and salaries especially the nonunion employees like the CAO. Is their time effectively managed, long term disability costs. Is the City being rigorous in reviewing those costs? It wasn’t when I worked at City Hall in the 90’s.
• Manage the city better so there is less panic spending on things that could be avoided, reduce expense accounts for management, stop making bad decisions that cost unnecessary additional expenses
• Manny of these questions were difficult to provide an answer as presented due to their multi tiered answers. For instance I s upport leasing city lands for development but not for sale.
• Market sporting events in the City, and add or increase the hotel tax onto the hotel bills to assist in revenue generation.
• Maximize the use of city buildings. It feels like marketing and business development is falling short. I'd rather see revenues increased than services cut. Either way will gain momentum and increased revenue is the better path to go down. Getting some higher density residential and commercial developments going could help increase tax revenue. Why aren't people building here? Cranbrook has everything people need yet not much significant development. I really feel like cranbrook should be marketed as a great hometown for families because it has everything needed to be that. It's also has everything needed to be a hub for large events.
• Maybe have the city employees actually work. Take some pointers from other cities, as the way things are done is horrible. Stop blaming residents for unmaintainted infrastructure failings.
• Maybe increase taxes on golf courses inside of city limits, hand out speeding tickets to make revenue, cut city council members and pay like the manager
• Maybe staff don’t get such big pay rises, not all people get pay rises Also a little off each section, apply for grants from the province and does it really take as many people to change a lightbulb - efficiency and streamlining processes, there is a lot of time wasted of silly things
• Maybe with all the decreases you want to make decrease for council members
• Mixed-use residential Multi storey development to increase the tax base.
• Monitor and charge residents more that want to waste water to have green grass, wash their drive ways and city road in front of their property.
• Monitor the actual time wasted on projects and find a way to control time waste.
• Monitor water usage…. Install water meters . People who waste water (eg. over watering lawns, washing their driveways/vehicles should have to pay more more)…
• More concerts like rock the kootenays bringing in tourism revenue
• More efficient snow removal from streets - get a snow blower truck that blows rows of snow into waiting dump trucks, instead of loaders it. Similar to what Fernie does. We are the sunniest place in the province yet it seems we have very little solar power on our city buildings, street lights, etc.
• More ground level staff, less management!!! City is too top heavy. 10-$100 000 + per jobs saves more than reducing any services. The entitlement of those jobs needs to be gone. Completely unnecessary.
• My biggest be3f is the amount spent on fire fighters. We pay three times the salary of a paramedic to our fire fighters who cannot even do the full job of a paramedic. Ridiculous waste of money. Would love to see the amount of downtime they have while getting paid so much.
• My cpp/oas pension doesn't reflect the increases of your operating cost and as I am paying more for services, my quality of life has been reduced significantly but I don't see that with the City of Cranbrook. Show me your sacrifices with your budget as you can't please everybody, this is leadership at work.
• Need to also consider getting more done with less- ie productivity improvements. How is Labor efficiency measured ? Start and end shift times What do the employees suggest? Are there ideas from other communities. How does Cranbrook ensure they are adopting best practises from other small communities. Do some staff have idle time that can be taken advantage of by other groups. Benefits increasing by 14 %!!! ( I saw that someplace) why are benefits increasing by 14 %
• Need to look long-term at budgets and particulary land-use decision, not just at 'this years' budgets. Infrastructure additions need to be paid for upfront, but also at end of life. We have been overbuilding infrastructure that doesn't pay its way. Need to lavish maintenance on infrastructure that pays its way (generally the older parts of town) and discourage tax (and water) inefficient development o n the edge of town (large lot SFH). City should do a tax and water use assessment to determine Tax revenues and costs for different types of development at different parts of town to start shifting toward more viable forms of development. (i.e. large autocentered commercial developments do not pay sufficient taxes to cover pipes, sidewalks and roads associated with them).
• No as we need road maintenance but it does not seem to get done in the city bushes in creases
• No I don’t at this time. We do need continued BC housing involvement to establish affordable housing units for seniors.
• No ideas of how to reduce or bring in income. Potentially engaging in more festivals etc that bring revenue. Determine where policing is costing the most and request more provincial or federal funding for this depending on the area it is costing the most. I woul d support an increase if it was able to be used to build more recreation facilities within wfp such as gyms, ice and space for kids and families to engage in healthy activities similar to Alberta. Longer term it may bring in income to the community and the city through tournaments and other activities but would be costly at the beginning.
• No mention of reducing payroll burden.
• No more homeless in our community
• No questions about reduction in staffing
• no suggestions right now but appreciate and approve the City's citizen consultation process
• No, as long as reduced services are accompanied by reduced staffing. Not sure there is any point to having a Supervisor of nobody. Alternatively, in order to keep or grow staffing we need to find economic development opportunities that bring good family supporting jobs to Cranbrook
• No, but please don’t limit the aquatic centre and close Kinsmen arena. Our kids need these facilities.
• No, excellent plan doing this survey!
• No, I feel the tax increase is fair to keep up with the growing community. On a side note I'd love for Cranbrook to have green bin compost pick up!
• No, I wish I did, and I think I need to get involved.
• No, your job seems impossible. I appreciate what you all have worked on.
• No. But closing the kinsmen should not even be on the table.
• No. But some areas should be mowed less to allow for bees and other pollinators.
• No. I feel the city is lacking in upkeep of roads snowplowing of roads
• No. I suspect you're going to get a lot of interesting responses, so I want to take the time to say I think Mayor and City Council are doing a great job during a difficult time both from a social services and economic standpoint. There aren't any easy answers or qui ck fixes, and I appreciate that the City is taking the time to engage with the community and its citizens. Thank you!
• No. Increase the tax. Make bold decisions.
• No. Thank you for your leadership, and navigating these difficult decisions!
• No. The City has provided above some good and well thought out options
• Not able to fully answer this as I am not aware if there is a charge for the use of the city parks, but that could be increased as all other public use facilities are increasing their fees.
• Not really. I'm glad you are looking into this but recognize it will be a huge challenge.
• Not sure how you reduce service when the city is growing.
• nothing that would have a measureable impact
• Nothing to add, but I think the majority of the cities ideas for tax reduction are good.
• Offer services to other towns that lack recourses due to smaller sizes.
• Only tax payer in Cranbrook should be able to access this questionnaire, for all we know Lady Ga Ga could do this .
• Our focus should be on water. The system needs upgrading this is paramount
• Our home is among the highest taxed properties in the city, at over $10,000 for 2023. Our home is not a mansion. Our neighbor s homes are marginally smaller and pay half that. It’s appalling that we pay nearly $1000/month to live in our own home!! We also liv e on the end of our street where the snowplow completely neglects us. There should be a cap on how much any particular home is taxed in relation to its neighbors. This is Cranbrook, not Vancouver.
• Out lying residents should be putting money into our schools and recreational facilities as well as road maintenance
• People don't make Cranbrook a destination. People only go downtown if they need to. No affordable housing or quality employment. Trying to do away with Baker RV park is short sighted. Once it is gone it can be gotten back
• People go to Nelson and Kimberley because the towns are cute Cranbrook is industrial and has nothing to offer tourists in comparison with nearby towns
• People should not get a discount if senior or disability for their yearly tax as that is not fair
• Perhaps give the RDEK residents the opportunity to pay an annual surcharge equal to what a resident of the city would pay for services; such as the Aquatic Centre.
• Perhaps outsourcing more road works and public work services to contracts. I fail to see the efficiency in some of the road w ork our city workers do versus private industry. Why the bureaucratic delays like the change in plans for the 2nd road into the College... why couldn't our city save money with faster decisions and processes
• Permanently remove the homeless people that continue to pile into Cranbrook and stop servicing them.
• Pickle ball can be played in empty church gyms or school gyms, do not take from a large user group, how shameful to even suggest this. Increase the permitting process, minimum 6 weeks to receive a permit? Embarrassing. Imagine the revenue and growth if you could speed this process up. Kimberley's are less than 2 weeks. You pay your employees a lot of money from our pockets and I know city workers who complain of boredom.... hmmmmmmm
• plan for the future. extend city boundaries so proper land development can take place, rather than 5 acres at a time.
• Plant trees and keep beautifying our city. The cuts mentioned above may make an impact. It’s a great place to be and I believ e taxes are needed and we understand why!
• Please continue investment in cycling and pedestrian infrastructure
• Please continue to fund recreation for residents. As well, non profits are the heart of the community taking care of all of our residents regardless of income or social status
• Please do not allow Pickel ballers to take kinsmen arena. They already lock out citizens from using local park courts unless your part of their pretty people cult.
• Please do not close down the ice facility at Kinsman arena. I was a family severely affected by the rink closures last year, and it was devastating. It meant increased costs to families due to travel (for example I was travelling to/from Canal Flats at least twice a week throughout the hockey season). The ice surface at the Kinsman is an appropriate size for younger players and for small private user groups.
• Please do not go back to a 2 tier recreation system, I worked for the Aquatic Centre when the 2 tier system was in place. It was awful for the staff and for the community. Organizations like minor hockey lose players to other towns ie Kimberley or Fernie or Creston. Increase the property taxes on multi family dwellings and or rental properties.
• Please do not reduce funding to the food bank. So many people need access to this service to survive. Children and the elderl y should not starve to save us a few dollars
• Please do not remove and skating ice, it’s one of the few joys we get thru winter. If anything do without the baker outdoor i ce as it’s not cold enough to keep long anymore
• Please do not remove the use of an arena for hockey season. The impact a lack of ice had last year for athletes was hard for parents to navigate. Hockey is a big thing in our area and lack of ice will kill the program.
• Please do not take away Kinsmen ice. Last year was not a trial!
• Please do NOT take ice out of the Kinsmen arena- it is absurd to claim it was shown to work with just WFP and the Memorial. All teams suffer without the Kinsmen (many of us did not get local ice time and were forced to go to Kimberly, Canal Flats, and/or Fernie all season) and the public and schools benefit from being able to use the Kinsmen. The overall percentage it saves the average tax payer will not help the thousands that use it each season.
• Please do your best to keep rates lower for the vulnerable population as their risk turns into the city's costs.
• Please don’t cut any facilities that keep our kids active and healthy! Hockey plays A HUGE roll in this community and we have struggled enough to keep all the kids with 3 rinks let alone 2!!!
• Please don't take away the kinsmen arena, we have such a shortage of things to keep kids busy in the winter and this would hi t Cranbrook and it's youth hard. Not worth it
• Please keep the ice in kinsmen arena!
• Please leave the kinsmen arena alone. Our female development program is just starting to develop with introducing girls as early as the age of 5 to the game. Our town is a hockey town and removing one arena that is used mainly for young ages and school programs , would be such a poor decision. Pickle ball is a small sport and can find room in any school gym, or another indoor facility. Please leave the ice where it is.
• Please stop trying to grow grass along many of the city roads. They are not watered properly, explore other landscape options as a more slightly and cheaper option
• Possibly composting pickup would be an awesome addition reducing land fill waste.
• Post covid is seeing a rise in mental health concerns for many citizens, not just those diagnosed with illness. A focus on well- being through the aquatic centre, parks, rinks, and trails should remain a priority.
• process review of all administration functions to reduce overall budget
• Promote new business’s to come to town and make it easier for businesses in town to expand. Too many licence issues and zoning issues that are unreasonable, and an unnecessary costs for a new owner(s) to be starting up.
• Property taxes are not consistent nor fair value it can be proven some of the properties used to increase other properties have incorrect data. Ie, the property used by an assessor is not using the correct information as per tge realtors listing. The listing has far more bedrooms, upgrades and the assessor is using old data and in some cases the the same property with the old data is used used year after year after it was proven wrong.
• Protective services is 1/4 of opex - why no suggestions for reducing # of staffed firefighter positions? 20+ firefighters all earning >$100K?
• Public recreational services (ice skating rinks, swimming pool, tennis and pickleball courts, etc.) should be prioritized in any budgeting reconsiderations. With an already lack of recreational activities supported by the City of Cranbrook, taking away from the public should not be an option.
• Public transit could go, and scooters need to go!! Increase taxes on the big box stores, tourism tax on hotels, maintain city vechiles currently in use, don’t buy new! Ares where services are non essential need to go.
• Pump the tourism industry!!! Make this town look pretty to attract outside business investment and tourists!!! Also reduce the amount of unnecessary management
• Push for removal of carbon tax which is increasing a lot of our overhead
• Put street lights in residential areas on a timer to turn off between middle of the night hours. Invest in a city owned and o perated asphalt and cement plant. Something has to change with the homeless situation. All this invested money is not proving to be working. City transit is a good thing but the amount of empty buses is still a waste. Do not cut out city recreation services. Our youth are our future, keeping them busy with sports or ways to keep busy will reduce the chances they end up heading down a wrong path (substance abuse) homelessness. More outdoor facilities need to be invested in. Outdoor hockey rink paved in the summer flooded in the winter.
• Quite wasting our tax money
• Raise parking prices downtown and give out more tickets. Or get rid of the meter man because downtown parking revenue and par king fine revenue most likely does not cover his wage. City Cost Savings approximately $20000.
• Rather than just look at reducing services, City should look at what it would take to run the organization as leanly as possi ble. Start with a bottom up approach and determine what is the absolute minimum staffing ( management and union) that is necessary to achieve the desired. Private industry does this all the time but the city just seems to continually add staff and doesnt look at ways to reduce.
• Rdek tax congruencey
• Re: the swimming pool and arenas, I would suggest charging closer to the full amount, especially for adults, to see what the market will bear, prior to decreasing pool hours or making the Kinsman a dry arena. It is important to change one variable at a time to s ee its effect, and I would suggest starting with seeing what the market will bear in terms of charging adults closer to the full cost for recreational services. I sincerely hope that the City can come to an agreement with the RDEK re: Area C recreational users in terms of consistent, reliable funding, rather than going back to a two-tier system.
• Realize that your system of white supremacy upheld usi g the pillar of capitalism will crumble. Money and debt are fever dreams of deluded European Americans trying desperately to control the world and its peoples.
• Reassess wages. Why is a city clerk making $130,000? Please assess. Just driving the snow plow around to capture gps locating is a waste of resources. Please ensure employees are dropping the blade and doing their job!
• Rebuild the recreation and parks department within
• Recruit new businesses and increase the population.
• Recruit special intrest groups /clubs to manage recreational events and certain aspects of facility operations.
• Red light cameras at problem intersections. Cut any and all DEI / equity funding. Encourage the development of the business tax base.
• Reduce all department budgets slightly become more efficient
• Reduce bus size. These large buses are always empty.
• reduce city hall duplicate jobs , ex mayor , chief financial officer , CEO , to many middle mangers
• Reduce city officials
• Reduce development costs and/or increase incentives for development to increase tax base. Reduce overhead and increase employ ee job satisfaction to increase productivity. Try not to pay 500k for scaffolding.
• Reduce events (such as Rock the Kootenays)
• Reduce flowers around the city lights in summer if needed. Does scooter program pay to use streets? Garbage can fees. Bigger garbage cans should pay more for use than smaller ones. Water metering should be introduced.
• Reduce funding for the homeless, they don’t appreciate it. But keep funding for the art places and people who are actually us ing it
• Reduce garbage pick up to every 2 weeks
• reduce management salaries and implement a performance based pay schedule with metrics and yearly reviews. It seems more workers and less management would be beneficial to reduce service interruptions. Eliminate positions such as economic development officer, social development coordinator, environment and energy specialist, one of rec and culture managers
• Reduce management salary/positions
• reduce number of managers, stop automatic salary increases, renegotiate fire services contract to disengage from Vancouver firefighters
• reduce property taxes. we pay a ridiculous amount for nothing. at times it takes 4- 5 days for a snow plow to come through our neighbourhood even though we live right by a school. the main streets are done but not the residential areas. I don't understand what we could possibly be paying $4000+ a year for.
• Reduce staff at the city. Keep the kinsmen as it is
• Reduce staff. Reduce community events that are paid for by City. Reduce library budget -encourage electronic resource use and fewer books that just get thrown. Decrease transit route cycles.
• Reduce staffing level to save money for the city.
• Reduce the amount of city workers standing around with there’s hands in there pockets not doing there job.
• Reduce the amount we spend on homeless
• Reduce the bureaucrats at City Hall.
• Reduce the large salaries paid to executives
• Reduce the number of people on payroll at the city.
• Reduce the number of weeks Christmas lights are lit. Perhaps Dec. 15 to Jan 7 would be sufficient.
• Reduce time of approval process for new construction and renovations. Speed up the slow movement of amendments by council for changes in OCP. This would increase revenue as property increases would mean tax revenue would flow quickly and more development would come on line soon. I notice council and staff say nothing about the revenue increase from new construction, so really y our 8 plus percent increase is really closer to a 10% increase in your budget. No lies, just hide the truth.
• Reduce town council members, only run grant funded or community funded festivals by admission.
• Reduce transit, cities portion.
• Reduce your staff that are doing nothing. Or at the very least improve the permitting department so growth can happen. Stop h aving to return to the same properties with water breaks. All we see is dug up roads and yards and a lot of the time it’s the same properties.
• Reduced the expenses of the mayor and council.
• Reducing funding to service organisations would be cutting off your nose to spite your face! Non profits add to the general economy in diverse ways and use many volunteers at no cost to the city Reducing mowing is better for the environment. Hanging baskets ar e beneficial for tourist appeal and mental wellbeing. Implementing fines for unsightly businesses, industrial park, and homes. Fines for those who abuse bylaws, noise,trailers on streets, garbage,not clearing sidewalks(unless they have an exemption)) sidewalk snow clearing could then be implemented only to exemption holders. use garbage truck drivers as by law officers. They know where u nsightly premises, trailers on streets are. This would eliminate neighbours being afraid to report. Pay a public washroom cleaner (in Rotary Park)and caretaker to be present when washrooms are open eliminating vandalism costs. This person could also keep the park cl ear of needles and litter.. Chip woody material and sell mulch back to public. Implement a compost program to sell back to residents. Reward sidewalk clearing and beautiful streets with public recognition.((Use garbage truck drivers to nominate)
• Reducing recreational capabilities will increase funding requirements else where, bylaws, police, or reduce income as families will no longer come to Cranbrook, or spend money in the city. Find better ways to save money or allocated it better.
• Reducing Services (Cost-Cutting Measures): Energy Efficiency: Implement energy-saving measures for public buildings, street lighting, and city facilities to reduce utility costs. Shared Services with Nearby Cities: Collaborate with neighboring municipalities on services like emergency dispatch or public works to reduce duplication and costs. Digital and Automated Services: Shift some public services to online platforms, reducing the need for staff and cutting administrative costs. Sources for Increased Revenue (without Raising Taxes): Public-Private Partnerships: Partner with private companies on infrastructure projects (like transportation, parking, or recreation) where the private sector shares costs in exchange for some revenue or operational rights. Attract New Businesses: Focus on economic development initiatives to attract new businesses to the city, boosting property taxes, sales taxes, and creating jobs. Offer ing incentives to industries can help spark investment in the city. Tourism Revenue: Promote tourism to the city by investing in events, attractions, or cultural initiatives that bring in visitors and boost spending on hotels, restaurants, and other local businesses. Tourism taxes, such as hotel taxes, can also be a revenue source.
• Reduction in the amount of department managers
• Reevaluate city programming to trim unnecessary costs. Look at what contractors are doing for the costs and services provided
• Reevaluating bus routes to make them more efficient and better serve the needs of community (Like students traveling for work to the mall and superstore area from the college) may increase ridership. Consider paid parking downtown (I know this will not be popular . . . start with low costs. We are one of the only larger centers without this and while it is nice, if people are thinking about taxes vs. other fees . . .). I really like the tiered costs for accessing infrastructure. Residents who pay taxes to support infrastructure are paying for commuter use so this makes a lot of sense to me.
• Regarding making the Kinsmen arena a dry floor, this upping WFP and Memorial Arena ice usage. While the Memorial Arena was shut down, the ice at WFP was in use from 6am thru 11pm , almost constantly. All this ise caused the ice to suffer. Maybe the techs at WFP should be asked how well the ice there as well as at the Memorial Arena is going to fare with the proposed usage. If we have inferior ice here, less organizations are going to be willing to use it. The Ice Capades and figure skateing competitions aren't going to want to use crappy ice where they can possibly sustain injuries
• Remove funding for Street Angels. Do away with city staff positions and funding created to deal with the homeless population as this is not, and should not be, a city responsibility! These people are mostly criminals and addicts and I do not see them doing anything to help themselves.
• Removing ice surfaces from anynof the arenas should be a non option. The trials mentioned with the closure of the memorial were accommodated by the community of canal flats canceling the use to other user groups to allow Cranbrook teams to use their ice surface in a time of need but not as a long term solution. The burden it put on families to travel 45min away during the week was astronomical and wouldn't be financially viable long term. In turn would force youth hockey to reduce it's number of teams or enrollment that has been increasing. The users of the ice surfaces need another facility or two built not the loss of one.
• Renting underutilized spaces (don't sell) Decrease number of admin staff Start running income generating businesses like the crows nest pass has the ski hill. Add solar panels to generate power for buildings and sell the excess back to the grid EV transit busses and city vehicles charged by solar (cut gas costs). Higher taxes for large corporations
• Replace the incompetent leadership. They are useless
• Require privately owned land in the city that has sat vacant for a long time to either be developed or sold to someone who wi ll develop it. Toronto does that.
• Re-thinking the budget in the proposed safe injection site
• Review all operating procedures to ensure maximum efficiencies. Time studies. I have observed equipment not using proper techniques . This adds to costs of fuel/wear & tear/ labour etc. Small improvements all add up.
• Review all the properties getting a permissive tax exemption
• Review and adjust administrative staffing levels and compensation.
• Review costs for bus system. The ridership is visibly so low that the tax burden seems imbalanced for the benefit. Review cost / benefit for city run cultural events, especially if grant in aid to cultural organizations is cut. Not running some events would save the city money. Reduce hours and services at the library
• Review list of all capital projects and try to minimize or even eliminate extravagant items. I briefly read the capital plan for the airport and it mentioned building 10 EV charging stations. Is this really necessary? I saw purchasing of electric vehicles. Is this reall y necessary during these tough times? The RCMP building upgrade - I don't know much about this, but again, this may have to be looked at to reduce cost. There are probably many more items like this. I see that with the exceptions of maybe road repair (which still should be managed well), all capital projects should be looked at, managed better and/or reduced before services are impacted. There appears to be much more savings available in the capital projects as opposed to services.
• Review operational inefficiencies, seems to be a lot of administrative overhead in City Hall that is not providing much value to citizens.
• Revising community support to local organizations could be attached to agreement from the organization to provide a service with volunteers to the City park maintenance or other areas that require cutbacks.
• Rezone lands west of the train tracks and try to attract bigger businesses to the city and attract business tax revenue. appr oach the province for much needed funding for all the services Cranbrook is providing for the surrounding communities
• Road maintenance and repair is mostly bandaid fixes and don’t last. Repairs that last please not just rocks thrown in the hol e.
• Salary increases for mayor and council should go to referendum. We understand that council and mayor put in many hours but ar e they actually listening to the citizens and not making decisions in the background, especially when it comes to rezoning. Decisions are made prior to it coming to attention of the citizens. For example, the daycare at Gyro Park was made in private, prior to citizens being aware.
• Same as before limit city council spending Management of city crew's and subcontractors is very poor around Cranbrook lots of money being wasted
• Saying that ice can be moved from Kinsmen the other areana's is not realistic. We did it when the Memorial was shut down but a lot of user groups had to give up ice, have less ice time and or go out of town to get ice (Kimberley Canal Flats etc) Your wording is very misleading
• See previous answer re city funding entertainment for profit events.
• See where you could save money cutting within city department
• Seek private development of high density housing. Attract new industries/business to the city.
• Sell off some land and make the fast cash to keep it under 5%
• Sell the Airport. Quit adding fluoride, it a neurotoxin,possible lawsuits! Quit hiring consultants to do everything. Daycare at the quads is a better solution than Gyro.
• Sell the Curling Rink, use the Kinsmen as the curling rink. One less plant to take care of. No more concerts at WFP let Key City handle the entertainment.
• Selling and leasing city-owned land would also raise permit income. Charge a small fee to book parks (ex. Idlewild) for events and parties ($5-$20 is still reasonable to host a birthday party in a gazebo).
• Send the homeless back to Vancouver
• Set a limit of how many people can live in a house OR tax per person on residential taxes rather then per house.
• Shutting down kinsmen arena has to be one of the most small minded selfish suggestions I've heard of. Cranbrook is one of the worst ran cities I have lived in or heard of. The amount of money miss management in incredible. Giving contracts to rebuild memori al to city boys club members to line thier pockets at the expense of tax payers. Way to go Cranbrook.
• Significantly increase taxes for exploitative franchised businesses that abuse the TFW program (grocerie stores and fast food restaurants come to mind) - Reduce payroll at the municipal level for admin positions in particular.
• Significantly increase the Development application fees and significantly reduce the amount of time a developer is given to c omplete or at least begin construction. This will greatly reduce speculation and encourage those developers who want to invest in our community.
• Snow removal needs an entire overhaul. Often piles are left on major roadways to melt over weeks deteriorating the road bed and obstructing roadways in high traffic and 30 km/hr. zones. Increasing costs for maintenance. A scheduled residential winter parking system for clearing residential areas: parking on odd numbered sides on odd days and even numbered sides on even numbered day s can create removal efficiencies for equipment operators when clearing snow. Further a fine system through bylaw services for vehicles not adhering to the winter parking schedule can generate income for the city and positively affect compliance issues.
• Some survey questions are too vague . For instance, I would agree with leasing, but not selling city property. This property is in trust to Mayor & Council, and once a property is sold especially green space it’s gone forever and cannot be counted on to serve future needs as the city grows.
• Sources for increased revenue from property sales and tax. Find ways to buy/Sell or utilize the land from the kootenay springs, windy may may, old Canadian tire, overpass auto wreckers, the Tudor building, the old water slides/ gas station land by Elizabeth l ake. Use these properties for housing or attraction land. These properties also garner the homeless which in turn raises crime costing everyone more and repelling GOOD, tax paying potential residents. The more people that can live here the more money you bring in.
• Speed & Red Light Cameras at both ends of the main strip. Seeing as the main highway goes through the middle of town many truckers and traveler's make use of this highway - is there a potential for revenue income with ticketing. The result would keep our roads safer while using the funds to offset the cost of road maintenance, especially on the main strip.
• Spend money on beautification of the city, attracting more businesses and people to come to cranbrook increasing the tax base. We have room to grow. Focus more on bylaw enforcement, and forcing businesses to keep their properties clean and weed free. The strip is a bad image for our city. Empty buildings all over town is a bad look.
• Staff and council should take a payout
• Stagger changes throughout year
• Start billing people for actual water usage so heavy users pay their fair share. Set a rate that allows for proper maintenanc e of the water infrastructure.
• Start charging clubs like the elite pickle ball group for use of public city property I pay tax on and can’t access unless one of them let me in while they are present.
• Start doing projects based for locals and less for tourists
• Start looking after the city boulevards. Have some pride in where we live. Maye its time our fire fighters aren't the first r esponders. That is a very expensive way to administer Narcan
• Start outsourcing. Several services in the previous section of the survey, such as grass cutting, arena maintenance, sidewalk maintenance, and pool management, could all be outsourced to a third- party service provider who can maintain the city's current (bare minimum) service for a fraction of the cost. The city has terrible internal management and something from the inside needs to change. Citizens should not suffer from reduced services because the city hires poor managers.
• Start re zoning un used land. Like the old culligan lot, the old may mays building. It’s an eye sore in Cranbrook period
• Start with the bumps on the log that sit at the aquatic center. No way they should be getting $35/hr. That is more than some professionals make that actually use their brain.
• Stick to the basics. Feel good programs, certain grants need to be cut. If these programs are that important to their users, they can fund raise to satisfy the needs. We all have to cut our budgets to stretch our income to cover our basic needs and the city needs to as well. Also, travel to UCBM meetings, etc, don't need multiple council members to attend. This is a waste of money and not necessary. Trim the perks.
• Stop all the concerts and festivals to save money
• Stop allowing clubs like pickleball control over public courts. It is unfair that my taxes pay for a facility I cannot access without a member of the club.
• Stop bringing in events that will not bring in enough revenue to cover the expenses, your events planner needs to do better. Also do not change the genre for Rock the Kootenays
• Stop building subdivisions when we don't have adequate water services for homes already established. Stop funding homeless camps. I want free camping
• Stop buying silly artwork for the town and put it towards stuff that matter like the poor road conditions in town
• Stop catering to special interest groups and look at the city as a whole.
• Stop creating spaces and services for the homeless. They'll leave the area without those amenities.
• STOP FEEDING THE DRUG ADDICTS and THIEFS
• Stop funding the homeless. Stop allowing the province to bring them here Stop providing services. Make Cranbrook a constructi on and business friendly town. Be business friendly and encourage the right developers to make moves Stop letting companies use like broad street rape citizens of the city. We don’t want those developers Do not fund the rcmp building renovations .our crime rates are through the roof. They already have two facilities and are not lowering crime rates. Incentivize them Provide lower taxes rates in under
developed areas. Provide user friendly facilities like properly maintaining quad ball park. Remove nets from quad three to encourage large tournaments Incentive recreation events to bring in out of town capital.
• Stop having fire attend all non-fire related calls. Waste of resources and makes no sense to send a fire truck to a bike accident or drug overdose.
• Stop hiring highly paid managers/directors working for the city and getting too many days off. Start keeping everyone accountable of their work.
• Stop paying fire fighters to wash fire trucks all day long!
• Stop paying ridiculous amount of money to people that are consulting or analyzing 'projects'. This city wastes so much money on time theft from city employees and constants.
• Stop putting $ into things that aren’t broken (I.e - new garbage bins & pickup system)
• Stop putting in sidewalks in residential areas. Most sidewalks around my home and for miles past are tripping hazards.
• Stop saving the homeless if the overdose. Do not make it easy for them to just start up a camp where ever they want. Make it more punishable on theft and remove them from town if they commit crime.
• Stop spending money on stupid things
• STOP supplying City Vehicles to Management for personal usages to and from Home for any potential 'on call' service provision if they do NOT live within the City of Cranbrook Taxation base.... that 'on call' rationale is moot.... Full Stop ! They can PAY to get themselves to work and back same as anyone else or move back within the City of Cranbrook
• Stop the drug programs and services and homeless encampments.
• Stop watering public spaces so much in the summer. It is unsustainable and wasteful.
• Stream line the permit process for new businesses. It is currently a nightmarish long wait which deters developers from wanting to invest in our city. AND REDUCE some of the stupid requirements to get a permit such as digging out and removing copious amounts of soil only to have to haul fill back. It’s a joke and appears to be nothing more than small person power plays
• Street sweeping could be done once per year and not multiple times as has been done previously.
• Stronger enforcement of actual bylaws. Activity patrol areas to look for bylaw enforcements and fine residents I see many unattached trailers parked on city streets, many shrubberies encroaching on sidewalks, many parking infractions (e.g., angled parking where parallel is expected, parking in front of fire hydrants, parking on sidewalks), etc.
• Stronger rigour on costs of road maintenance as it was identified as one of the largest cost increases. Look specifically at the cost of contractors using local suppliers that have artificially higher prices than our neighbouring communities. Ie. contractors came come from Alberta for a cheaper cost than local companies (how is this possible)
• Suggested aquatic closure could be only 3 days a week instead of 5.
• Superficial, must look much much deeper!
• Support events like tournaments, swim meets, dance festivals, theater festivals etc coming to town to increase tourism. Limiting access for user groups makes this near impossible.
• Support local businesses so they don't have to close. There are too many boarded store fronts.
• Support local contractors for services with discounts or grants to reduce out of town contractors and support local businesses or start up businesses
• Switch to seal coating from asphalt - Review required civil engineering inspections and also the contracts. Look at bidding or three quotes instead of direct awarding for work. - Parking meters / permits and enforce fines. I would pay for a parking pass if I don't need to put quarters in the meter. - Allow local non for profits to run community events again - Canada day 2019 is a great example of how teaming up can be extremely beneficial and profitable for all involved. It allows the risk to be shared and also lowers the time for city staff to do the work,. - Maybe have a community pass that people can purchase (similar to the old student pass at cotr) pay so much a year and get transit, western financial activities, parking, etc covered for the year and it is a steady income even if the user does not take advantage of it. The new generations seem to like subscription services.
• Take a look at city workers for updated roles and responsibilities to ensure each worker is maximizing the tax implications of their job.
• Take a look at the outrageous salaries that are being paid to the administration and their underlings. Cut the fat at city hall.
• Take a pay cut, stop wasting $ on taking out a functional park (gyro) Remove unsightly buildings Use that space for rentals or for build, Who owns the old Canadian tire store? All that land is being wasted. Build a tiny home Section and collect rent on that and get the people/ pets off the streets.
• Take a stance and halt and reduce wages, 6% of the increase to taxpayers is city wages. It is getting out of control. A city staffer is paid 15-20% more than private sector. Enough is enough.
• Take at look at Human Resources and manages the city staff better. Uphold higher standards of professionalism and productivity.
• Take care of the roads, looks after and update the parks and playgrounds for kids and families, stop pandering to the homeles s, take a tougher stance on vagrants, update your bylaw to peace keepers and help the law enforcement do more work, get more doctors and nurses (provide better incentives other then mountain views).
• Take over property that has cost the city money in nonpayment of taxes or services and sell the property i.e. Tudorhouse property.
• Take the money currently being used to clean up the homeless camps etc and reallocate those funds appropriately.
• Taking ice out of a rink …we saw families travelling to canal flats last winter this is dangerous and should not be a consideration, mental health and wellness - reducing the pool hours is absurd
• Taking the ice out of the Kinsmen Arena would be a huge mistake. The extra cost this would put on the ice rink user groups is significant, as we experienced last year with the closure of the Memorial arena. Users were forced to travel to use ice in other communities. Ice availability in Cranbrook is already stretched, eliminating the Kinsmen ice would make the situation worse. The
additional revenue brought into the City when being able to host hockey tournaments throughout the winter, and the benefit of keeping ice in the Kinsmen for all the user groups in our community far outweigh the supposed cost savings to the City by removing the ice.
• Tax church properties if not doing so already.
• Tax properties that are now on the tax exempt list.
• Tax the churches
• Taxes need to go up to match inflation, that just makes sense. Also add in that we need to put more money into asset management to prepare for the future. This is not the time to start reducing services, otherwise we will never get them back. But I appreciate the effort put in to offering different solutions, but none of them seem worth it to my family. With the inflation of house prices, property tax deferment is a great option for families that cannot afford to pay. Advertise that option more, that is an underutilized program especially for young families.
• Taxes should be raised so we can probably plan for now and the future. Bring in more industry to help with the tax base. Be s mart, you can’t seem to see the forest through the trees. Raise taxes is a reality. Lessen the burden by bringing in more industry. Put the industry slightly out of the way. Bring in companies that pay workers more than minimum wage, provide some big houses for the CEOs so they can buy them. Think smart not dumb. Bring in higher paying jobs and industry to shoulder the burden.
• Taxes should include churches, non profit all programs.
• Tell the province you need a lot more money to run a city of this size!!
• Thanks for preparing this detailed and elaborate survey. My family has lived in Cranbrook for over 35 years. We moved here fr om Montreal. We have always felt proud of this community for its incredible generous residents, its beautiful surrounding areas and comfortable climate. That being said, on our last trip to Montreal, we found ourselves comparing Cranbrook to Montreal, with the conversations centering around the fast increase in crime, drugs and homelessness per capita, in our small city compared to a larger city. In fact, we felt completely safe walking the streets, day or night in a larger city like Montreal. It would be interesting to know what strategies are being employed to create a 'safe' community in these larger settings and maybe we could build on this. I would support a very small increase in my yearly taxes to support improved safety measures for our Cranbrook residents to feel like they can once again, leave their bicycles and other belongings in unlocked shed or backs of pick up trucks without the fear of theft and that we c an frequent local shops and restaurants without having to glance over our shoulders to see if someone is lurking behind, waiting to pounc e.
• The 10% late fee for property tax in July is awful. I was late by an hour yet penalized like others who don’t pay it for 364 days after it’s due. There should be a prorated amount if paid one day late. Like 1% not 10%. It’s a busy time of year and just a month after taxes are due and paid. We are spending tons of money within those few weeks and the timing is bad.
• The ability to host recreational events bring massive influx to all business and service industry staff, our facilities are very lack luster compared to other cities our teams and programs travel to. Lack of useable green spaces for these teams and folks coming into town between events has been expressed. Nothing to do but sit in a hotel or at event building!
• The biggest thing the city of cranbrook can do is to be more transparent and actually value what the citizens are saying in this survey. There have been other surveys that the city has put out then completely disregarded the citizens input
• the city has mismanaged one of the most used areas in Cranbrook for years. They have neglected Idle Wild Park and continue to do so. It is the most used park in town year round yet sees the least amount of effort unless and event is happening (fishing derby etc). You also indicated that costs have risen for the city, remember these costs have also risen for the residents your taxing. the pr ice of groceries, gas, vehicles etc have all increased just like your precious fire trucks that get used for 2 fires a year.
• The City is doing a great job now and I appreciate the opportunity to contribute in this way.
• The city is ideal to be a sports and recreational hub. Need to continue to enhance youth recreational and athletic events both as an economic opportunity and to support youth being active for their personal physical and mental health
• The city is too management top heavy. Cuts to management would reduce costs without having to cut operational staff and servi ce levels.
• The city needs to attract more industry to Cranbrook so people have good paying jobs the more money people make they will be spending it in the town righ Now in Cranbrook most of the jobs are minim wage jobs and people can’t Live on Walmart wages
• The city needs to attract more people who pay full taxes (seniors pay less taxes). If you cut all the programs and maintenance then you will decrease the desirability of the city. This is such backwards thinking and is one of the reasons the City is so behind where it should be. Stop thinking that this is Cranbrook 25 years ago and start thinking for Cranbrook 25 years from now. This survey is frustrating as it does not show any forward thinking or innovation.
• The city needs to encourage new business, residential properties etc and increase the tax benefits to the city but not current residents and businesses.
• The city needs to grow and increase its population density in order for economic growth to occur. This will naturally lead to greater revenue for the city and more population density leads to greater value for dollar for city services. There needs to be more housing built, but that will take time and there is limited land (though the city should annex more). A few years ago the city finally took the prudent and long-overdue step of allowing for legal secondary suite development in existing housing, but the uptake on this has been low. A major deterrent here is that developing a secondary suite leads to higher property value assessment and this leads to higher proper ty taxes. In addition, the city has said that homes with a secondary suite will have to pay double the price for city utilities, even though no additional utility connections are needed to the residence! This is price gouging and strong deterrent to homeowners to take advantage of the secondary suite program. Other cities do not double city utilities for secondary suites (see Fernie as a local example). The city should immediately reverse course on this and even consider giving homeowners who develop and rent out secondary suites a preferenti al property tax rate to encourage uptake. Stop punishing your citizens who are helping to solve the housing crisis! If we can fi nally get some real population growth in Cranbrook the economic windfall should help the city grow its revenue and achieve better economies of scale for its services.
• The city needs to have an annual recreation pass. The options for family or individuals should be available. If the city takes away the ice from kinsmen arena there will be MANY unhappy citizens. I could considering moving out of town if this happened.
• The City needs to look inwards at how to save money instead of constantly increasing the taxes and subsequently increasing the cost to the Citizens of this City. In a world where everything has increased for the consumer, we need to ensure we are spending responsibly where it counts. Reduce the number of supervisory roles within Public Works and disclose where our money is currently going. I pay more in Cranbrook on an 1970's home than I did in Alberta on a 2010 home, with a half-acre lot, 3 care garage and in a desired neighborhood. We deserve to know where our money is going, and who is salaried employees in this City, off our tax dollar.
• The city only seems to support specific groups, very narrow focused. We don’t need more pickle ball facilities. The growing number of youth need more sports options, not less. We need a multiport complex and stop keeping things so siloed and singularly controlled.
• The city should attract more business to town even giving new businesses a tax break to start out. New businesses need new employees who in turn will have to pay taxes. The city should also be attracting big business. As the saying goes, we are the key city of the kootenays.
• The city should consider putting water meters in all properties in Cranbrook.
• The City should create a tiered tax for undeveloped or empty properties. This should increase tax revenue and push developers and investors to develop their properties and even decrease housing costs.
• The City should seriously look into other more innovative cities that use some entrepreneurial type thinking to get some added value for City assets.
• The city’s lack of growth mind set and only focusing on be development that is not affordable for the average person in Cranbrook. The city needs to think outside of the box and allow for rural residents to subdivide for family or into smaller lots, are have the ability to creat second dwelling on their property like carriage houses to create more rentals and housing options.
• The cost of ice surfaces per year for families that don’t play hockey or skate. Shouldn’t users cover the costs? All the bike paths ect what are the costs total should be user based. How much do we spend on homeless encampments? Can we encourage undeveloped lot owners to sell stagnant lots at a reasonable price to increase development, therefore more revenue for the city? There’s a lot beside my house I’d buy tomorrow and build a garage on it if the developers would sell it.
• The cost of land for housing and the cost of housing is way out of whack in cranbrook. Streamline bylaws and permitting process to stimulate multi family market and affordable housing.
• The daycare proposed for Gyro Park should not go ahead at this location. Please find an alternative location for the daycare.
• The fact that seeing the city wants to take away ice from kinsmen it’s so incredibly disheartening and disappointing to even hear. This will directly impact our children and youth and living in a small community keeping them active in hockey or figure skating can make a huge difference in mental health as well overall health and keeping them on the right path. Why is taking ice away not a big concern for the city. Look how many families use those facilities. Instead of looking at ways larger cities have accommodated growth like structures like the dome it always goes back to the ice. Seeing the topic even being brought up about potentially loosing ice and the ci ty wanting to remove green space makes me really question as a born and raised Cranbrook resident if I want to stay and raise my kids long term in this community. After seeing the impact of last year on my kids, the financial impact of many families having to drive to canal flats for hockey I can’t believe taking ice away in kinsmen is even on the table. The city needs to do better and put more focus on our children and youth especially when we are talking about our significant drug problem. Keeping kids active is huge.
• The flower baskets and flower beds around town could have up keep down by volunteer groups.
• The Kinsman area is well used throughout the winter months. Especially for school programs. Removing the ice surface would gr eatly impact youth in our town. The homeless/drug issues in this town have increased drastically. It needs to be solved.
• The Kinsmen Arena is well utilized by user groups, children and adults alike having no ice surface would greatly impact minor hockey, schools, and other programs that use this space. Having non city residents pay a fee to utilize recreation spaces seems like a better plan as they do not pay this fee on their taxes.
• The library needs more funds, not less! They are fighting with inflation as well and are a vital community asset.
• The pool is used by many people in the mornings and should not be shut.
• The pre payment of utilities is not enough time. I our first utility invoice was March 26 with a deadline of April 30 for prepayment discount. Too short a time to come up with over $800. Struggling family's cannot afford to facilitate this discount.
• The Province should be subsidizing the City for all of the costs to support the homeless. There should be no costs born to the City for the homeless issue. Get some industry to come to town, creating jobs and generating revenue through taxes.
• The public bus system needs to be reduced…it drives around empty all the time.
• The RDEK definitely need to tax their residents to pay for City services. Incentives to residents who look after their residential areassidewalks, corner plantings. Have a sponsorship program for groups and individuals. This block cared for by.....?Fire Dept. Could be judges or garbage collection services.
• the RDEK residents must come to the table and pay their share to utilize city infrastructure and programming. This is an uneven playing field and Cranbrook residents are subsidizing their use of and maintenance of these amenities. I would suggest implementing a pilot program where ID is required for a year, to calculate what the RDEK usage numbers are (maybe you already have this data). If the RDEK and the City partnered on this, it could provide metrics to support moving forward. Some data could be gleaned from regi stration level ie put a disclaimer that the info will be share with city parks and rec, then use the home addresses to build out the database for registered recreation. Same as renting out the walleyball courts, etc. Question about the 2 tiered system - how will kids with no govt issued ID be able to confirm their address?
• The rink is one of the lower savings so I i definitely vote NO to that one
• The rinks and recreation facilities are vital for our community
• The thought of losing what we have is tough to swallow. A way to increase revenue or make better use of the resources we have is much more palatable. It is important that we don’t lose sight of our community and the purpose of these services.
• The thought of removing ice out of the kinsmen should not even be considered. We are already short on ice and have teams doubled up sharing ice times. To say this was trialed last and it worked is totally ridiculous to say. This forced many families to travel to canal flats and Kimberly increasing the cost of this already very expensive sport. The only reason why it worked last year was because ot her communities gave up ice to support the city in need. The fact that the city is even considering this is extremely disappointing and makes me question our leadership.
• Theatre and festivals I feel can have reduced funding, I feel people will reduce attendance while inflation is higher
• there are lots of of ways to be more efficient if you would care to look.
• There are number of top end city employees who are not needed making large salary’s. Clean up city hall large savings yearly will result. Reduce red tape and decrease the staff. Huge savings
• There is a greater demand than supply for swim lessons. None of these questions talk about staffing, and the increase in costs associated with an increase in staff and salaries I think leasing City Property in a better plan than selling City Property
• There is clearly some form of mismanagement within the city. While inflation has affected us all, the projects that the city has undertaken have all been over budget and taken substantially longer than needed. The time it has taken to repair and replace a city bloc k is excessive. If the city hired a contractor and strictly managed the time and budget, these costs would not have increased to the amount the survey claims they are. Moreover, the city does not need brand-new F-150 pickup trucks in their fleet. The city should have delayed purchasing these to save money, as many consumers have chosen to do. City employees are also paid substantially more than industry standards. Paying employees a normal wage would be one way to save money. City taxes are substantially higher than those of the neighbouring RDEK residents, and RDEK residents arguably have better snow removal, road maintenance, services, and a better lifestyle. The RDEK sets a prime example for the city of Cranbrook on how to properly manage municipalities for area residents. The poor management within the City of Cranbrook has gone on for too long, and the city needs an overhaul of its internal management.
• They say “ you only get one chance to make a first impression. “. Make people want to come here to live because they see a be autiful well cared for city. Make the residents proud of where they live which will spill into their desire to keep up their properties. We have so much to offer with our hospital, golf courses, ski hills etc.. the beautiful mountains surrounding Cranbrook, it could grow i f nurtured properly. I have often heard of Cranbrook referred to as “Cranhole” which hurts me, as I have been a resident here for many years and although it has its faults it’s where I live, and I resent that comment. Make people WANT to live here. I dont think the population has grown much over the years, although it seems we are constant.y building new large expensive residential communities. If these were filled they would all contribute to the tax base. There seems to me no reason why Cranbrook couldn’t grow into a much desired place to call home if we put forth an effort to make it BOOM.
• This city needs to be better. All the costs you just listed for city trucks, sweepers, fire trucks. You're not buying new ones every year. the population is growing here fast and we need the city to be better
• This could be the worst survey I've ever seen in my life. The public is going to know when you come out and drop your new budget that you're going to be pointing to the results of this survey. This is not indicative of the residents it's a token attempt to tr y and develop talking points about what it is that a small segment of people who actually take surveys responded. Everybody knows that costs have increased and everybody knows that pressure is put down on municipalities first and foremost. Let's get to the real issues here and stop playing games, if you want to cut services let's have a serious discussion about the new services we are planning on contributing to. Let's also put a little more effort and dedication toward dealing with our provincial government and federal government has necessary instead of rolling over and trying to take the brunt of what their jobs should be.
• This town is declining in a major way. I’m not sure I would recommend Cranbrook to a young family looking to move here. The homeless and crime issue is atrocious. There is no plan to enhance the community experience with recreations for youth and and families only ideas to cut it to save tax costs. If Cranbrook doesn’t make some changes and start to provide then it will continue as a dying community focused on seniors, snowbirds, pickleball and the hospital. Charge the damn tax and become easier to work with while puttingc ommunity and young families and the growth of a progressive cranbrook first.
• This town is not the place we all used to love, d Figure it out
• Tie City Wages to the Market, currently city workers are paid much more than non-city workers, we are paying for it with the 6% increase. Do not redevelop the police station.
• To keep single entrance to recreation that will not cause more labour or administration costs tax Reagional district land owners, Does regional district pay anything for use of or roads? and maintainence? Do business in the city help maintain roads with taxes? Are city busses paying there own way or are we who pay taxes keeping it running? As not all areas are serviced by busses maybe riders could pay more, Not seniors, Please do not cut back on Police or Fire fighters, Rather then expand the city more causing more stress on road developent etc encourage development of properties within the city, Please ask workers to sand outlying city roads AFTER plowing then' Again I suggest you only dust contol city roads and not bck allies.
• Top heavy. Management heavy
• Tourism needs to be increased via advertising and social media. Our scenery is gorgeous, the town not so much.
• Tourist tax to hotels and airport fees for out of towners.
• Train staff to operate equipment for road maintenance.
• Transparency with events and losses incurred, please. We need to stop making risky fiscal decisions for events.
• Trash and recycling pick up should only be made from one side of street with the exception of main roadways. That should result in labor and fuel cost reductions. As previously stated reduce all department expenses in an equal percentage amount.
• Trim work force
• Try to attract bigger business to city to get more commercial taxea
• Turn off city vehicles when idling next to jobs being performed. Upgrade municipal buildings with energy efficient systems. Have your operations go paperless. Dedicate environmental fees. Only purchase environment friendly products.
• Until the drug addict/crime problem is reduced it will be difficult to attract new business to town.
• Use arts and cultural events to attract tourists and acquire revenue through ticket sales.
• Use bylaw infraction fines as needed income. Hire more bylaw officers so the city does not require a private citizen from squealing on their neighbour.
• use your money more wisely
• Utilize echo park and build and create more sports areas to be used for revenue.
• utilize the manpower more efficiently and trim down upper management if things are too top heavy
• Wages/Salaries/Benefits/ Expense accounts/ Perks of upper management?
• We are a growing community, we should not be reduction anything but wasted tax dollars
• We are a hockey town. Do not take away the ice at the memorial arena. The past years without those arenas caused many issues for hockey parents. I’m not even a hockey parent. But my nephew had to travel for hockey at the age of 7. And road planning could have been better. The main road being replaced without changing anything such as exit lanes for the mall or businesses on the other side. Turning directly off of the strip is a nightmare.
• We are NOT in favour of water meters for many reasons (administrative cost, capital costs) but we would like to see an increase in either the frontage portion of taxes or on the water utility fees as long as it was dedicated (as the road maintenace )to upgrading the reservoir and improving the supply. What is the point of beautifying the city if we are forced to let trees, perennials and lawns die?
• We are paying for the past mistakes of previous city councils- delays in repairs to Memorial arena and roads.
• We can all agree the Rock n Roll festival is great for our community financially. We need to utilize our facilities more to attract other events like tournaments for sports team. We have an amazing Western Financial Hockey Rink, along with the Memorial rink, to s upport a hockey tournament. With our facilities costing us significantly to run them, let's use these facilities for events. That Memorial rink roof replacement was a big sting for us so we need to utilize this asset to pay it off. As for service reductions. I do think the questions asked were good. There are some like the 1% road tax that shouldn't be cut completely. These things should be reduced maybe by .5% to help balance things. I do think charging an additional tier for our facilities for out of town users (For example Kimberley residents). That will help us a lot.
• We do not need lawns, turn them to clover lawns to save water!!!
• We don’t have enough ice time as it is. With the memorial arena closure families had to travel far distances to receive ice time (Canal Flats) this is unfair to families
• We have a great fire department but I do feel that next time their contract comes up it needs to be compared to other sectors contract packages. Theirs seems high.
• We have the highest taxes and your residents cannot afford for them to continue to rise
• We need a multi sport indoor facility. Freeze income of city workers. Cut some upper management positions
• We need a new ice surface before you shut down the kinsmen. As a user I know there isn’t ice available at the two other rinks to make up for closing it
• We need more high-density and low income housing. Can the city administer or partner with a company to develop and build more high density housing? This would turn into revenue for the city via property taxes on more units, and assist with housing for thos e who need it most. Another suggestion is to increase property taxes on the highest valued properties in town. These people are the ones who are able to pay their utility bills and property taxes for the year. Why are those at an advantage already being given discounts on city services?
• We need more rec facilities not less. We need new schools. We need to attract doctors to our city, not chase them away making cranbrook and insight dump to keep city taxes low.
• We need multi use recreation complex/faculty. Long term vision, like a YMCA. Lethbridge and Brandon MB are great examples of incredible facilities that offer youth and families (particularly underprivileged)more than the rec Plex.
• We need to keep sports and recreation a priority.
• We need to make our city a place to attract new businesses and families. Parks are important community
• We need to make this an attractive place to do business and live in order to grow the tax base. With the increase in crime over the past several years, Cranbrook is becoming a less attractive option for prospective new residents and businesses.
• We only need 1 Mayor and 2 councilmen. Nothing more nothing less. Cut all the other wasted 'friends of the Mayor' out of the paybook. And if the Mayor wants all these Homeless Junkies here in Cranbrook, then He should house them and PAY for them at his residence!! Oh!!! and how much did it cost to generate this survey!!! who got paid for this CRAP!!! you know why we are all pissed off!!! GIVE US OUR TOWN BACK!!!!! I'm sooooo ashamed of this City!!!!
• We pay some of the highest per 1000 property tax in the province and things still can’t be done properly. Why is giving you more to do less the answer in your mind? The money you receive now isn’t managed properly. Please take a very serious look inside city hall. One excess employee saves more than many of your cost saving measures listed.
• Well pothole around town are a joke maybe fix them properly instead of every few months.
• WFP is extremely underutilized. Bringing in more events will turn more of a profit for the city. Bring in more tourists throughout the year. The homeless situation is a huge concern. It's the first thing tourists see, not a good look and not somewhere they'll want to stay and spend money. Lessen the resources or find a better a solution. The hockey parent community is strong here and seem to have a lot of influence to support what they want. I think it's unfair that the memorial arena had so much money spent on it meanwhile we can't get a traffic light fixed. There are lots of residents who have nothing to do with hockey that would benefit from other sports in the kinsmen arena year round, not just winter.
• What are the administrative costs in various departments? how much redundancy in positions do you have that is costing taxpay ers a significant amount of dollars, that if streamlined through retirement etc. could account for a portion of the 5- 8% you are talking about. I imagine the majority of these positions make well over 100K a year.
• What are the increased costs over the last 5 years especially for bylaw, police, fire & ambulance services associated to the addicted & homeless populations that will have to be passed on to the tax payer. What are the specific numbers on the Cranbrook “homeles s” population numbers 2014 to 2024 and has there been a survey to find out how and where they all came to be in our town? More transparency would go a long way if all levels of government want the tax payer to bear the costs of these issues.
• What does public transit cost taxpayers? There appear to be a large amount of nearly empty buses in Cranbrook. Require more competition or privatization of City services where possible. The statistic of costs vs output with regards to infrastructure is appalling! Is this work completed by City staff or is it Bid on? Improve/build more bike trails and jump tracks or skate park. Costs will be balanced with increased business revenue, happier, healthier kids. Charge a small yearly Library membership charge to offset the expenses. Why do taxpayers pay for Shadow Mountain Sewer Operations? Western Financial Place costs taxpayers ~2.5 Million per year!
• Whatever you do, DO NOT close the Kinsmen!!
• When is the last time a staff audit was done. Wages are a huge expense for taxpayers. Are all the current positions necessary? IAFF can be bargained to pay different rates and do NOT have to follow Vancouver (I believe). Why do firefighters in Cranbrook ear n the same as a firefighter in Vancouver?
• When reducing grants for organizations consider the value they give the community. Street angels contributes a lot. sweethear ts’ contributes very little.
• Work on city beautification for tourism.
• Work on income generation and ethical partnerships. Reduce spending on highering consultants to do work internal staff could do.
• Work to increase tax base
• Would be nice to see decreases in areas that can at least keep the infrastructure updated. The amount of damage to vehicles due to lack of road maintenance is unacceptable. Another thing to look closer at is wages and maybe those need to be lowered.
• Would it be possible to create volunteer positions for the city that would relieve some financial pressure. This would be geared towards high school/college students and older generations. The type of people who may need volunteer hours for school or choose to v olunteer because they are no longer working but still want to contribute to the community.
• Would not be in agreement to selling city owned lands, however would be in agreement of leasing or renting for short terms.
• Would there be any savings with a move to metered water service?
• wouldnt matter
• YES
• Yes Cut back senior management positions
• Yes, fix theroads that are falling apart. Don't waste money on what is working.
• Yes, reduce wages to Mayor and Council, reduce the amount of people attending the UBCM and reduce the travel expenses to staff for their symposiums. Use your own local experts rather than high cost consultants from other communities. Keep Gyro Park a green space. Cut the lawns less if you have too. If you want the carrot from the Province for a Daycare using existing undeveloped City pr operties such as the Kinsman Quad Ball park area. By developing the unsightly dusty field adjacent to the park with a Day Care you and the Province would be developing a more slightly premises rather than destroying green space at Gyro Park. The city seems to be doing lots of last minute work. Is it because they still have money left in their department budgets and they want to make sure they spend every penny before the budget spending is closed for the year? Maybe a small incentive to the Department Heads to see who can provi de the service required with spending the least amount of money.
• Yes, that the city DOES NOT put any money towards events like Blitzville. The argument that that event draws individuals to town is laughable.
• Yes, the City roads need to be maintained but not replaced, I live in an area of the City that was new in 2007. The roads are getting worse every year. Why you ask? Because there is not a Maintenance Program happening, every year the cracks in the road on my street are getting bigger. Every rainfall the water runs down the road into these cracks that freeze and expand year after year. I have mentioned this many times before and continue to preach that soon these roads will alligator and need to be completely replac ed. A crack sealing maintenance program, is 95% more economical, Bill Marchner lead a fine example of this program while he was employed with the Engineering Department at the City years ago.
• Yes. 1) Cut some of the red tape in engineering development approvals. Development needs to speed up. Current engineering requirements and approval times are ridiculous, causing all developers to stop projects when they learn what city is requiring (unnecessary upgrades). With more development (high density residential downtown for example), there would be more tax revenue. 2) Get rid of homelessness and stop providing for them. They’re making nobody want to visit/move to Cranbrook and costing us mor e long term to provide for and cleanup after. Plus, put rather bluntly, they are an eyesore to the city.
• YES. Developers or as we know them Calgary speculators need to pay a holding fee equal to the highest and best use of their vacant land. Vacant land needs to be developed for the benefit for the residents of Cranbrook not Alberta developers. An example is in Park Royal where a Alberta developer had a 1 year permit to build homes. Nothing happened but the developer now received two years extension at zero cost to the developer. This should have been a $100,000 option fee. Other vacant land owned by speculators needs to be taxed at the highest and best use this will motivate the developers into action. Kootenai Springs abandoned structure needs to be demolished at owners expense or sold off with proceeds going to the City. Additionally the developers need to pay for and ins tall all infrastructure (roads, lights, sidewalks, schools etc.)prior to building a singe home.
• Yes. Mayor and council be a volunteer position
• You are lying about the disruption that closing the Memorial caused. Many struggling families had to travel as far as Canal F lats (in mid Winter) to practice or play games this was a huge disruption and the fact that you are lying to the city is disgraceful.
• You cannot close the pool or have it not open until 8. There are SO many people who depend on the pool at 6:30 when it opens, me being one of them. This is the only time for some people to swim since they have to work and go straight to work after the pool. Opening the pool later would be a TERRIBLE mistake.
• You could charge slightly more for public pool admission.
• You guys always make these choices and probably don't even use half the facilities. Stop cutting things thst keep children ac tive and having fun. How about instead of taking away 5% here 5% there don't take your 5% raise that you probably make a ton of money. Stop hiring so many managers and learn how to spend the money responsibly. This town is becoming a shit hole
• You have a duty to the people to maintain the current levels of service, else as you have pointed out, future costs will be i nflated and beyond reinstatement. I don't understand how then this can even be proposed to residents who are absolutely in dire state now for costs to come down. Because none of us are going to get a windfall inheritance or lottery win, and to pick up where we left off years ago will be an impossibility more than affording the couple hundred dollars extra per year.
• You need to attract bigger business large companies to gain more tax revenue.. you can’t just be a tourist town. Half the people here work away because there isn’t any good paying jobs.
• You outlined increased costs of vehicles. Service the ones you have and stop buying new. I hear that a fire truck has to be r eplaced every 10 years whether it is well used or not. Get it recertified rather than buying a new one.
• You pay your staff too much, some of them really do nothing like bylaw
• You should have more activities for the residents of cranbrook. It's been really disappointing since covid.
• Your questions are very confusing, ei: we agree with the city renting or leasing existing property but not selling in case it is needed in the future. Renting and leasing generates long-term funding. Two-tier system: We would like a one-tier system and collect taxes from the RDEK which cuts down on administrative fees.
• Zero scape city properties for less maintenance, not lawns, consider clover. Enforce home owner clears sidewalk in front of their house. Eliminate metered parking, and sell parking pass. Reduce garbage pick up to every other week in winter, not summer as it woul d smell. Reduce policing costs by actually building supported shelter housing for unhoused. Maintain safe injection access regardless of who wins election. Wasted money over past few years: Stop street line painting. People know how to drive, how to navigate a 4 way stop (and a 5-way stop) and pass a school bus safely in front of MBHS. Why waste money on the ridiculous lines?!!! Don't landscape with sidewalk bump outs downtown, with snow you cannot navigate streets with full size trucks around those bump outs without clipping mirrors. Just pave it like a regular sidewalk and street. If you eliminated the cobble stones you'd probs have enough depth to angle park more cars versus parallel park. Don't fence and gravel the new supports on Memorial Arena, nobody will be able to drive down the side of the rink now once it snows. Charge user fees for soccer fields and ball diamonds like you do for rinks. Re-enact the sports pass for all residents, more money charged for rural users. Ask service clubs, local businesses and garden club to assist with watering fl owers downtown on weekends, not City Staff.
