The B.C. Mayors' Caucus called upon the provincial and federal governments to help their communities deal with the challenges facing them, through a better use of resources.
Among the 86 municipalities represented at the May 16 to 18 Penticton caucus was Sechelt and its mayor, John Henderson.
"If you think about municipalities, we have the great majority of the obligations to provide services directly to the communities," he said, pointing to roads, sewers and water services. "We don't have the taxation structure that allows us to levy sufficient taxes to pay for those major infrastructure projects."
Municipalities often find themselves hat in hand, pleading to the provincial or federal government for the funding they need to complete projects and maintain infrastructure, he said.
A co-operative deal with other levels of government, one that affords municipalities "an equal place at the table" when addressing the needs of residents, was viewed as especially important given that "the demands on municipal infrastructure over the next 20 years [will be] daunting."
According to Henderson, the biggest concern is perhaps predictability when it comes to maintenance and infrastructure investments.
"We can develop a 10 or 15 year plan for infrastructure improvement and we can sit down at the table as partners with the feds and the province to develop a funding formula for Sechelt," he said. "Then we don't have to worry 'golly, should we try to do the sewer pipes first before the roads?'"
More than half of the province's municipalities were represented at the three-day event.
The goals of the caucus also included pursuance of joint economic development, sharing of resources and information sharing.
For Henderson, it was a chance to relate the challenges faced by municipalities generally and Sechelt specifically.
"We spend more time going around trying to cajole the money out of other orders of government instead of being efficient and saying 'look this has to be done,'" he said.
