Sechelt council is expected to move forward with increases to several of the front-counter fees charged for items like zoning maps or criminal record checks from local RCMP, but it has rejected the idea of charging people for printed copies of meeting agendas.
Like many local governments, Sechelt is trying to be “paperless” as much as possible and agenda packages are often large documents of 100 pages or more.
In a report to the April 24 meeting of council’s committee of the whole, district staff had proposed a fee equivalent to the charges for photocopying, $1 for a double-sided page.
“I see the logic in charging photocopying fees for agendas, but I think that it’s a core service that we should be providing as the District of Sechelt,” Coun. Matt McLean said. “We can look at other measures to reduce the cost of printing agendas, but we cannot charge citizens to view agendas.”
“Not everybody is technologically inclined, or connected, or able to download them… I think that charging for agendas reduces the access to government for people,” said Coun. Alton Toth.
Mayor Darnelda Siegers said that, fee or no fee, the district should continue to encourage residents to use paperless options. “I think I’d like to see how many copies we actually print. If it’s six that we print – not a big deal. But if we have a lot of people in the community who just come [for a printed agenda] because they’re used to using paper and they want to continue to use paper, maybe there’s another alternative for some of them.”
The committee also recommended continuing to provide copies free of charge to community associations.
Staff have estimated the various fee increases, including the RCMP administrative frees, will bring in an extra $39,000 per year.
