Ready for Change (published in June 2013 Centrepost)

Before and since I became your Kings County councillor reducing the number of local government units has been debated. Streamlining government programs and reducing costs to the taxpayer should drive our discussions.  Do you know that close to seventy elected individuals currently represent Kings County citizens?  We work for you as commissioners of one of several villages, as councillors or mayors for the towns of Wolfville, Kentville or Berwick, or as your Kings County councillors.

Merge. Eliminate. Consolidate. Collaborate.  There are many ways to change.  There’s one very good local example of why we should… Valley Waste Resource Authority. Collaboration between many municipal units has given us “garbage” pick up that’s better. And it costs only $163 per house per year. It’s so good VWRA has won two provincial awards for leadership and innovation in waste reduction.

Your municipal leaders are currently examining further mergers.  Like waste management this regionalization has been initiated at the provincial level. This time the topic is economic development.  We are perhaps only weeks, or a month or two away, from signing a Regional Economic Network agreement with municipal units from both Hants and Kings Counties.  This agreement will match municipal and provincial dollars in equal parts.

A more “made at home” collaboration is also due to be discussed.  It would focus on the merits of merging planning departments...  an idea that was enthusiastically endorsed at the February 2050 governance workshop...  but that has stalled somewhat since then [or at least has disappeared from public discussion].

Economies of scale will help us achieve the efficiencies needed to fully develop our valley assets.  To share or not won’t matter much if we continue to put decisions off.  Our young people are leaving and too many storefronts are empty. 

More opportunities for municipal units to get together are needed.  I’d like to see a collaborative, independent, top-to-bottom audit of all municipal government programs. This would be a great starting point.  Results could form a basis for next steps. First, by showing precisely where tax dollars are not giving us full value. Next, by suggesting where we can spend to address gaps in service and get a bigger bang for our bucks.

With some good old-fashioned valley gumption and ingenuity I bet we can find all kinds of ways to get more out of what we’ve already got. That’s what we can work for together. Better local government.