Dear Editor:
Provincial law dictates/requires three steps to have an amalgamation of municipalities.
1. Both councils have to pass the exact motion to instruct staff to develop an amalgamation plan, with a joint committee to guide the task.
2. Both councils have to ratify the plan and approve the exact same plan.
3. The plan goes to referendum in each municipality and has to be approved separately in both.
A non-binding referendum at this point would be a waste of time as there wouldn't be the details to vote on.
Everybody has a different idea of what would be in a merger.
Voters won't vote to give politicians a blank cheque.
Including West Vancouver is a non-starter. As pointed out in the article, West Vancouver spends about 50 per cent more than North Vancouver.
Amalgamation is primarily a merger of the budgets. We would be forced to budget at West Vancouver's levels or dramatically reduce the West Vancouver levels.
Either way, it would never pass a referendum in all three areas.
A referendum to have a study commissioned was held in the city in 1981. It failed as voters didn't think it needed to be studied - just gotten on with.
The same thing applies now. Both councils could pass the required legal motion.
We could have a plan written by January of 2016 and a referendum in 2016 so that the 2017 elections would only elect one mayor, hopefully only six councillors, have one city hall and cut the senior staff in half.
George Pringle
unitenorthvan.ca
