Do we need a mathematician on staff?

I continue to be amazed at the hard work by the District of Lantzville to control and manipulate information to ensure that the residents of Lantzville do not get a vote on the water agreement.

On October 10th, 2014 I was informed by the CAO via email that the District did not have to obtain elector assent (aka referendum) for the water agreement "essentially because the agreement is operating in nature, not capital."

The following excerpt was included in the email response:
 

Part 2 — Exemptions from Elector Approval Requirement

Commitments that are not calculation liabilities

6  Approval of the electors is not required under section 175 (2) [liabilities under agreements] of the Community Charter unless the liability is one of the following:

(a) a liability of a capital nature, whether or not it is or includes a contingent commitment;

                                      (b) a loan guarantee given by a municipality.

I found this a weak defense, since the water agreement clearly speaks to capital liabilities in Section 14 - "Future Nanaimo Water System Capital Costs".   At the public information session on October 15th, 2014 I questioned the staff further on this matter. 

At this time, the District's lawyer spoke to a referendum not required as Lantzville fell into an assent free zone.  This was new information to me at the time, and a change in their position.  They are now acknowledging a liability is present, but it is a small one in their opinion.

What is an assent free zone?

Basically, approval of the electors is not required if at the time a liability is incurred, if the value of the liability does not exceed 5% of the annual revenue of the municipality.

We can ball park one of these numbers.  The District revenues will be just north of 3 million dollars per year over the next few years.  Let's say $3,100,000.   5% of this is $155,000.

So our magic target is around $155,000.  Lantzville cannot be presented a bill from Nanaimo for greater than $155,000, this will keep us in an assent free zone.

Ok, let's move on to what the liability is - the second number required in this assent free comparison.  The liability comes from the water agreement, section 14 - "Future Nanaimo Water System Capital Costs".  This is a future liability that has not been determined.  It's value is unknown.

How can the District declare that an unknown, future liability is less than $155,000?

You cannot perform the mathematical determination on being assent free - because one of the variables is unknown.  It is simply not possible. 

Bear with me a bit longer - it gets even better.

I sent an email to the District and Council requesting the information on the assent free determination.

Here is an excerpt from the response:
"As the information you are requesting is not considered routinely available you may wish to consider making an FOI request for records."


To put in plain English.  No - you cannot have the information.  Put in a freedom of information (FOI) request.


Is it me, or is this not totally ridiculous.  Why is the public not able to see this information? What is there to hide?

Which then leads me to question what is being hidden? 

Maybe this is the District and Council showcasing Transparency-In-Action...
This is just wrong.  Why is so much effort going into controlling and manipulating information to ensure that the residents of Lantzville do not get a vote on the water agreement.