More punishments for building on your property (CVRD)50k fines, Audits and Tax Dollars (N.C.)
May 1st CVRD and North Cowichan Meetings.
Hello wonderful members,
Just a little update to let you know a few of the agenda items on the meetings coming up for your area .
It is easy to get apathetic, but that is what they hope for … I mean they are looking at safe spaces bylaws because people are rightfully upset and are showing up! Unfortunately, the CVRD doesn’t honour the fact that people work, and hold their meetings in the middle of a work day at 1:30.
Safe Spaces Article: https://wwind.ca/cvrd-considers-removing-public-input-from-committee-meetings/
CVRD Agenda Meeting Notes of Possible Interest:
It looks like the CVRD is adding amendments to some bylaws - one of these amendments looks like it is adding much stricter rules and fines around altering of land or a building in any area that the CVRD deems a Development Permit Area.
The areas cited in this bylaw are: 1. a, b, d, h, i, j, ( I am sure you can see where that is going - see graph ):
AMENDMENT
Bylaw No. 4483 is hereby amended as follows:
a. By adding the following Whereas clause as the sixth Whereas clause: WHEREAS the Cowichan Valle Regional District may, pursuant to Part 12 of the Local Government Act, enforce bylaws including by imposing fines, penalties and costs; b. Part 8 Repeal is relabeled Part 9 Repeal;
Attachment A: CVRD Bylaw No. 4587 Page 2 c. Part 8 Offences and Enforcement is added with the following sections:
60. Every person who: a) commences construction of, an addition to, or alteration of a building or other structure within a Development Permit Area designated by the Cowichan Valley Regional District under s. 488(1) of the Local Government Act;
b) alters land within a Development Permit Area designated by the Cowichan Valley Regional District under section 488 (1) (a) or (b) of the Local Government Act; or c) alters land or a building or other structure on land within a Development Permit Area designated by the Cowichan Valley Regional District under section 488 (1) (d), (h), (i) or (j) of the Local Government Act; shall first obtain a development permit, unless an exemption applies.
61. Every person who obtains a Land Use Permit or any other approval under this bylaw shall strictly comply with the terms and conditions of the approval and shall develop land strictly in accordance with the Land Use Permit.
62. Every person who: a) violates a provision of this bylaw; b) permits, suffers or allows any act to be done in violation of any provision of this bylaw; c) neglects to do anything required to be done under any provision of this bylaw; or d) allows a violation of this bylaw to continue; commits an offence and, upon conviction, shall be liable to a fine or penalty up to $50,000, plus the cost of prosecution.
63. Each day a violation, contravention or breach of this bylaw continues is a separate offence
Section R8, and R9 on the agenda ( https://cvrd.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=4766) is the consolidation of all areas in a bylaw and the summery of “What we heard “ from Local Area Plan consolidations.
CVRD Wed reviews a past motion and how it looks going forward. The original motion : That the Board approves that staff submit a request to the Minister of Municipal Affairs for $60,000 to support the hiring of a consultant to complete a Community Issues Assessment for South Cowichan /
Electoral Areas A, B and C. On October 11, 2023, the Minister of Municipal Affairs responded with an approval of $60,000 restructure planning grant for the CVRD under the Restructure Planning Grant Program.
Timeline to be implemented:
Here is the demands for community engagement from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs (hopefully it happens) :
North Cowichan Council Meeting (5pm):
As we know, the Province has downloaded so many issues on to our towns from placing “Safe Injection sites” to “Transition housing” into our communities, leaving our local governments unable to contend with the outfalls. Our local governments have written many letters to the province and have asked the locals to do the same.
Mayor Douglas wrote a letter asking for funding for mental health and addiction facilities or help … the province wrote back stating they could not help due to financial reasons. Total joke, as their safe supply looks to be costing approximately 30 million annually, with deaths increasing yearly.
A couple articles in the Westward this past month regarding this situation:
https://wwind.ca/bus-shelters-to-be-removed-amidst-public-safety-concerns/
https://wwind.ca/marina-sapozhnikov-constituents-going-through-hell/
North Cowichan Audit Time.
North Cowichan will receive the audit for the Joint Utility Board. But attached to the schedule is the full audit report from KPMG. Now many parts of the budget and audit are to vague for a laymen to understand, however some things stood out as notes of interest, but without an hour long dialogue with the Budget Department, or an independent audit (by the people) we can only speculate. Some budget points are astronomically high when looking as an outsider.
Recommendations from KPMG (Where they found some issues) Will this top be an issue with the Growing Community Grant? (more about this grant later)
More Tax Payer dollars were given to the Muni. for the Growing Community Fund.
What is the “Growing Community Fund?” Take the money and take our direction basically “All local governments are required to report on the use of funds in their annual audited financial statements. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs will provide further guidance to municipalities and regional districts on the use of their funds in the coming weeks.”
Though it states it is for “growing communities” infrastructure, there are many ways these tax dollars can be used. Additionally, our communities' OCPs, and other plans state that our communities will only grow by aprox 3k by 2050 in N.C. and CVRD separately. With Bill 44 and the overriding of local governments Local Area Plans, what and who are the forcing, (bribing) our munis to create infrastructure for..?
Section 7.1 of the agenda, you can read all the attachments to the audit if you have the accounting brain. https://pub-northcowichan.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=17fb1af6-8ea6-4a62-8733-62bf33b51a59&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=40&Tab=attachments
…OF INTEREST KPMG, the firm hired to do the financial audit, has a rap sheet a mile long…
SCROLL TO THE LAWSUIT SECTION …(will take you 25 min to read all the lawsuits, some are with the Canadian feds)…But they seem like a good choice!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPMG
A few quotes from Wiki page: “On 22 February 2018, MPs contested evidence from KPMG (in one exchange MP Peter Kyle told KPMG partner Peter Meehan: "I would not hire you to do an audit of the contents of my fridge"”
“In a June 2018 report on audit standards across eight accounting firms, the FRC identified "failure to challenge management and show appropriate scepticism across their audits." It highlighted a decline in the quality of work undertaken by the Big Four, with KPMG performing the worst.”
“In October 2023, the Financial Reporting Council fined KPMG UK £21 million, saying it had failed to follow "the most basic and fundamental audit concepts" and an "unusually large number of breaches" had been found”.
All Our Best,
Team COAP