Facts to be considered when deciding how to vote in the upcoming referendum. Advance polls on Tuesday, Nov. 10 and 17, with general voting day set for Saturday, Nov. 28. Voting time each day occurs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Union Bay Community Hall.

There is a reason the Provincial Government no longer creates Improvement Districts. Many existing ones have been dissolved over the years because it is an antiquated system that no longer works when there is growth and development.

A government body representing landowners must abide by set rules and regulations in order to be accountable to the very people they represent. An Improvement District has no hard and fast rules and landowners only recourse is to hire legal counsel when the Improvement District appears to be acting illegally. We have witnessed this multiple times with UBID over the years.

So my #1 reason for voting YES is Democracy to ensure the governing body is required to follow rules and regulations in place and there is recourse and accountability if concerns are raised. Becoming a service area of the CVRD provides those assurances. See below under “Provincial Supervision”

Regional District – “procedural rules and safeguards are explicit in legislation”. Improvement Districts – “procedural rules and safeguards are not always explicit in legislation”.

Continuing being an Improvement District guarantees more unlawful and/or questionable actions such as: extending a 2 year old expired water agreement; locking out the electorate from public meetings; suspending trustees that voice concerns others oppose; deleting/changing motions passed at public meetings; sending threatening letter to landowner alleging a criminal act if they attended a public meeting; using landowners money to initiate a SLAPP suit against a landowner critical of UBID’s actions; purchase of school property without clear title; suspending a portion of legal UBID bylaws; refusing to respond to or allowing questions from the electorate, and on and on.

All my other reasons for voting YES are contained in the Final UBID Conversion Study. We are facing huge infrastructure costs and will need financing as low as possible and if there are any grants available that would be a bonus. We paid a small fortune since spring of 2017 when UBID hired an Administrator with zero government experience who was incompetent and instrumental in deciding the costs of the new water treatment facility. I note that the existing loan is scheduled to go from 20 to 25 yrs according to the info in the report. We cannot afford to continue being an Improvement District – it is killing us financially! https://drive.google.com/file/d/18ACMKEZt4RUsnW9wu6K-Qn5TvXVX-GyB/view