HIGHLIGHTS: Talk around Nelson Transit got heated this morning as Mayor John Dooley put forward a motion to cut service in the city in a bid to curb rising costs. Dooley’s motion prompted some councillors to defend transit, despite its $128,000 deficit.

Everyone agreed transit needs to change in Nelson to be more useful, but the disagreement came over what to do about it. Read the live blog of the discussion below.

All day today Nelson’s council and staff will work through different scenarios for the 2011 budget. At their last meeting, it was evident council would either have to institute tax increases or cut programs to balance the budget. It appeared a 5.6 per cent tax increase was needed just to offer the exact same services as last year.

Council went around the table and the closest thing to consensus they had was a two to three per cent increase would be palatable. They asked staff to work up two budget options, one that shows a zero per cent increase and one that showed a three per cent increase.

Today they’ll look at that and determine what they want to do. The decisions from today will go into making the formal budget which council will present to the community at a public meeting. That’s when the public can put their input into the budget and tell council what they think.

For background on the discussions so far, look for the 2011 Budget tab in the upper-left corner of your browser window. That will take you to all the stories related to this year’s budget.

9:02 a.m.

Big turnout today. All of council and from city staff there’s: Kevin Cormack, city manager; Dave Wahn, senior planner; Kelly Swetlikoe, finance department; France Long, manager of legislative and administrative services; Bob Slade, deputy fire chief; Allen Fillion, director of engineering and operations (Public Works) and; Christine Schmidt, head of the Nelson and District Youth Centre.

Coun. Donna Macdonald calls the meeting to order.

Nelson Transit

Cormack starts off and he leads with transit. Council had concerns with the appropriateness of the new buses for Nelson. At the time we acquired the new buses, they were the only option.

There are no other buses of the midsize. There are either the small ones, like which run up the Slocan Valley, and these larger ones.

B.C. Transit is piloting a 35-passenger bus but it will be a two to three year wait (they’re being built in China) and Nelson will have to make do with the large buses they have.

Cormack also took council’s concerns around bus routes and B.C. Transit said they will try to free up resources to help them. However, council does have the authority to change the bus routes on their own. The problem is they don’t have the planning resources to do that, says Cormack.

There will be new fare boxes for the buses, which will make it easier for the city to track usage. In the past, they knew their peak usage times are in the morning and afternoon when the high school kids were coming and going to school.

There have been drops in usage which Cormack links to drops in the school population.

They are in the process of negotiating funding from B.C. Transit for Nelson’s transit service. Cormack says they ID’d $30,000 in additional cost they need to fund. He says it appeared B.C. Transit didn’t fund our transit service appropriately, largely around staffing costs. The city has asked for more funding to cover a shortfall last year and in the coming years.

The city is trying to cover a $128,000 shortfall in their transit service.

Mayor John Dooley agrees there is some shortfall from B.C. Transit. When he looks at ridership for the evenings, he sees few people and wonders if it’s worth it to offer service then.

Transit is something cities keep doing because they do it. Maybe we should look at the service hours, says the mayor, instead of running buses that are basically empty.

“We simply can stand to have these deficits in transit just because we wan to have a bus from six in the morning to 11 at night. It doesn’t make sense.”

The city’s net contribution to transit has dramatically increased since 2008. In 2011 it will be $398,069. In 2008 it was $219,604.

Cormack says they’re also taking a regional look at transit and how it’s challenging to go from Nelson to Trail, for example. Right now, it takes roughly 10 different fare zones to do so, says Cormack.

One option we believe council should look at is fares. The revenue from fares used to cover almost 30 per cent of the cost to run transit. In 2011 it’s projected to drop to 22 per cent of the cost to run transit.

It looks like staff are suggesting raising fares to help pay for transit.

Cormack turns council’s attention to a sheet that compares the fares across the province.

We’re proposing we would fare-match, which means an increase to $2 for adults, $1.75 for seniors and students. Right now adults pay $1.75 and students/seniors pay $1.50.

A monthly pass would increase to $50 for an adult (up from $46); $35 for seniors/students (up from $31).

Should council approve these fare increases, it would increase revenue to $324,233, up from $297,086 in 2010.

The last time fares were increased was in 2006.

Coun. Marg Stacey has some questions. Are the fare boxes our cost or B.C. Transit’s? It’s a shared cost, says Cormack.

Cherbo asks about the increased costs. Aren’t the new buses supposed to be cheaper to maintain?

That was the theory, says Cormack. However, it hasn’t been the case. The overall transit costs are expected to be $1,424,432 in 2011. In 2010 they were $1,285,223.

9:29 a.m.

Coun. Deb Kozak says they need to talk about their reasons for having transit. The studies they’ve done have showed people aren’t taking the buses because it’s not convenient.

Scheduling needs to change, she says. She doesn’t want to wait for B.C. Transit to help them change the schedules and routes.

“Where I stand on public transit is we have to do a better job. We have to raise fares, it’s not out of line with other regions in our area.”

The fare increases will put Nelson’s fares on par with Cranbrook’s.

Dooley suggests cutting hours

Mayor Dooley says they’re haggling over a quarter. This is a quagmire we’re dealing with here. We need to tackle it head on. There’s no point in making cuts in other departments when we have this black hole.

“I’m suggesting we shut the bus down at 6 p.m. and start them up at 7 a.m.,” says the mayor. “This section is a real albatross around our necks.”

Dooley says B.C. Transit isn’t going to help them, they’re focussed on big centres like Kelowna and Kamloops.

Charlesworth says 25 cents gets them part of the way to where they’re looking to go. However, it’s easy for them to say shut down the buses, but all the councillors have cars.

The public say they want more buses. The barriers to taking transit haven’t been taken down. What we need to do is find a creative way to provide transit in the region. It requires partnerships and creative thinking.

There’s been mention of working with the school district to find ways to use their buses.

“I would not support cutting transit services this year, says Charlesworth. “I think instead we have to look at how do we make it work. We will continue to offer public transit in the future.”

Dooley agrees transit is important, but when there are only six people taking the bus in the evening, it doesn’t make sense. They’re hitting up tax payers to offer this service. They’re burning fuel.

Dooley has now suggested they make a motion to reduce hours. Stacey seconds that motion to get it on the table.

The motion is to reduce transit operating hours to 12 hours. Dooley says 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. is a reasonable.

If people are opposed to it I’d like to hear suggestions on how we’re going to cover the $128,000, says Dooley.

The people are not using transit, says the mayor.

Allen Fillion, head of public works, notes the only savings from the mayor’s suggestion would come from labour and fuel, but the largest part of the debt in transit is around servicing the debt, new debt incurred when the city got the new buses last year. Cutting service wouldn’t help them reduce the debt of running transit, he says.

9:40 a.m.

Coun. Bob Adams notes a few years ago they didn’t have buses on Sundays. That change came about in 2003. There was also a summer schedule which had reduced service, says Adams.

Adams says maybe 12 hours is a little short, but he recommends they do look at shorter service hours in the summer.

Fillion says once they get in the new fare boxes they’re going to have good, specific data on bus usage for them to make good decisions.

Cherbo asks how many buses they have running in the evening. There are three, he’s told. Why not reduce it to one bus, Cherbo suggests.

Cherbo says he’s opposed to the mayor’s motion and wants public consultation.

“I’m opposed to slamming this through in the heat of the moment to get it into this year’s budget.”

Coun. Donna Macdonald says she wants more information and that the city can’t dump the schedule and route issue on city staff who don’t have the expertise.

Dooley asks if that’s something they’re actually going to do. Are they going to review the system? In 2005 this discussion happened. No review has happened.

“Why is transit some kind of sacred cow that we’re afraid to touch?” Dooley asks. “We’re playing around with 25 cent fares when the system is broken.”

He disagrees with Fillion’s assessment of the savings from cutting service. When those buses are on the road there’s wear and tear and they’re burning fuel, says Dooley.

Coun. Adams says if council is asking staff to look at the hours and savings, they should also include looking at cutting routes.

Coun. Stacey asks Fillion if these new buses are more high maintenance than the older ones. Fillion says he’s “somewhat hopeful” they’ll be easier to maintain next year. There were some growing pains with incorporating the buses into the city system in the first time.

Cormack notes major repairs for the new buses have built into the amortization of the new vehicles, so major repairs like engine replacement have been accounted for. He says that was a good move on their part.

Coun. Kozak says she recalls that a goal they were trying to achieve this is there are 5,000 vehicles that cross the Big Orange Bridge every day. As fuel costs and population numbers go up, more people are driving and spending more money. Half of the people that work in Nelson live outside the city.

As gas prices rise, there’s going to be more desire to take the bus, says Kozak.

We need to do a better job advertising transit.

She’s against the mayor’s motion.

“Before we start slashing hours and service, we need to analyse where that’s going to happen,” says Kozak.

9:52 a.m.

Motion to cut transit hours fails

Now the vote on the motion to cut hours to 12 hours a day:

Adams, Stacey and Dooley vote for cutting hours.

Kozak, Macdonald, Charlesworth and Cherbo vote against cutting hours. The motion fails.

New motion asks for a report on impacts of cutting hours

Now council has put forward a motion to ask staff to prepare a motion looking at the short-term impacts of cutting service.

Dooley says they are being driven by an outside force in our transit service, with the challenges to B.C. Transit. We need to know what the impact of our changes will be. We need to have more flexibility in how we operate the system, says Dooley.

The report will look at summer hours and service on Sundays.

Charlesworth says she’s opposed to this.

“I think we’re sending staff on a wild-goose chase,” says Charlesworth. “What needs to happen is looking at the longer-term changes to how we provide transit in this region.”

She proposes a motion to fund from the capital reserve to hire a transit consultant to look into providing better transit for our area.

Cherbo agrees. The amount of savings they’ll get from this won’t address the real issues of long-term financing.

Kozak asks Fillion for his opinion. What would be the most sensible decision from council? What’s the most helpful thing?

Fillion says the whole thing needs to be looked at. My opinion is the whole thing needs to be looked at and unfortunately that’s going to cost money.

Cormack is right, says Fillion. The study is going to cost money. However, reducing hours outside the peak hours could help them meet some of the deficit in Nelson Transit.

Dooley notes there is a regional transit plan in the works that covers from Trail to Argenta. B.C. Transit has done this. Our challenge is inner-city, says Dooley. That hasn’t been done and it won’t be speeded up because we ask for it.

Kozak asks when the implementation of that regional plan is happening. Dooley says they’re coming to the West Kootenay in the next couple of months work on timing.

The motion to look at the short-term study passes. The voting is done quickly and I miss who approves it. Stacey, Dooley for sure. Definitely not Charlesworth.

Dooley says this is another cost. It’s another consultant they’re going to haul into town and they’re trying to keep budget increases down.

Kozak says they need hard numbers to put hard pressure on B.C. Transit to show this current system is not sustainable.

Dooley agrees. They need to go to B.C. Transit and ask them for money before they go to their own sources to fund this work on Nelson Transit.

Back to the motion to increase fares

They opt to delay that vote to later in the meeting. No decision on fare increases yet.