B.C. cities, struggling to make ends meet as their budgets have buckled under the weight of the recession, are working harder than ever to find ways to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid bylaw fines - including tacking them onto property-tax bills.
In the past two years, Vancouver has tried to persuade the provincial government to make the Insurance Corporation of B.C. collect the fines, which are most often for parking tickets, but also for making noise, letting dogs run off-leash or fighting on the street.
The Vancouver Island community of Courtenay is bringing a resolution to the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention later this month to give cities and towns more ways to collect the fines, including applying them to property taxes.
"We had a problem and we wanted to have more clout," said Councillor Murray Presley. He didn't have the numbers on how much tax revenue Courtenay thinks it's losing, but it was enough to prompt the councillors to go to the UBCM with their problem.
Many municipalities must to go to court, with a bylaw or police officer standing by for hours to testify, if a person decides to challenge a ticket. Then, to recover the fine, they often have to use collection agencies.
"It's an area where we would at least like to recover our costs," said Robert Hobson, president of the UBCM. "It's a complex process to go through the courts."
In Vancouver, about 25 to 28 per cent of people who get parking tickets don't pay them, according to the city's director of financial services, Esther Lee. The revenue from the people who pay is about $12-million a year, meaning that the city is short about $3-million a year because of scofflaws.
"We are short for money and I'm interested in ensuring that people who break our bylaws and owe us money pay what's owing," Vancouver Councillor Raymond Louie said.
The city's new chief financial officer, Patrice Impey, said she's interested in the Courtenay proposal, but wonders how applicable it would be in Vancouver, where half the city's residents are renters.
The region's three North Shore municipalities - the city of North Vancouver, the district of North Vancouver and the city of West Vancouver - decided to go a different route to get that money.
Six years ago, they set up a process in which anyone who wants to dispute a fine pays $25 to apply to have it adjudicated.
"Some people at that point just say, 'I'll pay my $30 ticket and be done with it,' " said Don Sigston, North Vancouver's director of corporate services. He said the move significantly increased the percentage of people paying their bylaw fines.
They still have to send some unpaid tickets to collection agencies, but they decided that was easier than lobbying the provincial government to collect them through property taxes.
"We've talked about things like that, but it always came down to 'What do you do if it's a tenant?' I think it would get pretty messy."
MUNICIPAL WISH LIST
The Union of B.C. Municipalities' annual convention always provides a chance to take the pulse of the province through the different issues that are preoccupying councillors from Tumbler Ridge to Tofino.
Among the issues this year:
Vancouver is asking for changes to campaign financing laws, including rules to prohibit contributions from sources outside Canada and to limit both contributions and spending. As well, it is asking that campaigns on referendum votes be required to file disclosures about contributions and spending.
The Cariboo Regional District wants RCMP officers to do security checks at small rural airports during the 2010 Olympics so that flights from those airports to Vancouver aren't banned during the Games.
Tumbler Ridge is asking the province to develop a strategy to use pine-beetle-damaged lumber to help address the housing shortage.
Surrey is asking Health Canada to change its processes so that municipalities are notified when medical-marijuana licences are being applied for or granted in their jurisdiction.
Keremeos and North Saanich are asking the province to create permanent funding for the short-term program to help combat crystal-meth addiction.
Frances Bula
Special to The Globe and Mail
