Telkwa is looking to make budget cuts in order to pay for immediate water and sewer system upgrades.
“We’re looking at literally looting our dyke maintenance and work account to pay for these critical infrastructure upgrades…we’re digging for money from anywhere we can get it,” says Mayor Darcy Repen.
He’s frustrated that the village might not be able to use a reserve of 400 thousand dollars of federal gas tax money for the upgrades.
Repen says the rules for how the money is spent are absurd.
“A community with no money, but theoretical money in a bank account, could spend that money on a giant swing set in the middle of Telkwa. We could be the town with the world’s largest swing set, but we can’t use it to repair our water system,” says Repen.
The immediate costs to repair the water system are around 135 thousand dollars. Repen says for the village to pay that kind of money taxes would have to increase a baffling 25 per cent or so – a situation Repen says would be insane.
“I’m reaching the point where I think I want to call the province and just say, ‘can you just clearly say, do you actually support the existence of Telkwa? Or are you just waiting for us to become a ghost town?”
Repen says he was hoping to hear back from the province this week on the status of a grant application to start an engineering study on the water system. He says that’s crucial for determining the hard cost estimate for a new water tower.