City of Cranbrook staff are in the early stages of developing the city’s 2024 business plans, budgets, services and tax levies and was looking for council’s top priorities to focus on.
Municipalities are expecting unprecedented community challenges and cost increases for basic services.
Council was able to decide on its top five priorities at Monday night’s council meeting.
They decided on infrastructure renewals and maintenance, housing, community safety and wellbeing, economic development and diversification, climate change adaptation and safety, and updating infrastructure for flood event prevention and wildfire protection.
Economic development was one of Mayor Wayne Price’s top priorities.
“We’ve got to generate some revenue and significant revenue if we’re going to even come close to meeting the needs of the community,” he said.
Climate change was one of councillor Norma Blissett’s priorities.
“There is no economic development if we don’t deal with what we need to do to protect our city from fire and to make sure our utilities are able to function in our community.”
This will allow staff to allocate resources to ensure priorities are met while other services may need to be cut.