Looking Back, Looking Forward
The end of one year and the start of the next is a time of reflection for most people. Part of it is the changing of the date that is a definitive indication of the passing of time; part of it may be that the quiet time between Christmas and New Year's provides more time for thinking.
Looking back, on the personal side, the past year was more challenging than most for me, with the passing of my mother, and dealing with Andrea's health issues. As is usually the case, these difficult times were made a lot easier by the support and kindness shown by friends. I really don't know how we would have gotten through these events without that support, and I'm truly grateful to have such a network that we can rely on.
Working as part of council also had its share of challenges this past year, as always. A highlight was the relatively early financial information that we were given by adminstration, although I don't think that we spent enough time discussing and using that information to provide direction to administration on budget development. In fact, I'm looking forward to the budget discussions this month to find out how they made the leap from needing a minimum increase of 5.5% just to maintain current levels of activity, to a budget that only requires a 3.9% increase – and that change came barely a month after we got the initial information.
On the positive side, I'm looking forward to the implementation of the landfill pass system, so that we can get an accurate idea of how much providing “free” access to residents actually costs. Since council originally approved taking this action in the fall of 2010, but administration did not follow this direction in 2011, this has been a change somewhat overdue.