Mike Babott

Why I'm running

Running for council was never on my bingo card. However, over the last year, a surprising number of business owners and residents asked if I was considering running for council, which really caught me off guard. It was never something I'd aspired to. So, I asked them why they thought I would make a good member of council.

The answer was pretty consistent. As a local business owner who is active in our community, I get what's going on around here. I work with local businesses, I've filmed a lot of them, and they trust me to bring their concerns forward. On top of that, they're busy running their businesses, and a lot of them just don't have the time to invest in something like this. I am fortunate that the business I run gives me something a lot of people don't have, which is control over my own hours, and if there is one thing I know it's that being a councillor, doing the job right, takes a significant amount of time.

Over the Spring, I looked into what the job actually is before I did anything else. I sat in on most council meetings this year, and when I couldn't make it, I watched the replay on YouTube. I went to the So You Want to Be a Councillor session, and I talked to councillors here and in Spallumcheen about what the work and the hours really look like. I did all of this to fully understand what an effective councillor actually does and to make sure I could do the job. After all of that, I put my name in.

Living in Armstrong

Volunteering in Armstrong is a major driving force of what makes this town a wonderful place to live. A lot of people give their time freely to put on the events that give Armstrong its character and celebrate its culture, and it didn't take me long living here to understand that.

I joined the Armstrong Spallumcheen Chamber of Commerce in 2019, and it turned into a lot more than a membership. I've sat on the organizing committees for many of our big festivals in town as well as had my boots on the ground helping with setup and teardown. This ranges from hanging decorations in the horticulture building for Harvest Pumpkin Festival, to grabbing generators and heaters from Sunbelt Rentals so people can stay warm at Light Up, to running the audio in Hassen Arena for the Big Cheese Festival. All of that happens before you see me out there filming. In addition, I also volunteer with a number of local organizations such as the Legion, the Good Food Box and the North Okanagan Knights when they were here.

Through my work with Rhythm Productions I've worked with just about every kind of group in town, from churches and service clubs to festivals, schools, and community organizations. Armstrong is a very diverse town, and a lot of those groups run on volunteers giving their time for something they believe in. I'm grateful to get to help each and every one of them.

Two priorities

1. A voice for local business at City Hall

I've met a lot of the businesses in this town through my work. Some are clients, some I've met through the Chamber, and some I'm just a customer of. What I've been hearing consistently is that they're facing real hardships and they don't feel heard. The City's own plan says small businesses provide more than half the jobs in town, and a strong business community is a big part of why people want to live here in the first place.

Here's what I'd like to do about it.

• Regular business sit-downs, monthly or quarterly, starting before the end of the year. Let me know what's happening in your world, and help keep me up to date on the temperature and the issues local businesses are facing, so I can bring that to the council table.
• A face-to-face with every brick-and-mortar business in Armstrong by the end of my first year.
• Home-based and mobile businesses are most of the licensed businesses in Armstrong, and the hardest ones to reach. The sit-downs are specifically for them and residents to bring their concerns to me. And of course, anyone who can't make one can send me the issue directly and I'll bring it forward.
• A City Hall you can understand. Permitting, inspections, zoning, and timelines that are clear, with less left to discretion, so people get a straight answer and clear direction.
• A seat for local business at the table when the City writes the Economic Development Action Plan the new Official Community Plan calls for.

2. Communication and accountability

There have been many "hot topics" in Armstrong over the past few years. From the bollards to the CARI project, the City's downtown revitalization plan whose first phase rebuilt Pleasant Valley Boulevard, many people state that it felt like these things were sprung on them. The notices went out when and where they were required to by policy however, nobody saw them. That's a failure even if every communication protocol was followed, and it's the problem I think Council needs to address, and I really feel it's a fixable one.

The City knows how to do this. When it wrote the new Official Community Plan, it held five open houses, set up pop-ups at eleven locations, ran a survey, and more than 950 people took part. That kind of outreach should apply to all large scale projects. As far as I can tell the City published how many people took part but not what they said, and for transparency and accountability that part is very important.

• Proper engagement with large projects. If the City is fixing a pothole, we don't really need a full scale communication plan, however if something is going to change how people get around town, then we should know about it so we can plan around it. And if the City plans a major construction project downtown that's going to last eight months, people should know well in advance, and the City should engage with the town on how to keep the impact as small as possible, that includes the residents, businesses and organizations.
• Communication built into every project plan from day one, with the updates written and scheduled before the first shovel goes in.
• One reliable place for everything, plus an email newsletter. The City can't reach everyone through Facebook, and there's no local paper anymore. So the website needs to be easy for anyone to navigate, the highlights and the important stuff go out in a newsletter, and the City puts real effort into getting people signed up and making sure it isn't landing in junk mail.
• Use the mail that already goes out. Tax notices and water bills reach every household, so a project update can ride along with them, quarterly or at least twice a year when big projects are on. That way you're at least guaranteed to reach everybody.
• Big documents like the Official Community Plan, and even the CARI project, broken down into pieces, graphics, and infographics people can actually digest. Nobody's reading a 175-page wall of text. People in this town want to be informed, so the City should make it as easy as possible, and that means bringing more people to the table.
• When the City asks for input, it publishes what it heard and what changed because of it.

As a Councillor I would be committed to making sure communication is embedded in what we do, that it's clear and appropriate in the method it is sent out. It's important that people have the tools and ability to inform themselves. While I can't read the information for you, I can make every effort to ensure that it is available to read. We may not always agree with the decision a council makes, but we should know where and how to find out what decisions are being made and where our voices can be heard.

The issues

CARI

CARI stands for the Comprehensive Armstrong Revitalization Initiative, and phase one, the Pleasant Valley Boulevard work, is done. The City of Armstrong does not have the budget to redo it, and the businesses downtown can't survive another round of construction. The new Official Community Plan commits to the rest of CARI but doesn't fund it or date it, and other projects need the money first.

I would work as a Councillor to make sure that the policy in place ensures that even if phase two doesn't come back in this term there is still a requirement for clear and open engagement before any more money is spent on design, engineering and construction. If phase two does come forward during my term, I'd push hard for open communication with the residents, businesses and organizations, focusing on those it will impact most. There are strong opinions out there, and both sides need to come to the table in a constructive way, so this next phase becomes the example of how the phases after it get done, with the City and residents working together instead of against each other. Not a repeat of phase one.

The bollards

The bollards went in as a temporary measure. The quick answer is to remove them and make a lot of people happy, but it may not be that simple. They're considered a traffic calming measure, so there may be rules about that. That's where my learning comes in. I can commit to working to educate myself so that I am making the most informed decisions for Armstrong I can. Without knowing more at this point about the risks to the community in simply removing the bollards, in a perfect world, I'd like to see them replaced with a solution that still allows for large vehicles to navigate these turns without damaging them.

Roads and infrastructure

My first priority is to look after what we already own: the roads, the water and sewer lines under them, and the City's buildings. The cheapest repairs are almost always the ones you do before something fails. Relining a sewer pipe costs a fraction of digging it up after it collapses in the middle of the night on a long weekend, and sealing a crack is a lot cheaper than rebuilding a street once freeze and thaw have worked through to the base. In August, staff brought council a 15-year capital plan that ranks our pipes and roads by how likely they are to fail and how bad it would be if they did. It's great work, but a plan only matters if council funds it every budget. That's what I'd want to do, with the new water reservoir and supply line at the top of the list after this summer's Stage 3 restrictions.

Taxes

Property taxes pay for the services we use every day, and they build the reserves that replace what the City owns when it wears out: roads, pipes, buildings, and equipment. Those costs don't stand still, so taxes will go up. I'd rather see predictable increases every year to maintain what we have than a big surprise when something fails and money gets pulled from everything else to cover it. This year's increase was 5.4%, about $72 on the average home.

A fiscally responsible Council meets its obligations head on with a strong commitment to asset management and a plan to address the needs of its community without crippling its tax base.

When growth needs bigger pipes or more capacity, growth should pay for it through development charges, not existing residents through their property taxes. I'd also be choosy about grant-funded projects. Grant money still comes with strings, and it still has to build something the town actually wants. The downtown bollards are a good reminder of that. Being fiscally responsible doesn't mean spending as little as possible. It means spending on the right things, at the right time.

Housing and growth

Growth for Armstrong is not easy as we are surrounded by an entire community that contains farmland in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Pulling land out of the ALR is a massive undertaking that usually doesn't work. So any growth here is up, and a lot of that has already been decided in the OCP. The new Official Community Plan, adopted last summer, is built on the same idea. It puts growth into infill first, points density at downtown and the core rather than scattering it through neighbourhoods, and only allows it where the City's own modelling says the water, sewer, and storm systems can handle it.

The Plan says Armstrong needs about 390 new homes in the next five years and more than 1,300 over the next twenty. The City issued nine housing permits in 2023. So the questions in front of council are:

• what does growth look like for us,
• where does development go, and
• how do we ensure our services keep up.

It's important that developers, businesses, and organizations all play a part so that when plans come forward we know that:

• A fourplex fits the street it's on.
• Taller buildings are clearly outlined where they make sense.
• Growth is paced to water, sewer, drainage, and fire capacity.
• Growth pays for growth.

These commitments are already outlined in the Plan and now we need to ensure that as Council we have a clear transparent way to indicate what growth means for Armstrong. It's not cookie cutter and this is what working within the legislation looks like.

The people I'd most like to see housed are the ones already connected to Armstrong. Almost a third of us are between 55 and 74, and a lot of those folks would downsize if there was somewhere in town to go. Our kids want to stay. The businesses downtown need staff who can live nearby. Suites and carriage houses on the lots we already have are the gentlest way to make room for all of them.

With regards to affordable housing, builders have real costs and need to make a living, so I don't expect anyone to build at a loss. But if a project comes before council as "affordable," I'd want to know the actual price, and I'd want it in writing. The City can't tell a builder who to sell to. But when a builder asks council for something, like a rezoning or a variance, the City can ask for a housing agreement in return. That's registered on title and can lock in prices or rents, and even who the units go to, so they don't end up with investors or out-of-town buyers.

The other tool is non-market rental, where a housing society builds it, the City contributes land or waives fees, and an agreement on title keeps the rents where they're supposed to be. If someone has a better tool than that, I'm all ears. Armstrong already owns land that's been earmarked for this. The one site on the table, an 80-unit building on Poole Street beside the treatment plant, isn't the right one, and the neighbours have made that clear. I'm in support of the solution and as a community we will need to make some hard choices about what makes sense here. Again we have to find the right solution for us and a lot of that boils down to communication.

Spallumcheen and the Regional District

No community can fully succeed alone and Armstrong is no different. With our surrounding community of the Township of Spallumcheen we share a fire department, parks and recreation service and a cemetery, and a lot more. We are also involved in many regional services through the Regional District of North Okanagan. Many of us drive through Spallumcheen every day, their residents use our services and we use theirs, and resources shouldn't stop at the border. Good neighbours share what they have and work together to find answers. The City's plan already commits to that kind of regional work, on wastewater, parks and recreation, and planning at the edges of town. I'd like to see it happen in practice, for the residents of Armstrong and the communities around us. We are part of a broader community and we need to make the commitment to work with our closest neighbours.

My work for the Chamber, the Township, and local businesses

I'm putting this here because someone will ask, and they should. Rhythm Productions does work for the Armstrong Spallumcheen Chamber of Commerce, the Township of Spallumcheen, and a number of local businesses. If anything comes to the table that presents a conflict of interest with any of them, I'll say so and excuse myself from the discussion and the vote. That's what the Community Charter, the provincial law that governs councils, requires, and it's what I'd want from anyone sitting there. I'm asking for your trust and I don't take that lightly. Communication is a key component of my platform and I am committing to communication throughout my time as Councillor if you choose to put your trust in me.

One last thing

I have done a lot of homework and I have a good grasp of what I'm signing up for. It's a four-year commitment. It's council every couple of weeks, agenda packages that can run a couple hundred pages, committee work, and the conversations around town that don't stop when the meeting does.

Running my own business means I can build my schedule around that, and my wife and I talked it through at length over the past few months before I said yes. The people who asked me to run were asking for someone who'd show up and do the work, and I don't say yes to things I can't finish.

Like my shirt says in the photo, I'm here to support local. Thank you for your consideration.

Vote on October 17. Advance voting is October 7 and 14. If you'd like a sign for your yard, send me a note at hi@mikebabott.ca and I'll drop one off.