My first AYC meeting.
This past weekend I traveled to Teslin for my first Association of Yukon Communities (AYC) meeting in the beautiful Teslin Tlingit Heritage Centre overlooking Teslin Lake and the mountains, absolutely stunning.
This is a picture of Clara Jules, the mayor of Teslin taken during our meeting.
For those that don’t know, the AYC is an important advocacy group comprised of Mayors, Councillors and City Managers from most communities in the Yukon. It’s purpose is to improve the quality of life of Yukon citizens by developing better and more effective municipal governments. It also lobbies senior government on issues relevant to the municipalities. For example AYC’s relentless campaign to restore democracy in Dawson certainly helped generate our recovery package and early election for Mayor and Council.
There were many items on the agenda but perhaps the most exciting discussion revolved around the AGM in Dawson in May 2007 because the theme will be ‘Empowerment of Municipalities’, something very dear to my heart… more power to the people, less power to central government. We hope to find a suitable keynote speaker to address this important topic.
We also made a financial contribution to a University of Toronto study on Canadian Municipalities, Municipal Acts and options available to cities, towns and villages for generating revenue outside of property taxes or rates. Other issues will be researched as well.
This was the last AYC meeting prior to the territory wide municipal elections this October, so some of the members may not be returning to the table. Of course I will since Dawson has been exempted from the coming election.
Our Municipal Act is under review, if you have any comments about this important legislation please let it be known to myself and council so we can bring it forward to the review committee.