RITE Richmond

Happy Lunar New Year! Join two #RichmondBC MLA's Aman Singh and Henry Yao to celebrate Lunar New Year! #LunarNewYear

Please consider donating to the Richmond Food Bank. For every $1 the Richmond Food Bank spends, they collect and distribute about $6 worth of food. Donate here: https://richmondfoodbank.org/donate/

I feel I need to correct the inaccuracies of Mr. Andy Hobbs letter of Dec 17th because I feel his statements don't accurately reflect the work we are doing at city hall and the citizens of Richmond do not need more stress during this pandemic . Comments like "2021 is not the time to burden the residents of Richmond with a tax increase. " are really not helpful. City Council has worked very hard to lessen the burden of property taxes where we can, such as eliminating the 1... % to reserves and lowering the original tax increase by 2.01 %.Council also voted for a corporate reset which reduced the budget permanently by 1.50% and we reduced the 1% funding for community facilities in 2019 to 0.50 %. City council cannot however control the increases that we get from Metro Vancouver for water and sewer so there will be a very small tax increase but through fiscal management we have lessened the burden on citizens. Our Financial Resiliency plan has been successful in eliminating or deferring expenses. Some of the steps that city council has taken include deferring large remittances to other agencies, deferring quarterly metered utility deadlines, deferring development cost charges, deferring the consolidated fee bylaw, delaying the property tax penalty, we withheld enforcement of unpaid business license and established rent relief for city owned facilities. Council and staff have also been working to inform citizens about the property tax deferment program through the Province of BC. I am proud of the work that council and staff have done during these most troubling times and want the people of Richmond to know that we are doing everything in our power to support you and the needs of the city. City Councillor Carol Day

Real Estate prices and affordability are not new issues in Richmond but finally there is some relief. As of Nov 30, 2020 foreign buyers must now register with the Provincial Land Owner Transparency Registry. The owners and can no longer hide behind numbered companies known as beneficial ownership, this practice allowed for domestic and international tax evasion and money laundering. Maybe now residential real estate can be about owning your own home. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/.../article-foreign.../ I made a motion Feb 11, 2019 to write to the Federal and Provincial government and UBCM to " create transparency around beneficial ownership of corporations and land. " So glad they are listening... Do you want to become a Bee Ambassador ? See below.....

Richmond's DREAM team has been elected ! Thanks to all the volunteers and the voters who selected the best people for the job. Congratulations to Henry Yao, Aman Singh and Kelly Greene, I know you will all work hard to represent the people of Richmond.

Happy Halloween from the Day family to your family. Please remember to social distance and limit crowding at the door. We have barricaded our entry way and will hand out candy bags by self serve . Each goody is an individual pouch tied with a ribbon. The canopy is open ended to allow trick or treaters to enter and exit quickly and easily. There of lots of creative ideas to serve the candy at a distance but if your not handing out the treats please shut off your lights and put a CLOSED sign on your door.

Congratulations to Aman Singh, Kelly Greene and Henry Yao great job ! You will make excellent MLA's...We will have to wait for the mail in ballots to finalize the vote but with a lead of 124 votes I feel Henry's win is looking good. The NDP did not allow their candidates to knock on doors because they did not want to endanger the public due to the COVID-19 Virus. The Liberals how ever did not respect the public and did door knock Alexa Loo stated in the Richmond news I’m intrigued, certainly, because I knocked on a lot of doors in this riding, and I had pretty positive results from people, said Loo. https://www.richmond-news.com//orange-wave-sweeps-richmond Shame on you, I hope our COVID - 19 numbers do not climb due to your irresponsibility

Tomorrow is Election day complete with safety protocols to keep you safe. I feel it is important to vote for people who will work for the people of Richmond so I studied all the options and have made my choices. The best candidates are Henry Yao Richmond Center South : Henry really cares about the community in particular youth , speaks mandarin and is a Lions club member with a long history of volunteerism. Henry is a bridge connecting our community and is a great listener ...never shying away from important issues. Kelly Green Richmond- Steveston Born and raised in Richmond she is a true community leader with a long history of saving schools and ALR land. Kelly lives here with her family and understands the issues that are important to you. Kelly has worked hard as a city councilor and will take that experience to Victoria. Aman Singh Richmond Queensborough: As a human rights lawyer he has proven his commitment to work for the people, he lives in Richmond and is well informed about Richmond issues. With a young family he is committed to working to make Richmond an even better place to live and work. Please vote Oct 24th so we can get some fresh new faces with passion and great work ethics in the Legislature. Thanks for reading. Carol Day Richmond City Councilor

Alexa Loo : Community safety Loo Supports reducing fines for Meth Lab: NO increased enforcement of short term rentals and NO to 1-killometer buffer between liquor stores... Meth Lab Clean-up incurs high fees. Counc. Bill McNulty argued against the appeal, saying " ownership has responsibilities;" furthermore, he said emergency personnel risked their lives going into the building and there wasn't any recognition of that n Cong's appeal. He also said there should be a declaration of assets to show a hardship case. The majority of council agreed with a staff recommendation to dismiss the appeal by Cong to further reduce the fees. Loo voted to reduce the fines for the Meth Lab. https://www.richmond-news.com//update-richmond-council-den Council voted May 14, 2019 " That the City conduct more assertive enforcement of short term-term rentals, including the issuance of multiple tickets, and proactive enforcement." Cllr Loo opposed. See attachment Council voted Jan 2 ,2016 " That staff investigate the implementation of a 1-killometer rule for a liquor store." Cllr Loo opposed https://www.richmond.ca//agendas/gp/2016/010416_minutes.htm Richmond councillors were nearly unanimous in asking staff to investigate the implementation of a one-kilometre rule. ( Distance between stores ) for all alcohol sales With Coun. Linda McPhail absent, only Coun. Alexa Loo was opposed. Loo told the Richmond News she thought the rule was too bureaucratic and impeded competition among businesses. Loo said: If there’s more competition with cold beer and wine stores, then that’s the way it is. She said she does not believe restricting the number of liquor stores will cut down on liquor consumption, nor lead to more underage drinking. Cigarettes are dealt with just fine by grocery stores, said Loo. https://www.richmond-news.com//richmond-liquor-retailers-w

Alexa Loo is against increasing affordable housing voting against requiring secondary suites in new house construction. https://www.richmond-news.com//developers-at-the-double-fo Loo also votes against increasing affordable housing to above 10 % on new high density developments, see the minutes of the Dec 17, 2019 meeting attached. City Council also voted to increase fees from developers from1$ per square foot to 2$ per square foot. These funds are used to build affordable... housing. Richmond has the lowest vacancy rate of .5 % , we need to increase the inventory of rental properties to lower the cost and give relief to renters. Coun. Bill McNulty said the new charges do not go far enough. But it gives us leverage, more in the coffers and lots more opportunities to do other things, he added. A vacancy tax can also provide funds to build more affordable housing. https://www2.gov.bc.ca//cont/taxes/speculation-vacancy-tax Read the City of Richmond COUNCIL online voting record: https://www.richmond.ca/cit/council/votingrecord/index.html