With the move to a bylaw adjudication system in Valemount, the village is taking another step towards making its community rules relevant for residents.
"Right now we're not doing a lot of bylaw enforcement," said Mayor Andru McCracken. "We're looking for a new system overall that works better and really serves the interests of the community."
With the new system, which is in place in nearly 50 local governments across the province, municipalities can deal with bylaw disputes using an independent adjudicator instead of taking them on the costly and time-consuming trek through the courts.
"Taking a matter to court can be a lengthy process, and this system saves people time and helps reduce pressure on the courts without increasing costs to taxpayers," said Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond.
Where they once had a more active program, Valemount does not currently have a bylaw enforcement officer in the traditional sense. The local RCMP help out with infractions such as noise complaints and stray dogs and village staff handle other complaints, but there are things the village is not able to address, the mayor said.
"If you look at communities around our size, it becomes very difficult to have a working program that really serves everybody's interests," McCracken said.
Valemount is looking for a more realistic way of helping residents be good neighbours to each other while still meeting their obligations as a village, according to the mayor.
The decision to go down the adjudication road was made in the spring after not seeing results from a push to make things safer on Highway 5 when people would choose to take their notices to court instead of paying their fines.
"Bylaw tickets work for some people, and other people - they want to fight them," McCracken said. "All somebody would really need to do to fluster us is you park wherever you want and claim due process when the time came to pay the bill. So it's pretty ineffective."
As per the Local Government Bylaw Notice Enforcement Act, if a bylaw infraction is challenged, the appointed adjudicator - who cannot be a government employee or elected official - makes a final decision in a public hearing on whether or not someone has to pay up.
McCracken said getting this system in place is "part of the inspiration to do something intelligent, rather than just do what's been done before."
The system is offered through the Ministry of Justice after being established in North Vancouver and West Vancouver as a pilot project in 2004.
"This is a fairly friendly and human way of dealing with it."
