“ BMRA serves in an advocacy role with Town Council and staff on behalf of ratepayers to ensure and enhance our community’s quality of life.”

Our Comments on TBM’sStrategic Plan:

Much important work to be done

The BMRA participated in a June 17 working session as a stakeholder in the Town's strategic plan development process. The plan is to cover a three year period, with the intent to have the exercise wrapped up by the end of this year. If the exercise is successful, the strategic plan should serve an important role in identifying the Town's top priorities, and ensure greater Staff and Council accountability.

The Association was represented by Jim Torrance, Pamela Spence, John Relihan and Scott Findlay.

The primary points that we made were:

The Town's last strategic plan was clearly lacking in terms of defined priorities, and stated objectives. This led to a serious gap in reporting on performance. We stressed that addressing this gap in the new strategic plan is of the utmost importance to ensure the plan is seen as worthwhile by residents.
The BMRA has expressed concern over the past few years about the sustainability of our Town's growth. The primary considerations in this regard must be;
- confirming the Town's long term financial viability
- addressing our skewed housing mix
- ensuring appropriate environmental protection policies
- enabling economic opportunities to support a vibrant business sector

We provided the results of our last member survey to reaffirm this list of resident concerns.

The Town requires an integrated strategy to effectively manage our ongoing growth. That has been lacking in the past. This has particular resonance for the Craigleith area, which has experienced a significant proportion of the Town's growth, but seemingly without a plan to ensure that a sense of community is maintained.

The Town intends to create a public facing dashboard to report on progress being made against the defined objectives. We stressed how important that will be in creating public trust and confidence.
Given the certainty that budget pressures will continue into the future, the importance of looking for new and better ways to deliver services was highlighted. Whether that entails taking a regional approach to infrastructure development, or questioning how Town services are resourced, or if some municipal services could be re-engineered or even eliminated, it can't be business as usual.
The public must be fully engaged and informed through the plan development process

The BMRA will keep our members apprised and engaged as the strategic plan process moves forward.

The Town’s Strategic Plan survey is open until July 7th.
Click the link below to complete the survey

TBM’s Strategic Plan Survey

Any Questions?

Email us!

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June, 2025