by Laura Walz [email protected] VIDEO – Hopefuls running for a spot on the City of Powell River council answered a wide range of questions at an all-candidates meeting organized by three ratepayers’ organizations.
Roughly 200 people packed the hall at Carlson Community Club on Tuesday, November 8. Mayoral and council candidates gave opening remarks, then all answered three questions from the Townsite, Wildwood and Cranberry ratepayers’ associations. Questions from audience members and answers followed with closing statements from the candidates capping off the night.
Major themes, including job creation, co-treatment, rising residential taxes and reductions in major industrial taxation, the need for affordable housing and bringing back a committee structure at city hall, emerged during the meeting, which was moderated by Paul Schachter.
In answering a question about the risks associated with co-treatment, a proposal to treat the city’s sewage at Catalyst Paper Corporation’s Powell River division, incumbent Mayor Stewart Alsgard pointed out that if a paper machine at the mill went down, it would affect the flow ratio going into the mill’s effluent treatment system, which could trigger a requirement for disinfection. A Dayton and Knight report indicated the capital cost for disinfection would be between $300,000 to $800,000, Alsgard added. “Yes, should number nine go down, it would leave us with a great cost in terms of how we would meet that,” he said.
Dave Formosa, mayoral candidate and current council member, said Catalyst has told the city that if the mill were to close, it could treat its sewage for one to two years, but it would be expensive. “We couldn’t decommission the one we have, because if we have to fall back and use that facility, the one we have, we would have to treat with that, because we could have a liability,” he said. “We have to keep that old system there.”
Both newcomers running for a seat on council, Scott Lukianchuk and Russell Brewer, said they were opposed to co-treatment.
Lukianchuk said he believes there is a risk associated with co-treatment if the mill ceases paper production. “The city could be liable for trying to make that system work, without Catalyst being there, which would involve a huge, huge cost. I believe that before any co-treatment plan is put into effect, that definitely needs to be taken into consideration. Obviously, I don’t have figures for what that would be in front of me, but contingency plans would have to be put in place in case something like that happened. The cost of that would have to be known to the people of this town before the project could continue.”
Brewer said he supports public ownership and operation of water and wastewater systems. “The risk associated with co-treatment is what concerns me about it. Everything that I’ve read seems to indicate that if we go the phased approach, it will end up costing us more in the end, unless I’m misreading something. My preference would be just to go directly to a consolidated, stand-alone, publicly operated facility.”
Another question was directed at Formosa about his attendance record at council and committee meetings. He explained that some of his absences were because he was away on city business. “I seem to spend all my time at city hall,” he said. “I think if you talk to your mayor, if you talk to all of your councillors, you will find that you were very well served by me and represented by me.”
As for conflicts of interest, Formosa said that he does step out of meetings when one arises for him. “I believe that over the three years, for the amount of time and work I’ve spent at city hall, the services this community got from me, from the decisions and work that I did, you were very well served...I gave 100 per cent. You ask anybody up here, 100 per cent.”
Formosa also talked about new ideas he has, including rolling back taxes that have to be collected to pay back short-term debt once the debt was repaid and building a road to connect the lower and upper areas of the Sunshine Coast to create one economy.
Throughout the meeting, incumbent councillors Jim Palm, Maggie Hathaway, Debbie Dee and Chris McNaughton made reference to a service review, which has been underway since July. It also was revealed that the city has hired a planner.
Palm referred to the service review when he answered a question about the fact the city doesn’t have an engineer on staff. “One of the items that came up in our service review was the problem in terms of lines of communication from the upper management staff. We have a lot of problems resulting because of a lack of a qualified engineer at city hall. That is a fact. We will address that, shortly, the next term. Hopefully, we will put to bed a lot of the problems coming out of that department. I hate to say that because they’ve worked very hard over the last term on a number of projects, but we have to hire an engineer to help with management at the top to improve those lines of communication throughout the community.”
Hathaway told the audience that incumbent councillors agree taxes are too high. “We’re making every effort to lower them. We recently had a service review and it looks at every aspect of how we run the municipality. We do need to tighten our belt. We’ve spent the last three years working on some major capital projects that I’m really proud of. I think they were extremely successful, but the next three years is going to be time to tighten our belt and do everything that we possibly can to keep our taxes low. They are too high. We agree.”
Dee also referred to the service review, noting often that the city can’t keep raising taxes to pay for services. “There’s going to be some tough decisions to be made in the next three years. We need to think outside the box if we want to keep anywhere near the service levels that we have right now. We cannot afford it.” Dee also reminded the audience that Alsgard had tasked Formosa, McNaughton and senior staff to write the city’s business plan, a document that outlines a number of projects aimed at creating own-source revenue.
McNaughton said the city worked hard to get the $75,000 for the service review from the provincial government. “The new council will inherit that document. It will clearly create a path for local government to make some very difficult decisions,” he said. McNaughton pointed out that the city pays $2.4 million after revenues for the facility, while rural residents don’t contribute “a cent, other than a differential user fee.” He said council has tried to convince rural directors to contribute a regional share, but there was no agreement. “We’re a community, we’re a region,” he said. “Maybe it’s time we start looking at a rural-municipal government to resolve the tax issues that we have.”
In answering a question about councillors who live outside city boundaries, McNaughton, who lives north of town, said his commitment is to the community.
Gordon Crawford, a former councillor, said that he was running for council again because he was unhappy with the direction the current council has taken. “They have not consulted with you, the taxpayers and the seniors of Powell River on projects,” he said. He said that co-treatment had no advantage for the city. “They’re pulling numbers out of the air,” he said. “It’s just a system of subsidizing Catalyst for their taxes...It’s important that we look after municipal business, not after business.”
Myrna Leishman, another former councillor, said she was leaning towards a stand-alone, publicly operated facility. “I do believe that if the mill goes, even if number nine goes down, that we’ll be faced with some huge liabilities,” she said. “A lot of those questions haven’t been answered yet. Because of the interest the public has shown over this issue, there should have been a question given at this time, as a referendum.”
Leishman, who has recently moved outside of city boundaries, pointed out she paid taxes for 43 years.
Council candidates Bill Hopkins and Glenn Holstine did not attend the meeting.
