Residents wanting to voice opposition to proposed cuts to nonprofit organization contributions from Powell River Community Forest were thwarted by City of Powell River’s new procedure bylaw.
The public gallery at the March 6 city council meeting was filled to standing room only, following a proposal during the second draft of the city’s budget to limit nonprofit contributions to 10 per cent of a three-year rolling average of community forest dividends.
Council’s new procedure bylaw was adopted on February 20, and at the beginning of the meeting, mayor Ron Woznow asked acting corporate officer Stephen Fleming to outline rules pertaining to the new public input portion of meetings, which occurs at the beginning of council and committee of the whole meetings. Fleming said the public input period only allowed statements on legislative matters, committee recommendations and new business.
“There is no item on today’s agenda dealing with the upcoming 2025 budget,” said Fleming.
He also outlined that there was a new business item dealing with establishing a working group with membership from city council and the community forest.
During public input, first up was Mark Hassett, a board member of Powell River Community Forest. He said he was speaking on his own behalf and not speaking for the community forest.
“As I understand, you are proposing to take all the community forest funds into general revenue and grant up to 10 per cent, to a limit of $250,000 per year, to the nonprofits,” said Hassett. “Currently, the nonprofit average portion is $840,000. The city average annual portion is $1.26 million. If the city increases to 90 per cent, that would be $630,000 more, which would be a tax decrease of 2.3 per cent.
“You do not have a revenue problem, you have a spending problem. Non-essential spending must stop.”
Councillor Trina Isakson said she wanted to raise a point of order. She said she would like to remind the mayor and council that the public input period is specific to items on the agenda.
“While the community forest is on the agenda today in the form of the working group, the budget-related decisions of the community forest are actually going to be on an upcoming agenda,” said Isakson. “I would ask for council and for speakers to be reminded of the fact that if we want to follow the procedure bylaw we recently implemented, we need to focus on the actual items that are listed in our procedure bylaw.
“The topic related to the community forest tonight is if the public has input on whether or not a working group should be formed.”
Next up was Kim Barton-Bridges, who said she was speaking to the motion regarding forming a working group between the city and the community forest.
“When you have that working group together, I would like you to speak to the groups [of nonprofits] involved,” said Barton-Bridges.
Woznow said that was a sufficient point and it had been noted.
“We seem to have a difficulty understanding respect for council procedure,” added Woznow. “I know everybody wants to talk, but if you want council to listen, you have to respect council and the procedure bylaw.”
During the public clarification section of the meeting, formerly known as question period, Janet May, another community forest board member, asked at what meetings would the community forest fund be discussed. She said the matter came up at a special council meeting on February 27.
“A motion that was a big mistake happened, but I had no idea it was happening,” said May.
City chief administrative officer Lisa Bhopalsingh said prior to the budget being presented in draft one, the chief financial officer provided a schedule for all different budget considerations.
She said the next time the 2025 budget will come up for council consideration will be March 20.
Councillor Earl Almeida said people can register to be delegations to committee of the whole and council meetings, so requests can be made to appear, with a five-minute presentation window.
The final question came from Rod Tysdal, vice-president of Powell River Community Forest. He said the community forest looks forward to meeting with the working group, starting the following week.
“We would like to get that going,” said Tysdal. “I just want you to know that this is the best community forest in British Columbia,” said Tysdal.
Woznow asked if Tysdal had a question.
Tysdal asked, regarding communication, does council think the reason the communication between the community forest and the city became so bad was because the community forest didn’t receive any response to correspondence dated January 9 regarding city appropriations from the community forest fund. He said the correspondence was not posted on the city website and the community forest is not sure if it was circulated to councillors.
“Is that the reason communication has broken down so much since then?” asked Tysdal. “This is the letter where we asked you to rescind the 10/90 split.”
Bhopalsingh said she believed the letter was shared with council.
Tysdal said a reply had not been received and it wasn’t posted on the city’s website. He then outlined the various city amenities that have been purchased because of the community forest.
Tysdal and Woznow then got in an argument over procedures, whereupon the exchange ended and the council meeting was adjourned.
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