A letter regarding City of Powell River Council’s deliberations on the bottling of groundwater was questioned by a councillor regarding its origin.
At the June 18 city council meeting, councillor George Doubt moved that council receive the letter, signed by members of the climate change mitigation and adaptation committee, for information.
Doubt said when the climate change mitigation and adaptation committee typically meets, it publishes an agenda ahead of time as all of council’s committees do. He said he did not see any agenda published and a meeting seems to have happened the same day as the council meeting.
“I’m just going to talk about some of the statements in [the letter] that affect me,” said Doubt. “It suggests there are pertinent considerations that council didn’t think about. It talks about BC’s aquifers, drought levels, climate change, communities on Vancouver Island that don’t permit the bottling of groundwater, the impact of water bottling on salmon spawning, a number of water licences that are issued, the amount of polyethylene bottles that are around, and I took those into consideration when I was talking about it.
“I also took into consideration what the mayor is talking about regarding sustainable jobs in this community. I just want to point out that I was thinking about those things and probably other people on council were as well, but I’m happy to receive the committee’s input they got in at the last minute.”
Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman, chair of the climate change mitigation and adaptation committee, said regarding council’s concerns about the committee providing input without a public meeting, she informed the committee members about the city’s procedure bylaw and the committee terms of reference. She said the committee, and she and councillor Rob Southcott, who also serves on the committee as a council appointee, should not be signing a letter to council.
Leishman said for the letter to come from the committee, they would have to hold a separate meeting and inform the public it was a special meeting, in order to comment as the climate change mitigation and adaptation committee.
“They chose to craft a letter and signed it individually as community members of the committee,” said Leishman. “I want to let mayor and council know it’s not actually from the committee and did not happen in a public meeting. It was just the community appointees to the committee that felt it was important for them to add their voice to a letter they worked on. “I tried to provide a little bit of clarification to some of the points but I left it with them so that I would not interfere with that.”
Leishman said she wanted to thank the committee members for their passion on the issue and for putting together a letter very quickly off the side of their desks.
“I just wanted to clarify, it is not the committee, it’s the committee members from the community,” said Leishman.
Doubt said when he looks at the letter, it says underneath the signature of the vice-chair, the name of the climate change mitigation and adaptation committee.
“Are you saying it shouldn’t be there?” asked Doubt.
Leishman said for clarification, she informed committee members that they should list their names in the letter as individuals.
“They are members of the committee but I told them it could not be on any kind of committee letterhead, and it should not say anything about it being signed by the committee; that it was signed by the committee members,” said Leishman. “If it’s not clear on the letter, I think it was quickly signed and I’m not sure what it says but it was supposed to just be from the members themselves as individuals and not from the committee.”
“No worries, thank you,” said mayor Dave Formosa. “It says it’s from Terry Noreault, vice-chair, climate change mitigation and adaptation committee, but that’s alright, we get it.”
