by Laura Walz editor@prpeak.com City of Powell River councillors, upset at Mayor Stewart Alsgard’s proposed motion to seek elector assent for co-treatment, lashed out at him during the October 6 committee-of-the-whole meeting.
City council has approved a phased consolidation option for treating its sewage. It combines co-treatment, a proposal to treat the city’s sewage at Catalyst Paper Corporation’s Powell River mill, with a stand-alone consolidated plant to be built in the future.
Alsgard planned to bring forward a motion to seek elector assent for co-treatment at the October 6 council meeting, but councillors objected to the process. They thought the motion should have been discussed with them first. They also had a number of questions, about whether there was time to add a ballot question, how much it would cost and if the result would be binding.
Councillor Maggie Hathaway, who requested that Alsgard’s motion be added to the committee agenda, launched the discussion by saying it was a “cheap political stunt.”
Councillor Debbie Dee said council was blindsided by what the mayor had done, despite his claim to the contrary. The mayor made his intention public while four councillors were attending the annual UBCM convention in Vancouver. “We were kicked in the guts while we were down there, walking into a meeting with Kevin Falcon, the minister of finance for this province, who was touting our good behaviour,” she said. “We were absolutely horrified that we weren’t contacted, we weren’t consulted. This was obviously strategic and calculated and was not spur of the moment, so council could have been involved in this process from the beginning.”
Councillor Chris McNaughton said it was premature to take a question to the public until the city had all the information it needs for the public. “I’m not opposed to community consultation,” he said. “What I am concerned with is that we’re doing this one step before we have all the information.”
McNaughton also said that “political opportunism at this point in time in our mandate has obviously affected all of us... This showed no respect for council. It’s a campaign team working with the mayor to set policy for council with no consultation with council.”
Alsgard said that council heard his comments at the September 15 council meeting suggesting that perhaps the city should be considering a public question. He referred to a letter from the minister of environment about the importance of public consultation in the process of developing a liquid waste management plan. He noted the small turnout at the city’s public consultation events and the petition that had been submitted to the city with over 1,000 signatures opposing co-treatment. “We have not been able to interest a large number of persons in the community as to where they would like to go with it, and do they understand what a partnering agreement is all about,” he said. “To presuppose that this would in any way sabotage what’s gone on or to infer that any of this was of a nefarious nature or manipulated in whatever fashion...I believe this is the opportune time that we should be considering putting a question forward.”
Alsgard also said he feels that council had not adequately addressed the public’s willingness to enter into an agreement with Catalyst and putting a question on the ballot is democratic. “I believe that we have to afford an opportunity and we must do that,” he said. “Council can decide whether you want to deal with this or you don’t want to deal with it. That’s up to you.”
Dee said she didn’t think a democratic process had been afforded to council. “This is a unilateral decision and I think that you have unilaterally accelerated the process that doesn’t need to be happening yet,” she said. “You basically came out here right now and said we don’t give a sh*t about public consultation and public process... I’m so angry about this.”
Councillor Dave Formosa said that he was shocked and disgusted with the process. He also said that Alsgard was his dear friend and “I do love the mayor in my heart and my heart is broken,” he said. “I look up to you like a father and I’m just dumbfounded.”
Formosa said if the city were going to have a referendum, it should have it after it finds out if its application to the Innovations Fund for 100 per cent funding of the project was successful. He also said the referendum should be binding.
Formosa asked if George Orchiston, a concerned citizen who has announced his intention of launching a legal action against the city about the issue of elector assent, would be allowed to address the committee. Councillor Jim Palm, who chaired the meeting, allowed him to speak, but McNaughton, in an aside to Palm, said he should ask Orchiston if he were a member of Alsgard’s campaign team. Alsgard overhead the remark and said, “Do we hear a comment from you, councillor?”
McNaughton said yes. “It would be important to know, are you part of the mayor’s campaign team?”
Orchiston said definitely not. “I’m not part of anybody’s team,” he said. “I’m driven by the subject and what I believe to be the best interests of the citizens of Powell River, a community which I love.”
After Orchiston spoke, Donald Lidstone, the city’s lawyer who was in city hall because he was addressing councillors at an in-camera meeting following the open meeting, explained the provisions in the Community Charter that addressed elector assent. But even with his remarks, some councillors were unsure if Alsgard’s proposed ballot question would be binding or not.
Palm noted that he hoped council would continue to follow the liquid waste management process, get answers to questions and not “rush to the public with a bunch of questions up in midair for them to try and decipher in the middle of an election. That is not a healthy process and one that should be conducted on liquid waste management.”
At the end of the discussion, councillors passed a motion directing staff to prepare a report listing options for a referendum and to provide more information, including if there were time to add a binding motion to the ballot. Alsgard voted in opposition to the motion.
The mayor’s motion was on the agenda for the council meeting that evening. During the adoption of the agenda, Hathaway made a motion, seconded by Palm, to delete that item from the agenda. The motion passed, with Alsgard voting in opposition to it.
Councillor Aaron Pinch was absent from both meetings.
Orchiston told the Peak that he thought Alsgard put the motion to council so the residents of Powell River could decide the matter. “There are serious risks associated with the mill going down if we go to co-treatment, serious liabilities, and it would be a real heavy-duty burden to the taxpayer,” he said. “He put that motion forward so the electors could decide if they want to take on that risk or not.”
In his opinion, Orchiston said, some councillors have been doing “everything they can not to put the question to the people, not to let the people decide this co-treatment question. Their conduct in dealing with the mayor’s motion to give the electorate an opportunity to vote and decide this matter, their conduct in taking his motion off the agenda, in my words, was contrary to the council procedure bylaw. I think they have lost their moral compass in dealing with this co-treatment issue. It’s imperative they distance themselves from it and put the question to the people for a binding vote.”
AUDIO Listen to a recording of the October 6 committee-of-the-whole meeting here (may take a minute to load):
