City councillors were recently urged to provide electors the opportunity to have a direct say in a possible name change for City of Powell River.
At the March 15 committee of the whole meeting, Dean Gerhart, a representative of a committee of concerned citizens for a community voice on a potential name change, outlined its goal of having a referendum for the possible renaming.
“The object of the committee is to have local government conduct assent voting [referendum] for such an important and controversial subject as to the changing of the name of Powell River, and to have all eligible voters be provided with the opportunity to vote in a referendum on the question of a name change to the city, and that the vote be conducted at the next local government election,” said Gerhart. “Our committee understands, in speaking with three of the councillors, it may not be possible to be done during this time or prior to the next general election. We hope it can be done at a convenient time by council.”
Gerhart said that should an alternative approval process option be selected by the city, the second objective is to provide the local government corporate officer elector response forms to meet or exceed the 10 per cent threshold as required under the local government alternative approval process.
“We would work with the corporate officer to indicate how many signatures would be needed,” said Gerhart.
He said the group is also distributing a petition calling for a referendum on a proposed name change.
Gerhart said he wanted to turn his attention to the online survey published on the city’s website, asking for input on the possible name change. He said he had heard that people have found workarounds for submitting more than one survey.
“On one occasion, a person told me they completed four survey sheets online,” said Gerhart. “When I asked that person how that occurred, they said they had four computers and ‘I did one on each computer.’”
Gerhart said that additionally, a person approached him and said they had completed multiple surveys by changing the postal code. A third person told him they tried to fill out multiple forms but were stopped at two, he added.
Gerhart said the prospect of people being able to fill out more than one form concerns him.
“I don’t know if anyone can answer if stops have been put to that,” said Gerhart.
He also said there is a lot of rhetoric in the community.
“I was born and raised in Powell River,” said Gerhart. “I played soccer with my native friends for many years and in all my life, I never heard the rhetoric that is occurring today. It disturbs me that it is going on. It’s something I don’t like to hear.”
Gerhart concluded by saying he hopes council gives very serious concern about conducting a referendum when the time comes.
“People do want to have a vote and people of our city should have that right to vote on something as serious as this,” added Gerhart.
Referendum is an option, says councillor
Councillor Cindy Elliott said a referendum is on the board as an option and will be in the mix for what council is deciding down the road. It is hoped that there will be many group discussions in the community regarding the possible name change, she added.
“We want lots of ideas about how we get out there and talk about this issue,” said Elliott. “There’s nothing this community can’t talk about and come through the other end with a good decision. I’m happy we’re moving forward with the conversation.”
Councillor George Doubt said as part of a community consultation he attended, the survey was discussed, and the fact that consultants are not checking off numbers of people that say one thing and numbers that say another.
“It’s an information gathering process and it’s step one of a series of processes; it’s not as if they are counting three people saying one thing and five people saying another,” said Doubt. “They take into account all of the comments made by everybody and bring them together in a report to council, which is going to come sometime in June or July, and there will be other steps that take place after that. There will be more community consultation that’s open to everybody.”
Doubt said he was concerned about the rhetoric, too. He said the more work that can be done to try and find common solutions, the better the process is.
“The time will come down the road to make a decision,” said Doubt. “It will eventually be up to council to make a decision on where to go and whether a referendum is the right way to go. I, for one, haven’t made up my mind about what the right answer will be. We need to go through the steps and do a lot of listening.”
Councillor Rob Southcott said he is aware of anger in the community. He said if all concerned listen to each other, a place can be found that works.
“I have deep faith that we can get through this,” added Southcott.
Councillor and committee chair Jim Palm said hard work has been done in the community in establishing the relationship with Tla’amin Nation, through the community accord and other measures that have been done around reconciliation.
“This one issue is doing more harm to that relationship,” said Palm. “That saddens me greatly.”
Palm said that he, too, had played soccer with people from Tla’amin and he loved being with them because they are some of the nicest folks to meet.
“Where we go from here is the big question,” said Palm.
He asked about the deadline for a referendum, and corporate officer Chris Jackson said as long as there was something ready to go by June, it could probably make the ballot for the municipal election.
Palm said because of the timeline for information to come back to council, time likely will have passed to get the matter on the October election ballot.
