Lasqueti Islanders have been given a year’s grace for community consultation before possible implementation of a proposed 911 service and house numbering system for directing first responders in times of emergency.
At the March 26 Powell River Regional District board meeting, directors unanimously carried a motion to postpone adoption of Powell River Emergency Telephone Extended Service Amendment Bylaw 317.1 and direct staff to perform a process of public engagement on Lasqueti Island during the current fiscal year.
Further, the board unanimously carried a motion to postpone adoption of House Numbering Amendment Bylaw 350.1 and direct staff to perform a process of public engagement on Lasqueti Island during the current fiscal year.
Before the votes, Al Radke, the regional district’s chief administrative officer, said depending on the board’s wishes, the vote may or may not affect the regional district’s budget. On the board’s agenda was the adoption of the 2015 to 2019 financial plan, which it approved later in the meeting.
“Should you agree to move forward with the bylaws, nothing changes and everything remains in place,” he said. “However, should you not move forward on the bylaws, certain dollar amounts will have to be removed.
“Should the desire be not to move forward, I strongly encourage you to make one last budgetary amendment to include sufficient funding in the Lasqueti Island fire department budget to perform a public engagement process. Otherwise, there will be no funding to engage with the public on Lasqueti Island for these two sensitive issues, and which the delegation last week appealed for.” At the regional district’s committee of the whole meeting the week previous, a delegation of 10 islanders made an impassioned plea to the regional district to postpone the 911 and house numbering decisions for a year.
Radke said if the regional board chose to postpone the bylaws at that night’s meeting, he urged them to not void the work that had been undertaken by regional district staff and provincial ministries. Having passed three readings, the bylaws can be reactivated at a later date if they are acceptable to islanders.
Radke proposed two recommended motions that were passed to board members during discussion. He said the supplementary motions would apply if directors chose not to proceed with giving final reading to the two bylaws. These new motions were in sync with the communications the regional district had received from islanders, Radke added.
“This will then lend to putting the ball in motion and engaging the Lasqueti public,” he said.
Merrick Anderson, Electoral Area E director for Lasqueti Island, moved both recommended motions that advocated a year’s postponement of 911 and house numbering prior to passage of these two recommendations at the meeting.
Radke said the regional district’s financial manager would have to remove all of the funds associated with the two bylaws from this year’s budget.
The board then carried a motion to add $5,000 to the Lasqueti Island Fire Protection Service 2015 budget to fund public engagement on emergency dispatch.
