City of Powell River council will split allocation of a $30,000 BC Hydro incentive grant even though one councillor advocated that the funds be fully dedicated to the city’s climate action reserve fund.
At the June 3 city council meeting, councillors considered a motion to allocate $19,000 of the $30,000 to the Powell River Recreation Complex LED lighting project, which went over budget, and to allocate the remaining $11,000 to the climate action reserve fund.
Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman, who moved the motion to split the grant, said she had wanted to move a different motion. She said at the May 27 finance committee meeting, where the incentive grant was originally discussed, she had wanted to allocate the full $30,000 into the climate action reserve.
She said the fund is not the climate change committee’s fund, it’s the city’s fund. She added that very strategically, several years ago, the city started allocating its climate action funds from the province into the climate action reserve to tackle climate action initiatives.
“Thanks to having that dedicated funding that had no statutory restrictions on it, council has been able to do a lot of really dynamic projects, not only reducing carbon emissions corporately, but also cost savings,” said Leishman. “If we had agreed to put the entire $30,000 into the climate action reserve, the rate of return on investments has been quite enormous when we have done climate action projects.”
Leishman said the sustainability planner and city staff have taken the climate action money and leveraged it, obtaining other grant funding and using it for projects that may not have been covered by the city’s community works fund.
She outlined a couple of projects the climate action reserve fund has underwritten that have gone on to save the city money. She said she is trying to be a little bit more strategic and trying to put a little bit more money aside for the climate action reserve to have a little bit more bang for buck and return on investment for future projects.
“At this time, we would have to defeat this motion if we were going to do a different result because trying to amend the motion to do that outcome would be changing the intent too much,” said Leishman.
Councillor George Doubt said this was one of those very rare win-win-win situations. He said every time he looks at the grants processes, he considers how lucky the city is to have people who are qualified to get the grant applications done and accepted, to work on the recreation complex, that the city would have a stretch paying for if it was being done from tax money every time.
Doubt was supportive of using the $19,000 for the LED lighting project and putting $11,000 into the climate action reserve, which, he said he is sure, will give good returns on investment and be of benefit to the recreation complex and the taxpayer.
Southcott supports Leishman
Councillor Rob Southcott said it is important to note that there is going to be no more climate action revenue incentive program (CARIP) funding from the province, which provided significant funds for the climate action reserve. He said he supported what Leishman had said because it is a strategic opportunity to put money into the fund that has been of such great benefit. He said he would support failing the motion to split the allocation and make a new motion to allocate the entire funds to the climate action reserve.
Leishman said there was probably not the support to defeat the motion so she would carry on lobbying for other ways to build up the climate action reserve now that CARIP funding no longer exists.
Council voted to split the allocation of the $30,000 to the two projects.
Mayor Dave Formosa said the city would not allow the climate action reserve fund to run out of money.
“If the project is worthy, I’m sure we’ll find the money,” said Formosa. “We’re hitting the ball out of the park. Why stop now?”
