City of Powell River Council has directed staff to work with the firehall/emergency services facility select advisory committee to prepare and implement a public engagement plan.
At the August 19 city council meeting, councillors voted unanimously in favour of a motion to continue public engagement for the proposed new firehall.
Councillor George Doubt said this request had come to council directly from the select advisory committee and there was no report or details on the recommendation.
“I don’t know if there is any funding in that committee’s budget,” said Doubt. “I don’t think there is. I would like to hear from staff about the concept.
“If what we are doing here, and it looks like we’re doing it, is approving spending by the committee on a public engagement program, I would like to know how much spending we are approving and where that is going to go. If we need to modify this and have staff prepare a public engagement plan and have the costs come back to council for approval, I’d be okay with that, but I hesitate to approve spending without having any clue about the scope of it or how much it is going to be.”
Chief administrative officer Russell Brewer said staff was doing the work with existing resources and internal capacity to help work with the committee.
“There’s no additional funding required beyond what we already have in place,” said Brewer.
Doubt said his second question was: is it necessary to do the public engagement because the committee had already been asked to do public engagement in its terms of reference?
Brewer said from the committee’s perspective, they wanted council to be onside with the direction, and hence, the request coming to council.
“Obviously, staff is already doing some of the work,” added Brewer. “There was a survey that went out. There is tentatively a meeting scheduled for September 1 for staff to continue discussion with the committee on what more public engagement could look like through September and October.”
Doubt said if council voted in favour of the motion, what staff was onboard with was doing more public education. Brewer said that was correct.
Councillor Jim Palm said to clarify further, the motion was just to deal with and implement a public engagement plan and had nothing to do with funding.
Brewer said it had nothing to do with funding.
“It’s to prepare the plan, work on a plan together with the advisory committee, and conduct public engagement as well,” said Brewer.
Mayor Dave Formosa said no more funds were required and no outside contractors were required.
“It’s all covered within existing budgets,” said Formosa, “and within the capacity of our staff in hand.”
