City of Powell River Council has moved into its new chambers in the old Powell River Public Library facility on the ground floor of city hall.
The first meeting in the new council chambers was held on June 11. The ground floor chambers, which are much larger than the former chambers upstairs in city hall, are accessible for people with mobility issues. The upstairs chambers had a lengthy stair climb in order to access them.
Mayor Dave Formosa, at the June 11 council meeting, said he wanted to give some acknowledgements on behalf of city council.
“A big thank-you to our city workers and crews that did the majority of the work down here,” said Formosa. “They did the drywalling, the construction of all of these rooms and offices.”
There also were some local contractors involved in the project, said Formosa.
He said he wanted to thank Thomas Knight, city director of planning services, who put it together to create the planning space and worked with senior staff to create the meeting space. Formosa said councillors now, for the first time, have offices where they can meet people.
“I just want to say thank you to all those folks,” said Formosa.
He added that for people with mobility issues, who had a hard time negotiating stairs in the former council chambers, this will be an improvement, and it’s mostly for them.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Formosa.
The mayor, in his weekly COVID-19 update, said he wanted to remind residents that “we are all in this together.”
“You may go to one store and they have a policy, you may go to another store and they have another policy and it might be frustrating at times, but I think we’re doing a great job in Powell River,” said Formosa.
In terms of people observing COVID-19 suggestions not to travel unless absolutely necessary, Formosa said he made a recent business trip to Vancouver and there was a sailing wait in each direction.
“I was a little miffed and thought the whole idea is people are supposed to stay close to home and only travel if need be,” said Formosa. “There were a lot of motorhomes and trailers.”
Formosa said people should consider staycations and remaining close to home if possible.
During his community engagement report at the council meeting, Formosa said he had met with the owner of the Town Centre Mall and ancillary buildings, such as Staples and Canadian Tire.
“He was just bringing me up to date on their projects and the number of stores closing that have been hit by COVID-19,” said Formosa. “There are probably five or six stores that were on the edge and won’t be able to pull it out and open up. The mall is going to see a number of vacancies.”
Formosa said there was also discussion about rehabilitation of the Beach Gardens properties and mall properties. He said engineering and architectural work has been done for refurbishing of both facilities.
“They are going ahead with all of the planning but they are not too sure where they are pulling the trigger at this time, just to see how it all plays out here in the next year or so, but they felt that given the fact they’ve got their larger anchors, they’ll survive it,” said Formosa. “They’ve been here for a long time and they’ll be here for a long time, and they will be paying their taxes and being part of the business community.”
Formosa said he met with Bob Brash, the new executive director of the Truck Loggers Association, and they spoke about the new vision the truck loggers are envisioning for forestry in BC.
“They feel they have something to add and they are putting together a business plan,” said Formosa. “They are trying to come up with ideas for government and industry on rehabilitation of the industry. For example, why don’t we have any new value-added sawmills in the province? Why are they closing and leaving? What can we do to encourage remanufacturing and value adding of our wood products?
“They are undertaking an ambitious program and asked if I wanted to be involved. I suggested that I would. I said I believed in the forest industry and that it wasn’t a sunset industry.”
