Chief administrator Warren Waycheshen has accepted an offer to join the staff at the District of Kitimat, Mayor Wayne Rowe announced July 31 during a special meeting of Gibsons council.
"Warren was recently sought out by the District of Kitimat and offered a generous financial incentive to join their staff," he said Tuesday night. "We appreciate his calm demeanour in addressing the many issues that have confronted us during this term. "
The outgoing CAO will join staff in Kitimat this September as their new deputy chief administrator.
Waycheshen joined Gibsons staff April 1, 2011, replacing former CAO Rick Beauchamp. Previously he had worked for the District of Mackenzie.
Gospel Rock
The Gospel Rock neighbourhood plan received second reading and is primed to head to public hearing, the date of which was yet to be determined.
Discussion was minimal leading up to the three to two vote, opposed by councillors Lee Ann Johnson and Dan Bouman.
"I think in the long run it will put us in a more difficult position when we consider input from the public after the public hearing," Bouman said before the motion. "I'm glad to see that we've done something with development permit area two. On the whole, I'm not satisfied that council has done what it could have done to make a more publicly acceptable plan."
Development permit area two was designed "to protect environmentally sensitive areas from development."
It provided guidelines related to four general areas of concern: environmentally sensitive lands in Gospel Rock, shoreline areas at risk for contamination, riparian areas near creeks and sensitive marine shore areas.
Armours Beach
Upon receiving council's approval to apply for a grant that was due Aug. 2, director of parks Wendy Gilbertson raced from the council chambers to begin writing the proposal.
The Town has identified $234,000 worth of repairs and renovations for Armours Beach, including a renovation of the existing rugby club building.
If application for the grant is successful, the Com-munity Infrastructure Improvement Fund would pay half the bill for a project that could also see improvements made to the swim area.
"The swimming area was much larger before. In 2006 we started replacing the rotting pilings, but we ran out of money so that project was made smaller," Gilbertson said.
Eelgrass
While deliberating on a set of recommendations that could open the door to infrastructure improvements for the recreational water lease (RWL) area next year, the discussion turned to issues of enforcement.
Bylaw number 1121 holds that "no person shall anchor a vessel in that area of the RWL that hosts the growth of eelgrass."
The Town's bylaw enforcement officer, however, does not currently have access to a boat.
Johnson requested that staff obtain a map of eelgrass locations from the regional district, which also labels the GPS co-ordinates for mariners.
"It would be very simple for them if we simply gave them the information for them to comply, and I fully expect that they would," she said.
