Sechelt council has put forward a possible solution to the Davis Bay highway-widening conundrum, passing a motion Wednesday night, Sept. 15, to approve the oceanside highway-widening plan, on conditions of a traffic light being installed at the Davis Bay Road intersection and that the District of Sechelt undertake "to expand the seawalk for the length of the construction zone when required permits are approved."
Coun. Ann Kershaw proposed the motion and accepted a friendly amendment from Mayor Darren Inkster to hold a public meeting to explain the plans to the public and canvass input.
"I think we've got a real win-win for the community," Kershaw said. "We've got $2.5 million which we really need, we'll get safety which we really need, and we'll get amenities that the public really wants."
The motion passed, with councillors Alice Janisch and Warren Allan opposed, and Coun. Keith Thirkell abstaining, which counts as a vote in favour.
Janisch argued that the motion involved concessions from Sechelt, but none from the Ministry of Transporta-tion and Infrastructure (MOTI).
"I sincerely and deeply believe that if we capitulate to MOTI in this manner now, we will never get anything that we want from them," Janisch said. "They will go ahead and do whatever they want to do."
Coun. Fred Taylor countered that the District needs a positive working relationship with MOTI to address on-going highway issues.
"Capitulation is a term used in warfare and I don't think we should embark on that with [MOTI]," he said. "Those senior bureaucrats are lifers, they're going to be there for a long time."
Kershaw rejected a second element of Inkster's amendment-which would have prioritized the seawalk to the beginning of the project and required that it be paid for by the project budget - stating that council couldn't commit MOTI to picking up the tab, particularly given that no budget estimates are available yet.
While the public meeting was initially proposed for early next week, chief administrative officer Rob Bremner cautioned that staff need longer to research the proposed seawalk expansion and accurately establish costs.
"We will expedite it as quickly as we can, but I think that we also need to have a little bit of caution," he said. "We don't want to go out and present information to the public that's just not right."
