It will be status quo for maintenance of the Eastbourne water system on Keats Island for the next three years. At the Feb. 23 Sunshine Coast Regional District Board (SCRD) meeting, a contract extension to March 2026 was approved, awarding $260,634 to Keats Island Construction and Services to provide that service.
That firm has personnel based on the island. It has been operating and maintaining the system's water treatment and distribution infrastructure as well as installing water service connections for the SCRD since 2018.
A staff report considered at the meeting outlined that the new contract allows for annual percentage cost increases of five per cent per year and that the price increase from the previous contract period was nine per cent. It noted that both were “reasonable given the historical and current inflationary pressures on material costs and other inflationary factors." In response to a question from Area A Director Leonard Lee, staff indicated the drilling of additional wells for the system being planned for by the SCRD will not “greatly change” the demands under the contract.
The system provides potable water to a community of approximately 170 lots on the east side of Keats Island.
Do defeated committee recommendations 'die'?
Another matter considered at the meeting saw staff assigned to explore ways to include all recommendations considered at the committee level on Sunshine Coast Regional District Board agendas.
Current practice has a list of items passed at committee included on a board meeting agenda for consideration. That document is identified on the board meeting order paper as “recommendations." Items defeated by committee are not included.
Sechelt area director John Henderson started the discussion as the items from the Feb. 9 committee of the whole came before the board. At that meeting, recommendations related to the regional water system, including one on funding for the Dusty Road well were discussed and defeated at committee. He stated what appeared on that board agenda “is not a full record of all of the matters considered at the [committee] meeting.”
Corporate officer Sherry Reid explained that the recommendation listings are not publicly published as “meeting minutes” and that the approach used is an “established practice” of the regional district. She suggested that could be adjusted, with board direction, to include details on items that were discussed but not recommended at committee on the listing, noting this could be helpful in cases where an issue was “highly sensitive or of high public interest." A reminder to directors was provided that business items not included on a board or other meeting agenda can be raised using the “Notice of Motion” procedure.
In discussion, Gibsons area director Silas White noted that while all recommendations from a particular committee meeting are often endorsed by the board together, directors can ask that specific recommendations be “pulled” to allow for further discussion before the board considers them. That, he said, gives directors a chance to add information or change how they vote on a matter at board from how they voted when an item was at committee. “But we don’t have that opportunity on any recommendations at committee that have failed, they just kind of die,” he said.
