Town of Gibsons council has returned from the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) conference netting good discussions with the province on Gibsons Way, local elections process and the possibility of a Gibsons community forest.
UBCM is an organization of local governments that band together to push the province for common goals and to get face time with government ministers on specific local government issues.
Gibsons Mayor Barry Janyk said this year's conference was the best one he had been to in 13 years.
"It was really good. We got a lot of positive response from the ministries and ministers and it's going to assist to launch the plans the Town has for 2010. We're pretty pumped," he said.
Janyk and his council were able to meet with the regional director for the Ministry of Transportation to discuss further tweaks to Gibsons Way. The ministry has said it has no plans to return the highway to its four-lane configuration, but instead will try to synchronize traffic lights to make passing through town easier.
"We're talking about problems and they're talking about solutions," he said. "We'll see what they've gotWhen you make one fix, it just creates another one. We'll see how they are going to deal with the north-south traffic. That will be the next thing."
Council was also able to meet with Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell on the possibility of Gibsons starting its own community forest similar to Sechelt's Sunshine Coast community forest though Janyk said the conversation was just on "fundamentals" and no specific plans have been made.
Lastly, Janyk said he was excited about a new provincial task force reviewing local election processes including spending limits and increased transparency.
"I welcome that. I think that's great. We had quite a bit of trouble with our last election and anything we can do to make the process better, I think that's good news," he said.
Also part of the UBCM process is a chance for local governments to identify common goals and vote on which ones the body will lobby the province for though, this year, none of the resolutions were proposed by Gibsons council. Janyk said the motions that did pass will only have impacts "in a general way" for the Town.
Notably UBCM did vote a resolution introduced by the City of Vancouver condemning the harmonized sales tax (HST).
"It said, basically, 'We're not happy with the idea of an HST. Scrap it and consult,'" Janyk said.
The motion was passed with a very narrow margin of votes.
Janyk was also re-elected to the UBCM board of directors this year.
