Staff were directed to prepare a bylaw establishing an advisory planning commission in the Town of Gibsons.
The concept was discussed during a March 20 committee of the whole meeting but garnered no further comments from council or staff during the Tuesday, April 3 meeting of council.
An advertisement calling for nominations is also expected. Gibsons Mayor Wayne Rowe said seven community members could be chosen to help guide the Town's planning decisions.
Staff were also instructed to report back with a list of potential nominees at a later committee of the whole meeting.
Grants of assistance
The Town of Gibsons voted to roll out $15,200 worth of grants to community groups.
Topping the list was a $4,000 grant to the Gibsons Public Art Gallery.
Further grants included $2,000 to the youth crime prevention program and $1,500 for the Sunshine Coast Community Services Society's housing the homeless program.
All told, council voted to make 12 community grants, working with a budget in the area of $20,000.
It was decided that a chunk of the grant budget would be held until September, so as to accommodate "any needy situations that might come up," Rowe said.
"It was a bit of a struggle to come up with the numbers because we couldn't give people, not just what they liked but what they need to carry out their various activities," commented Rowe. "But we did our best and I think most organizations left feeling they were fairly dealt with."
Contract awarded
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) programming on Gibsons' zone two reservoir will be carried out by Opus Dayton and Knight at a cost of $32,000.
"In a nutshell, [SCADA] is a communication program. So the reservoir will tell our School Road pumps when to turn on, when to turn off and will send out alarms to public works should something out of order arise," said director of engineering Dave Newman. "That's somewhat overly simplistic, but really, that's basically what it does.
Staff opted to go with a provider they felt was familiar with the Gibsons system and echoed their confidence in achieving a fair deal when pressed by Coun. Gerry Tretick.
Correspondence
The Town of Gibsons received word that their application for a community recreation program grant to fund work on Armours Beach was unsuccessful.
A second letter came from realtor Kenan Mac-Kenzie who called upon council to lobby "the provincial government and BC Ferries to provide an affordable passenger-only ferry service between Horseshoe Bay and Langdale."
It is MacKenzie's hope that such a solution would not only benefit regular commuters, but help promote the Sunshine Coast as an alternative to Vancouver for families and workers.
Gospel Rock
The Town received a letter from Terry McIntosh who wrote that he had been recruited by the Friends of Gospel Rock to examine a report prepared by one P. van Poppelen.
The Poppelen report (QEP) was presented to the Gospel Rock refinement working committee in May, 2010, according to McIntosh.
"I read the report and agreed that the habitats in these two parcels had been misrepresented in the QEP," McIntosh wrote to council, declaring a host of the document's conclusions to be "speculative."
"It is not only a confusing document, but is also biased and only loosely based on science and logic."
McIntosh prepared a Gospel Rock plant and vegetation assessment for the Town in 2007.
Coun. Dan Bouman echoed the letter writer's call for "a better assessment of these properties in order to more fully understand their ecological value and relationships with the forest."
Bouman called the QEP report "prejudiced in nature" and said he felt council might need to document that bias and "take it from there."
Well number one
Council gave the well number one water user fee bylaw its first reading and opted to amend the legislation by reducing the proposed charges from 25 cents per litre to 20 cents.
