The first meeting was cancelled because of a snowstorm. But, under a dusting of snow, Tuesday’s special (rescheduled) council meeting went ahead.
“I know there’s a lot of emotion in the room, there’s some issues tonight that fired people up,” Mayor Gary Ander addressed the larger-than-usual crowd at the meeting’s outset. “Of course we will expect a Bowen level of decorum.”
The community centre
Come May, Bowen will have a referendum asking Islanders if BIM can borrow $4 million for the community centre.
Most of council was enthusiastic about the development.
Ander acknowledged that they had hoped to raise much of the money for the centre through fundraising and so far haven’t reached their target, but project planners are still working on that.
The borrowed funds would only be used as a last resort (after the rest of the money had been spent).
The fire hall
After much debate, council authorized Johnston Davidson architectural firm to proceed with working drawings and construction estimates for the new fire hall on Lot 3.
The meeting opened with the controversy – four members of the public spoke to council on the subject.
Roger McGillivray was concerned about the fire hall irrevocably changing the nature of “downtown” Bowen. He urged council members to look again at their reasons for putting the fire hall so close to the cove and to reconsider the Lot 1 location.
Paul Whitecotton was concerned about the taxpayer burden of the fire hall.
Tim Pardee, on behalf of the Hood Point West Strata Council, said that having the hall within eight kilometres of their neighbourhood is a safety issue for homeowners and that they are the only neighbourhood on the island without that proximity.
“We are on the island,” Hugh Freeman, also of Hood Point West, told council. He said that this project is an opportunity for council to correct something that has been wrong for years.
When the topic came up for council discussion, Ander said that the resolution presented to council merely concerned pricing the potential project.
“We have to know how much it’s going to cost us. If we have enough money to do it,” he said. “We have to evaluate everything we’re doing here, it’s the responsible thing to do.
“If we don’t understand how much this fire hall is going to cost us we can’t go on anywhere. We can’t go back, we can’t go forward.”
Councillors David Hocking, Sue Ellen Fast and Rob Wynen proposed a resolution that would have seen a review of the fire hall project: its longterm costs and the suitability of the Lot 3 site.
Hocking noted the potential for the municipality to have $9 million in long term debt ($2 million from the Community Lands purchase, $3 million from the fire hall and $4 million from the community centre). He suggested shrinking the fire hall size to half an acre.
Fast commented on the potential for fire trucks to get stuck in ferry traffic, should they be turning onto Trunk Road from Miller Road during rush minute. She also noted that housing is at a crisis level that it wasn’t at at the beginning of her first council term.
“We need to take a wide angle view,” she said.
Wynen said that he’s had 34 meetings with the public on this issue. He said that he doesn’t want to slow down the project and but that it needs to be reviewed.
“I do not see support for the fire hall on Lot 3,” he said. “As a council we’re split right now, as a community, I feel we’re split right now.”
“We have to get on with this,” said councillor Maureen Nicholson, in a sentiment echoed by councillors Allison Morse and Michael Kaile (the latter skyping in from overseas).
That resolution (to review the project) was defeated four to three.
Hocking then recommended an amendment that would have seen Johnson Davidson assessing a project with no drive through berths, fewer parking spaces and a floor of the housing added to the hall.
Morse reacted that she didn’t want to see a “substandard” or “inappropriate” fire hall built. She compared building (also to be an emergency operations centre), to an insurance policy, possibly never needed but sure nice to have.
Wynen said that he was hoping for a more low cost, low maintenance building. He also said he didn’t feel comfortable having the emergency operations centre in the building.
That amendment was too defeated four to three.
The main motion, for Johnson Davidson to proceed with the drawings, passed with Wynen and Hocking opposed.
Community lands
Mayor’s Standing Committee on the Community Lands has a new mandate. Created in former mayor Murray Skeels’ era, its original intent was to help sell off some of the Community Lands. Its new purpose is to advise council on lands’ usage.
“[The committee] will provide council with advice and recommendations in relation to the municipality’s community lands,” reads the accompanying report. “This will include the development of a market valuation process, the identification of community lands to be retained as natural areas, future community purposes or for development, lease and sale.”
In the discussion of the new terms of reference for the committee, Wynen said he was concerned that this process wouldn’t mean a review of the fire hall location.
“It’s hard to do a big overall visioning of our Community Lands when we already have plans for a chunk of the lands that impact all those other descisions, and specifically on lot 3,” said Wynen. “That’s sort of the jewel in the crown.
“Having made that decision [about the fire hall on Lot 3] right now already, it makes me wonder. I don’t want to use the word sham, but I want this to be a legitimate process.”
Later Wynen added, “If the intent here is, ‘let’s find out what the community wants, what its needs are and where we’re going to locate those needs,’ then we need to have that full discussion.”
Morse said she was concerned about having yet another committee and one that didn’t comprise of all the members of council for such an important and controversial subject.
Health centre and BIRCH
Given the new terms of reference for the Community Lands committee, council passed another resolution “pausing” its direction to staff to enter into lease agreements with both the Bowen Island Health Centre Foundation and Bowen Island Resilient Community Housing (BIRCH) for “up to 30 days.”
The intent is to give the standing committee time to report back to council.
While the resolution also stated that “Council reaffirms its commitment to provide leased Community Lands to the Bowen Island Health Centre Foundation and Bowen Island Resilient Community Housing,” both BIRCH executive director Robyn Fenton, and the heath centre foundation president Tim Rhodes said (in the public comments section at the beginning of council) that this “pause” puts their organizations’ plans on hold.
Ander said that this “pause” had been part of his election campaign and that land use hasn’t been organized thus far.
“To carry on the way we’re going is totally irresponsible,” said Ander.
Morse and Nicholson said they didn’t agree with the move, wanting to honour the previous commitments to BIRCH and the health centre.
Wynen said that the resolution (which came from the finance committee) was intended to look at the lost opportunity of the fire hall lot, not particularly BIRCH and the health centre.
“I just want to say, I’m pretty frustrated about it right now. I’m being asked to make decisions right now that I don’t think are the right decisions,” he said. “It’s a decision between crap or worse crap right now.”
The resolution passed three to three with one abstention (Wynen).
